The 19th century saw the rise of a new genre: the guidebook for tourists, associated above all with the Baedekers of Germany. In a survey of several guidebooks and travelogues written by Europeans about their visits to the Holy Land, Jerold Auerbach cites the description of the Western Wall from Reverend D.A. Randall’s Egypt, Sinai, and the Holy Land:

At “the Jews’ Place of Wailing,” Randall noted that Friday afternoon was “the special time” for “these sorrow-stricken children of Abraham . . . to congregate here and weep for the departed glory of their city and temple.” He was riveted by the “venerable old men” who “seemed overpowered by their deep and apparently heartfelt emotions; their strong frames trembled, the great tears rolled like rain drops down their cheeks, and they wept aloud.” He was so deeply touched that “almost before I was conscious of it, I was weeping with them.” Amid their “tears and lamentations,” Randall saw “the traces of an omniscient and overruling God.”

Less sympathetic was the account of the American writer Charles W. Elliott:

Elliott described Jerusalem as “a Muslim and Oriental town” with a Jewish Quarter that “a man may smell far off.” Its alleys and courts, “unspeakably offensive to eye and nostril, . . . reek with decaying fruit, dead animals, and human filth . . . in the midst of which . . . innumerable armies of rats and lizards race and fight.” Around its edifices “reek and starve about 4,000 Israelites, many of them living in a state of filth . . . unlike the condition of their clean, bright ancestors.”

How did Qatar, an American ally, become the nerve center of the leading Palestinian jihadist organization? Natalie Ecanow explains.

When Jordan expelled Hamas in 1999, Qatar offered sanctuary to the group, which had already become notorious for using suicide-bombing attacks over the previous decade. . . . Hamas chose to relocate to Syria. However, that arrangement lasted for only a decade. With the outbreak of the Syrian civil war, the terror group found its way back to Qatar.

In 2003, Hamas leaders reportedly convened in Qatar after the IDF attempted to eliminate Hamas’s founder, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, following a Hamas suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed seven people, including two American citizens. This episode led to one of the first efforts by Qatar to advocate for its terror proxy.

Thirteen years and five wars between Hamas and Israel later, Qatar’s support for Hamas has not waned. . . . To this day, Qatari officials maintain that the office came at the “request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas.” However, an Obama White House official asserted that there was never any request from Washington. . . . Inexplicably, the United States government continues to rely on Qatar to negotiate for the release of the hostages held by Hamas, even as the regime hosts the terror group’s political elite.

A reckoning is needed between our two countries. Congressional hearings, legislation, executive orders, and other measures to regulate relations between our countries are long overdue.