Another way to combat anti-Semitism is to stem the flow of money and propaganda from abroad. Here the worst culprit is Qatar, creator and owner of the anti-American Islamist mouthpiece Al Jazeera, patron of Hamas and numerous other jihadist groups, and funder of academic institutes, lobbying groups, and other levers of influence. The country’s emir recently was treated to a lavish welcome in Britain, and the U.S. has given his fiefdom the coveted status of a major non-NATO ally.

Qatar’s apologists might point to reports, the details of which remain vague, that Doha has expelled Hamas’s leaders from its territory. But, Gabriel Scheinmann points out, even if these reports are accurate, this is hardly sufficient action from a putative American ally:

History shows that terrorist leaders in exile can regroup and continue their operations. . . . Osama bin Laden was expelled first from Saudi Arabia and then from Sudan before directing al-Qaeda’s operations from Afghanistan. Exile is no substitute for justice or peace.

Arresting and extraditing Hamas leaders would be a defining moment for Qatar. Israel has the greatest claim to prosecute these individuals, given the scale of the atrocities committed on its soil. Still, Hamas also has the blood of dozens of Americans on its hands. . . . Guantanamo Bay remains the most secure location for housing high-value terrorism suspects.

And where did these master terrorists decamp to upon leaving their five-star hotels? Turkey, also a nominal American ally and thus a place where Israel will be unable to target them.

In a recent episode of 60 Minutes, a former State Department official tells the interviewer that U.S. support for Israel following October 7 has “put a target on America’s back” in the Arab world “and beyond the Arab world.” The complaint is a familiar one: Middle Easterners hate the United States because of its closeness to the Jewish state. But this gets things exactly backward. Just look at the rhetoric of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its various Arab proxies: America is the “Great Satan” and Israel is but the “Little Satan.”

Why, then, does Iran see the U.S. as the world’s primary source of evil? The usual answer invokes the shah’s 1953 ouster of his prime minister, but the truth is that this wasn’t the subversion of democracy it’s usually made out to be, and the CIA’s role has been greatly exaggerated. Moreover, Ladan Boroumand points out,

the 1953 coup was welcomed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, [the architect of the 1979 Islamic Revolution], and would not have succeeded without the active complicity of proponents of political Islam. And . . . the United States not only refrained from opposing the Islamic Revolution but inadvertently supported its emergence and empowered its agents. How then could . . . Ayatollah Khomeini’s virulent enmity toward the United States be explained or excused?

Khomeini’s animosity toward the shah and the United States traces back to 1963–64, when the shah initiated sweeping social reforms that included granting women the right to vote and to run for office and extending religious minorities’ political rights. These reforms prompted the pro-shah cleric of 1953 to become his vocal critic. It wasn’t the shah’s autocratic rule that incited Khomeini’s opposition, but rather the liberal nature of his autocratically implemented social reforms.

There is no need for particular interpretive skill to comprehend the substance of Khomeini’s message: as Satan, America embodies the temptation that seduces Iranian citizens into sin and falsehood. “Human rights” and “democracy” are America’s tools for luring sinful and deviant citizens into conspiring against the government of God established by the ayatollah.

Or, as George W. Bush put it, jihadists hate America because “they hate our freedoms.”