Is Qatar Now Dictating Foreign and Domestic US Policy?

What a week.

President Donald Trump forced the prime minister of Israel to grovel before the Emir of Qatar—the same autocrat who bankrolls Hamas. Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Jewish state, was compelled to apologize for Israel’s attempted strike on Hamas officials being hosted in Doha and to promise never to do it again. It was a humiliating spectacle: the sovereign leader of a US ally bowing before the financier of the Oct. 7 massacre, at the insistence of an American president.

It wasn’t Netanyahu’s first humiliation at the hands of a foreign ruler. Ironically, the other incident involved one of the same Hamas officials Israel targeted in Doha, Khaled Mashaal. In 1997, the Mossad poisoned him in Jordan. The assassins were captured, and King Hussein threatened to tear up the peace treaty unless Israel provided the antidote. Then-President Bill Clinton forced Netanyahu to comply. Nearly three decades later, history repeats itself—with Trump reprising the Clinton role, and Qatar standing in for Jordan..

But Trump went even further. In a breathtakingly unconstitutional move, he unilaterally guaranteed U.S. protection for Qatar—effectively shielding Hamas’s leadership in Doha from Israeli retaliation. Israel’s assurances to Qatar were originally included in the Trump peace plan but were removed after Netanyahu’s apology. That left a 20-point plan with several components that Netanyahu had repeatedly rejected. It also included points unacceptable to Hamas. This was a product of the Trump negotiation mentality, which sees the conflict in the Middle East as no different than a real estate deal in New York. Israel wants to destroy Hamas, Hamas wants to destroy Israel, let’s find a compromise.

Netanyahu was pressured to accept the deal, one similar to what he had rejected when proposed by Biden, because Trump is dictating U.S. policy. Netanyahu could swallow the bitter pill because of his near certainty that Hamas would reject the plan and Trump’s green light to continue the war in that eventuality. Hamas, however, satisfied Trump sufficiently with its “yes, but” answer to force Israel to stop bombing Gaza. If Hamas does deliver the hostages, a big if, the Israeli public will be thrilled and thank Trump. Netanyahu has been trying to spin this as a victory for his strategy of maximum military pressure, but everyone knows it was Trump pressuring Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt that got Hamas to negotiate. Netanyahu’s intent to take over Gaza City and “destroy” Hamas may be thwarted.

The irony in all of this is that it was Netanyahu’s failed assassination plan that triggered his own defeat (as defined by his failure to crush Hamas; it’s a victory for the public that cared more for the return of the hostages). The attack rallied Arab states around Qatar, prompting Trump to offer the Emir an American security guarantee and to humiliate Netanyahu publicly. Qatar now felt it needed to deliver Hamas for Trump.

Trump, of course, doesn’t formulate any of these plans. It was son-in-law Jared Kushner who returned to negotiate with Netanyahu, along with Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff. Both men have financial interests in the Gulf that animate their actions. The same goes for Trump, who the Qataris have bought with a $400 million luxury jet, a $500 million investment in the U.S., the purchase of billions of dollars’ worth of Boeing jets, and the expectation of future financial benefits for his family.

Meanwhile, former Qatari consultant FBI Director Kash Patel went after the ADL, which caved to pressure from MAGA to remove its “glossary of extremism” because it included Charlie Kirk-founded Turning Point USA. This failed to appease Patel, who announced the FBI would no longer partner with the ADL, as it has done since at least the 1940s. Going after the defense organization of American Jews should scare a community already under attack from the left and right.

Then we had the unprecedented meeting of the top brass of the defense department called by Secretary Pete Hegseth. Trump showed up to deliver a speech and reportedly was shocked when he was greeted by silence instead of the salutes he probably expected. Trump did not excoriate the Jews in this Nurembergish rally but did make clear at the outset that absolute loyalty to the leader was required: “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.” This is coming from a man who never served in uniform.

He went on with the ominous idea of using cities, that is, those run by Democrats, as training grounds for the military. We’ve already had troops on the ground here in Washington, D.C. Trump boasted that the soldiers stopped crime in Washington. It’s not surprising that streets are usually safe in dictatorships where soldiers are on the streets. And it was equally unsurprising when he said he gets along with other dictators, such as the “great guy” who is the king of Saudi Arabia, the Emir of Qatar, and the leaders of the UAE.

If the war does end in Gaza, Trump will indeed deserve the Nobel Peace Prize he craves. He also proved again that it is the American president, not the Israeli prime minister, who decides when Israel’s wars end. Trump achieved a trifecta by stopping Israel in Lebanon, Iran, and Gaza. What happens next in Gaza is likely to be also determined with Qatari input in Washington, rather than Jerusalem.