For years, Qatar has used its vast fossil-fuel wealth to fund Islamist groups throughout the Middle East and beyond, especially those affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood—including Hamas. This policy, together with Doha’s maintenance of friendly relations with Tehran, has repeatedly stirred the ire of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. Yet in a recent interview with a French magazine, the country’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad al-Thani, flatly denied any relationship between his government and the Brotherhood, adding that “there are no active members of the Muslim Brotherhood, or any groups related to it, on Qatari land.” Alberto M. Fernandez comments:

One thing I learned from decades of government service is that there are many ways for government officials—all of them, including Western ones—to lie that skirt outright falsehood in some technical fashion while covering up an inconvenient reality. . . . It may well be that Sheikh Tamim is absolutely right that at the precise moment of his remarks there were no card-carrying Muslim Brotherhood members being hosted in Doha, no one who was waiting on a check or a bag of money from Qatar, or whose work was being facilitated in some way by the Qatari state.

The remarks [ignore the fact that] the two Muslim Brotherhood-type governments in the world, the ones in power in Ankara and Gaza, very much do receive billions in Qatari support. [There is also] another Qatari favorite, the Islamist Nahda party of Tunisia, which held power until recently in that country.

Tamim’s remarks also [require] a carve-out for his mentor Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a longtime Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader but for many years now a Qatari citizen and connected to Islamist organizations created for him and funded by Qatar. . . . And while the Al Jazeera Arabic television network funded by Qatar and based in Doha is chock-full of Islamists, who is to say whether or not they are “active” Brotherhood members, perhaps just inactive ones who think exactly like them?

Interestingly, one place where it seems you did not see the emir’s words about the Muslim Brotherhood highlighted was in Al Jazeera itself. An Arabic-language news article on the . . . interview in Al Jazeera was headlined “Emir of Qatar: Doha’s Foreign Policy Aims at Bringing Views Closer Together.” The article included no mention whatsoever of Tamim’s remarks [about the Brotherhood].

In a momentous meeting with the Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa in Riyadh, President Trump announced that he is lifting sanctions on the beleaguered and war-torn country. On the one hand, Sharaa is an alumnus of Islamic State and al-Qaeda, who came to power as commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which itself began life as al-Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot; he also seems to enjoy the support of Qatar. On the other hand, he overthrew the Assad regime—a feat made possible by the battering Israel delivered to Hizballah—greatly improving Jerusalem’s strategic position, and ending one of the world’s most atrocious and brutal tyrannies. President Trump also announced that he hopes Syria will join the Abraham Accords.

This analysis by Eran Lerman was published a few days ago, and in some respects is already out of date, but more than anything else I’ve read it helps to make sense of Israel’s strategic position vis-à-vis Syria.

Israel’s primary security interest lies in defending against worst-case scenarios, particularly the potential collapse of the Syrian state or its transformation into an actively hostile force backed by a significant Turkish presence (considering that the Turkish military is the second largest in NATO) with all that this would imply. Hence the need to bolster the new buffer zone—not for territorial gain, but as a vital shield and guarantee against dangerous developments. Continued airstrikes aimed at diminishing the residual components of strategic military capabilities inherited from the Assad regime are essential.

At the same time, there is a need to create conditions that would enable those in Damascus who wish to reject the reduction of their once-proud country into a Turkish satrapy. Sharaa’s efforts to establish his legitimacy, including his visit to Paris and outreach to the U.S., other European nations, and key Gulf countries, may generate positive leverage in this regard. Israel’s role is to demonstrate through daily actions the severe costs of acceding to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ambitions and accepting Turkish hegemony.

Israel should also assist those in Syria (and beyond: this may have an effect in Lebanon as well) who look to it as a strategic anchor in the region. The Druze in Syria—backed by their brethren in Israel—have openly expressed this expectation, breaking decades of loyalty to the central power in Damascus over their obligation to their kith and kin.