In November and December, a number of prominent American Jewish figures traveled to Qatar—including Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-president of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the head of the Zionist Organization of America Morton Klein, and the lawyer Alan Dershowitz. The visits seemed part of a charm offensive by Doha to win sympathy in the American Jewish community. On February 2, however, Al Jazeera—which is owned and operated by the emirate—sent letters to several pro-Israel groups in the U.S. letting them know that one of the network’s agents had infiltrated their organizations under false pretenses and secretly recorded conversations that will form the basis of a soon-to-be-released documentary. Armin Rosen tries to make sense of the coincidence of these two efforts:

Over a year ago, news broke that the universe of pro-Israel advocacy groups in Washington had been infiltrated by an undercover activist—who is almost certainly Tony Kleinfeld, a twenty-five-year-old British citizen, Oxford graduate, and Palestine-solidarity advocate. . . . [D]uring the summer and early autumn of 2016, Kleinfeld constructed a false pro-Israel persona, presented himself under a modified version of his first name, and enrolled in Georgetown University’s summer school with the hidden purpose of insinuating himself in pro-Israel groups in Washington. . . .

So, what did Kleinfeld actually find? According to the letters [from Al Jazeera], an operative with the network recorded a young, low-level AIPAC development staffer discussing “under-the-table” relations between Israel and the Arab Gulf states during an event the group held in Florida. . . . If Al Jazeera is sitting on [evidence of some violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act] or some other bombshell about the inner workings of pro-Israel organizations, it wasn’t in evidence. . . . What’s [most] striking about Kleinfeld’s efforts isn’t that he uncovered evidence of serious wrongdoing. Instead, after spending considerable resources and man-hours, . . . Al Jazeera may have documented nothing more wicked than Americans participating in their political system in normative (even, one might say, boring and uninspired) ways.

Because of the . . . . close connections between Al Jazeera and the regime, the extensive resources needed to carry out the undercover sting, and Kleinfeld’s alleged misrepresentation of both his identity and his reasons for being in the United States, many of the letters’ recipients now perceive themselves as victims of state-sponsored espionage. . . .

[The charm offensive last fall] and Kleinfeld’s work tell a dissonant story about Qatar’s view of the U.S. Jewish community: does Doha see American Jews as an obstacle or as an opportunity? Does the Qatari regime want to squeeze the Jewish community or embrace it? Both? Whatever its actual objectives in Washington, what’s clear is that American Jews somehow factor into them. . . . [In fact, both efforts] betray a Qatari preoccupation with American Jewish communal power, as well as a desire to address whichever challenges Doha believes Jewish influence raises for the country’s vast ambitions in Washington and beyond.

In the past few days, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the al-Qaeda offshoot that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, has consolidated its rule in the core parts of Syria. Its leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, has made a series of public statements, sat for a CNN interview, and discarded his nomme de guerre for his birth name, Ahmad al-Shara—trying to present an image of moderation. But to what extent is this simply a ruse? And what sort of relationship does he envision with Israel?

In an interview with John Haltiwanger, Aaron Zelin gives an overview of Shara’s career, explains why HTS and Islamic State are deeply hostile to each other, and tries to answer these questions:

As we know, Hamas has had a base in Damascus going back years. The question is: would HTS provide an office for Hamas there, especially as it’s now been beaten up in Gaza and been discredited in many ways, with rumors about its office leaving Doha? That’s one of the bigger questions, especially since, pre-October 7, 2023, HTS would support any Hamas rocket attacks across the border. And then HTS cheered on the October 7 attacks and eulogized [the Hamas leaders] Ismail Haniyeh and Yahya Sinwar when they were killed. They’re very pro-Palestinian.

Nonetheless, Zelin believes HTS’s split with al-Qaeda is substantive, even if “we need to be cognizant that they also aren’t these liberal democrats.”

If so, how should Western powers consider their relations with the new Syrian government? Kyle Orton, who likewise thinks the changes to HTS are “not solely a public-relations gambit,” considers whether the UK should take HTS off its list of terrorist groups:

The better approach for now is probably to keep HTS on the proscribed list and engage the group covertly through the intelligence services. That way, the UK can reach a clearer picture of what is being dealt with and test how amenable the group is to following through on promises relating to security and human rights. Israel is known to be following this course, and so, it seems, is the U.S. In this scenario, HTS would receive the political benefit of overt contact as the endpoint of engagement, not the start.