The U.S. Must Pressure Qatar to Free the Hostages

Along with Iran, Qatar is a major backer of Hamas, but, unlike Iran, it is an American ally apt susceptible to diplomatic pressure from Washington. Yigal Carmon examines the problem, and notes that Doha’s support for terror goes far beyond Gaza:

The story of Afghanistan is the most telling. For years, Qatar had funded the Taliban, all the way up to its takeover of Kabul in August 2021, which involved the killing of thirteen U.S. military personnel—only to be praised by the U.S. administration for its help in transferring Americans from Afghanistan to Qatar, after Qatar was responsible for the entire tragedy.

With regard to Israel, it is a double tragedy. For over a decade, Qatar funded Hamas in Gaza. For over a decade, and throughout the wars—culminating in the current one—Qatar supported Hamas’s buildup of its military force.

The U.S.’s pleading with Qatar to obtain the release of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, instead of pressuring it to do so, shows that the U.S. government does not realize that only massive pressure on Qatar could most quickly bring the American and other hostages home.

Just one comment by the U.S. administration that it is considering relocating its Al Udeid Air Base from Qatar (without which Qatar would cease to exist within a week) to the UAE will set the Qataris running to bring all the American hostages back home.

Read more at MEMRI

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, Qatar, Taliban, U.S. Foreign policy

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