‎The Emir of Qatar threatened that if the bombing of Gaza does not stop he will cut off the supply of gas to the world.

Question

‎The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, has threatened that if the bombing of Gaza does not stop he will cut off the supply of gas to the world.

Answer 1

This is false. The clip circulating is actually from this speech given by the emir in 2017 in which he "touches briefly" on the Israel/Palestine conflict but does not make threats of any kind, according to Professor Marc Owen Jones, who works at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, the capital of Qatar. Jones often factchecks and tries to dispell misinformation on his Twitter account. The translation of the emir's comments are as follows (given by Jones to AP): "The issue of Palestine, I'll begin by saying it's a case of a people uprooted from their lands, and displaced from their nation."

A spokesperson from the Qatari government confirmed the clip is out-of-date and being misused on social media in an email to AP.

Link to AP's article

Comments

Good work on finding the original speech that the clip came from. The fact that it was given 6 years ago already shows that it's not related to the current conflict, but you also found the AP fact-check proving this false.

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Good job posting out the year that the clip is actually from.  I also enjoy how you corrected the translation of what was actually said from a reliable source.

Answer 2

First of all, this clip is from over six years ago and is from the Doha Forum in 2017, which focused on discussing refugee issues. The Emir didn't even mention the word gas as the exact translation of what he said is: "The issue of Palestine, I’ll begin by saying it’s a case of a people uprooted from their lands, and displaced from their nation." Clearly, this claim is false.

https://apnews.com/article/fact-check-israel-hamas-qatar-natural-gas-energy-377816631552

Comments

I like how you pointed out that the clip is indeed 6 years old and the translation of what he said.