Qatar is giving $6 million to build a stadium in Israel for a popular Arab soccer team in a further sign of warming relations between the Gulf Arab political maverick and the Jewish state. "Qatar has donated $6 million to build a modern soccer stadium in Sakhnin," an Arab town in northern Israel, Ahmad al-Tibi told AFP.

"We were informed during a meeting with officials of the Qatari Olympic Committee that Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani responded to a request I made four months ago to build a sports stadium in Sakhnin," he said.

"It is the first Arab initiative on this scale in support of the Arabs of 1948 (Arab citizens of Israel) against deliberate Israeli discrimination," said Tibi, who is visiting Qatar at the head of an Israeli delegation of officials from the Upper Galilee town...

...Asked to comment on the project, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said in Jerusalem: "Qatar, in contrast to some of the other members of the Gulf, has had a policy of engaging with Israel. ... This allows Qatar to have influence and to have a constructive approach."...