A harsh truth about politics and leading a democracy is that you often have to cozy up to unscrupulous and deceitful despots

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harsh truth about politics and leading a democracy is that you often have to cozy up to unscrupulous and deceitful despots. If these despots govern energy-rich or strategically situated lands, they hold disproportionate sway over international politics.

Qatar, the world’s leading exporter of liquefied natural gas, hosts the largest US Air Force base outside the 50 states and openly invests its energy wealth abroad — in what many call sophisticated bribery — to maintain outsized influence while funding Hamas and other Islamic extremists. Turkey’s NATO membership and strategic position at the Europe-Asia crossroads give cover for its regional ambitions, including the potential for armed conflict with Israel.

President Trump’s claim that Qatar is a “great ally” may reflect his tendency for hyperbole, and to his credit, he avoided lashing out publicly at Prime Minister Netanyahu after Israel attacked Hamas in Doha. However, Israel watched closely as the administration toiled to calm Qatar by hosting its Emir at the White House, reassuring him that Israel would never do it again, and sending Secretary of State Marco Rubio on an unplanned visit to Doha following his well-received and appreciated trip to Israel.

Qatar poses little or no military threat to Israel; in fact, Israel’s attack exposed vulnerabilities in Qatar’s American-supported air defenses. Where Qatar harms Israel is by posing as an impartial negotiator in hostage talks between Israel and Hamas, while continuing to fund Hamas, and providing luxurious accommodations for its leaders. The result is a diplomatic setback internationally and domestic political pressure within Israel. By engaging with Qatar and then rejecting their biased schemes, Israel appears intransigent, which damages its diplomatic standing and weakens the Netanyahu government domestically, as protesters and the “anyone but Bibi” crowd pressure the government to accept Hamas and Qatar’s terms.

Turkey poses an entirely different and more threatening challenge. The Israeli Hebrew-language website Netziv.net, which monitors open-source intelligence, cites reports from the Arabic-language Al-Modon network that Turkey is conducting intensive military training for hundreds of Syrian troops on Turkish soil. Erdogan has many reasons for turning Syria into a proxy and solidifying the rule of Ahmed al-Shaara along Israel’s border.

While arming up, Erdogan also employs a two-faced approach, like Qatar, to keep the West off guard while he curries support in the Middle East for his neo-Ottoman designs.

Professor Efrat Aviv, an associate professor in the Department of General History at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies, described Erdogan’s strategy during an online news conference titled “Turkey’s Puppets in Damascus,” sponsored by the Middle East Forum.

“Turkey would like to depict itself as a benevolent power, creating a new image as a protector of Muslims worldwide,” Professor Aviv said. “Palestinians see Turkey as a savior, and so do Syrians. This is something we should pay attention to. It’s been happening behind our backs.”

Arab NATO Revisited

Israel remains the dominant military power in the Middle East for now, and it’s easy to see why Arab nations feel insecure. Over the past two years, the IDF has juggled wars on multiple fronts, declawing enemies and terrorist entities in Gaza and five sovereign nations — Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and now, Qatar.

Last week, after Israel’s Doha attack, Qatar hosted an emergency summit with about 40 leaders from Muslim and Arab countries to revisit a ten-year-old Egyptian idea of creating an Arab NATO, or a coalition of forces that would be obligated to support any Arab nation under attack, similar to NATO’s Article 5, which states that an attack on any member is considered an attack on all. The plan never got off the ground ten years ago and went nowhere this time as well.

Many of the leaders who attended don’t get along with each other; the logistics of assembling a NATO-like force would be daunting, even though Egypt reportedly offered 20,000 of its own troops and to place the entire Arab NATO under its command. There are more than a few Arab and Muslim nations that either don’t see Israel as a threat or prefer cooperation with the US to confrontation with Israel.

President Trump proposed a similar alliance during his first term. He called it MESA, the Middle East Strategic Alliance, but its goal was to create an anti-Iran coalition. That’s probably irrelevant now, as it’s clear that Israel and the US will continue to take the lead to keep the Iranian threat at manageable levels.

Even if an Arab NATO is a no-go, the fact that Egypt enthusiastically revisited it while building up its forces in the Sinai in violation of the Camp David peace treaty with Israel bears close watch.

Stop Playing Along

Israel has regained much of the military deterrence it once lost, but its conflicts with Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, and the Houthis would seem like child’s play compared to armed clashes with the well-equipped and trained Egyptian and Turkish armies.

Ultimately, the US will need to keep Turkey and Egypt at bay, which will require the Trump administration to either threaten them with aid cutoffs and sanctions or show its tough love in other ways. Trump must make clear to Erdogan that, as a NATO member and US ally, his belligerence against Israel is unacceptable, and he must also warn Egypt to abide by the Camp David treaty, or face a cutoff of American aid, which Egypt needs both militarily and economically.

Suppose the US truly desires a more stable Middle East, not just a Nobel Peace Prize — which even Yasser Arafat received, showing how meaningless it is. In that case, it will need to reevaluate its relationship with Qatar. A look at the State Department fact sheet on Qatar — written in the pre-Rubio era — shows the US has a lot of hakaras hatov to Qatar.

Aside from providing the US with its Air Force base, which also serves as home to the Central Command (CENTCOM) Forward Headquarters, the US lauds Qatar’s role in advancing global security interests and as an “experienced diplomatic mediator,” calling it a “trusted and indispensable partner in negotiating the release of US citizens wrongfully detained and held hostage” in Afghanistan, Rwanda, Venezuela, and Iran.

Those are facts, but as many observers have pointed out, Qatar acts as an arsonist on the world stage and demands credit when it puts out the fires it sets.

“For too long, Qatar has been permitted to pursue and gain from a regional strategy premised on support for extremism and fanning the flames of Islamist sedition and violence,” wrote Jonathan Spyer, the editor of Middle East Quarterly, in an article that first appeared in the Jewish Chronicle last week. He contends the Israeli attack on Hamas in Doha demonstrated the intrinsic limits of such a strategy. “It only works for as long as its victims acquiesce to it. Israel has now made clear that it will no longer play its allotted role. Western governments would be well advised to do the same.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 1080)