If the U.S. Wants to Help Quell the Violence in Israel, It Should Apply Pressure on Qatar and the Palestinian Authority

April 29 2022

While Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed eagerness to prevent the spike in terrorist activity in Israel from spiraling into something worse, it is not clear that the State Department has much of a plan beyond making pious statements and holding meetings. Ehud Yaari puts forth some more concrete suggestions, beginning with exerting pressure on Qatar.

Recently crowned by the U.S. as a major non-NATO ally and preparing to host later this year the prestigious soccer World Cup tournament, this tiny, affluent emirate has become the primary cheerleader for Palestinian terrorism. Not only does the ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, refrain from expressing any criticism of killing sprees on the streets of Israeli cities or speak out against youth turning al-Aqsa courtyard into a scene of violence, but he also directs his media empire led by Al Jazeera to pour oil onto the flames, constantly exacerbating tensions. For years Doha has been hosting and financing Hamas leadership, including many operatives involved in initiating attacks on Israel. The country has become an important link in the supply chain of terrorism.

True, Qatar maintains unofficial ties with Israel, even after 2000 when it closed the Israeli trade bureau in its capital, but it exploits the relations mainly in order to gain permission to channel funds to the Gaza Strip. . . . Sure, Israel sees an advantage in preventing an implosion of the Gaza Strip into dangerous impoverishment. However, it is high time to alter the equation: the U.S. should back Israel serving notice that [these funds] are no longer welcome so long as Qatar persists in encouraging violence. The arrangements for delivering aid should be suspended—not abolished—until Tamim reassesses his attitude.

At the same time, the U.S. should not object to Israel informing Hamas—first quietly and if necessary publicly—that it has to tone down preaching to young Palestinians that their sacred national duty is to carry out acts of terrorism.

Lastly, one might thank President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority (PA) for the half-hearted condemnation he deigned to issue in the wake of the recent terror attacks after repeated requests by the U.S., but this isn’t enough. The PA played a major role in incitement to demonstrate on the Temple Mount, spreading fabricated claims that Israel is seeking to change the status quo there.

Read more at Washington Institute for Near East Policy

More about: Antony Blinken, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Palestinian Authority, Palestinian terror, Qatar

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023