From the Liveblog of
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Coalition backs bill to label Qatar ‘terror-supporting state,’ possibly affecting its role in hostage talks
Nava Freiberg is The Times of Israel's deputy diplomatic correspondent.
Amid the ongoing “Qatargate” scandal in the Prime Minister’s Office and the hostage negotiations in Doha, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation approves a bill seeking to designate Qatar a “terror-supporting state.”
The bill, proposed by Likud MKs Moshe Saada and Dan Illouz, Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer, and Religious Zionism MK Michal Woldiger, would for the first time establish a legal category for such states, with the legislation’s preamble explicitly naming Qatar as the world’s leading financier of terrorism, citing its support for Hamas, Hezbollah, ISIS, and the Taliban.
The bill would subject any nation given this status to restrictions similar to those imposed on enemy states, including bans on donations, trade, and diplomatic processes with Israel.
The bill would also prevent Israel from allowing a terror-supporting state to be involved in any negotiations between Israel and a third party — though this would not necessarily prevent Qatar from mediating on the issue of the Gaza hostages, as a subsection of the bill determines that “the Ministerial Committee for National Security Affairs may determine that a specific terror-supporting state shall be exempt from this restriction.”
Qatar is one of the states mediating the talks, though Israeli officials have publicly blamed Doha for Hamas not accepting recent compromise proposals.
The bill has reached the Ministerial Committee for Legislation two separate times — once at the end of 2024, and once in January — but according to a Channel 12 report citing minutes from the meetings, the National Security Council blocked it at the request of Prime Minister’s Office officials, while citing opposition from the security establishment.
The National Security Council said at the time that it did not oppose the legislation, and that, on the contrary, it supported it. The PMO called the Channel 12 report “fake news,” and said the bill was being “seriously considered.”
The Times of Israel Community.