Yesterday afternoon, news broke that Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum, leader of one of the two main factions of the Satmar Hasidim, had reportedly endorsed President Trump. Perhaps more significantly, the rebbe—who has often backed Democrats and previously criticized “Trumpism”—also reportedly told his followers to vote for the incumbent Democrat Pat Ryan for Congress. It is these congressional elections where haredi voters might have real sway, explains Nicholas Fandos.

Where candidates spend precious campaign hours says a lot about who they believe may decide a race. And in the final weeks before Election Day, three of the most endangered congressmen keep showing up at the same places: the rapidly expanding ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclaves of New York’s Hudson Valley. The investment reflects just how important Jewish voters across the religious spectrum have become in races around New York this year, as war rages in the Middle East and rising anti-Semitism scrambles political alliances at home.

[I]n a hyper-polarized nation, ultra-Orthodox voters in particular have emerged as the rarest of swing voters. Not particularly partisan, they have fervently supported both the former President Donald J. Trump and Democratic politicians, often acting as a bloc. How they vote in November could tip several of the nation’s marquee House races—possibly in opposite directions.

“To go against the incumbent is like giving the guy a pink slip,” said Rabbi Moishe Indig, a Satmar leader based in Brooklyn. “In order to fire somebody, you’ve got to be bad.”

Old-fashioned politicking—meeting with rabbis and community leaders, visiting schools and events, showing up at local grocery stores—appears to have a real effect on this constituency. As one voter said of Mike Lawler, the candidate in another electoral district with a large haredi population: “He was the first politician from the Republican party who actually reached out to the Jewish community. . . . I think he’s switched a lot of minds in the community.”

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.