Last Friday, a Syrian man, apparently acting on instructions from Islamic State (IS) went on a stabbing spree at a festival in the German town of Solingen, killing three and wounding eight others. The attack came amid a spate of terrorism in Europe, which included the car bombing of a French synagogue on Saturday. Kyle Orton observes that there have been many foiled IS attacks in Germany in the past months, and explains the country’s significance to the terrorist group:

Germany was the first state targeted by Islamic State terrorism in April 2002. The “Tawhid cell,” mostly comprising Palestinians with various forms of legal residency, plotted to blow up the Jewish Museum in Berlin and a Jewish-owned bar in Dusseldorf. The cell leader, Mohamed Abu Dhess (Abu Ali), was in regular contact with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, IS’s founder. Zarqawi was based in Iran at the time, where Dhess met him to finalize the plan, and Zarqawi then remotely walked Dhess through every stage of the conspiracy.

Two things are notable about the Tawhid cell plot. First, the main features—carried out mostly by foreigners, directed by IS “Center,” and an emphasis on Jews—have remained constant in IS’s activities in Germany down to the present day. Second, this was a year before the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

Islamic State, Orton explains, has been slowly rebuilding its capacity to carry out attacks in Europe, and the conditions have again become ripe thanks to

the increasing public displays and social acceptability of anti-Semitism in Europe in the wake of the October 7 pogrom. The rape and slaughter of Jews on a scale unknown since the Holocaust electrified and emboldened anti-Semites in Europe, who initially turned out to support Hamas overtly and celebrate the pogrom and have since transitioned to protests accusing Israel of “genocide” and demanding a ceasefire that preserves Hamas in power. IS detected an opportunity.

IS’s current spokesman, Abu Hudhayfa al-Ansari, made IS’s return to foreign attacks official on January 4, the day after the suicide attacks in Iran though recorded before. IS must have considered its international network to be robust enough by then to withstand the additional scrutiny such an announcement would bring.

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.