US President Donald Trump’s gimme-gimme gilded Gulf nation tour updates an old story. In the 1960s, when the Saudi king offered Jackie Kennedy white stallions, president John Kennedy balked. Intimidated by his wife, the president sent ambassador Angier Biddle Duke, his chief of protocol, to tell her “it’s hurting me politically.
“The Arabs give her these horses and then Israelis come along with an old Bible worth about $12.” Squirming, ambassador Duke told Mrs. Kennedy. “I understand what you’re saying, Angie,” Jackie replied. “But... I want the horses.”
This story is doubly relevant as Israelis fear America’s abandonment – yet again – as the stench of Qatari money finally clogs some nostrils, and Democrats belatedly yell “follow the Qatari money.”
Lesson One: The Qatari con has worked for years – on both parties. The regime shamelessly crossbreeds jihadism and capitalism, bankrolling Hamas and other murderous Islamists while buying up America – and Americans.
Lesson 2: The US-Israel partnership, nevertheless, keeps strengthening. This relationship is, using the word of the week, “transactional,” as well as existential and enduring. If Israel had effective public diplomacy, we would be bombarded with news alerts detailing the military, medical, and hi-tech gains Israel provided America from this ugly war.
And all those Israelis – and American Jews – mourning the US-Israel “rupture” overlooked the 177 Republican members of Congress and 52 Republican senators who wrote President Trump supporting “your efforts to secure a deal with Iran that dismantles its nuclear program,” which means demanding “the regime must permanently give up any capacity for enrichment.”
Warning signals are flashing, as they occasionally do. But the US-Israel fundamentals remain strong.
America’s military first used Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – under George W. Bush. In 2011, Barack Obama asked Qatar to host Hamas’s leadership – reflecting the bipartisan delusion that “pragmatic” Hamas preferred governing Gaza to destroying Israel. Joe Biden then designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally in 2022.
Lally Weymouth showed how duped America’s establishment remains
Since October 7, both Biden and Trump tolerated Qatar’s flimflam, shielding Hamas while pretending to seek peace. Last week, The Washington Post’s Lally Weymouth showed how duped America’s establishment remains, interviewing Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani with softball questions that make those Gazan “journalists” moonlighting for Hamas look objective. The fawning headline proclaimed: “Qatari prime minister on doing diplomacy in a disordered world.”
Weymouth, daughter of the Post’s legendary publisher Katharine Graham, ignored the $1.8 billion Qatar pumped into Hamas to arm the October 7 rampagers. She forgot to ask why Qatar didn’t try freeing all 253 hostages immediately. She didn’t challenge Qatar for bankrolling jihadists worldwide.
Weymouth gushed: “In Gaza, you played a critical role in the release of American and Israeli hostages.” That prompted the boast: “Yes, over the last year and a half, we managed to release more than 130 hostages. That was our mediation.”
She oozed: “What was required to get to a deal?” Al Thani admitted “It was pressure on Hamas,” raising questions journalists should pursue about why he didn’t pressure them sooner.
Eventually, one non-question elicited a most revealing response: “It seems like Qatar is involved in all sorts of diplomacy beyond just the Middle East.” Qatar’s prime minister replied: “We are a small country, but we have a long outreach.” Indeed.
Some attribute the “long outreach” to Qatar’s “silent invasion” of America: $72 million in lobbying efforts, $6.25b. to universities, and $33.4b. invested in critical businesses – as Qatar’s $526b. national sovereign wealth fund gobbles up red, white, and blue properties.
Also, follow the influence peddling. One Jewish leader told me of being gifted a Rolex watch when visiting Qatar. This honest, clever lawyer feared offending his hosts, but was terrified of them owning him.
“I’m honored,” he replied, improvising. “But my wife gave me this watch. I cannot insult her by accepting one from anyone else.”
How many other visitors accepted such generosity and failed to report their gifts to tax authorities? That made them blackmailable, not just beholden.
US-Israel relations based on shared values
By contrast, supporting Israel is the gift that keeps on giving. Continuing its historic role as the West’s front line of defense, Israel ultimately left Biden impressed. On January 13, summarizing “the progress we’ve made in the last four years in our foreign policy,” Biden asked: “Did you ever think we would be where we are with Iran at this moment?... Their main proxy, Hezbollah, is badly wounded.... Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades.” And “just take a look at Syria.” Forgetting that these “achievements” mostly occurred because Israel defied him, Biden at least acknowledged: “Israel did plenty of damage to Iran and its proxies.”
Moreover, from Israel’s whole blood transfusions, to its ever-improving Trophy Active Protect System against anti-tank guided missiles, and RPGs, to AI strategy breakthroughs, this war has been one big Pentagon innovation hub. Israeli M-squared advances – military and medical – will save countless lives: protecting American soldiers better, helping them survive injuries, then saving civilians as hospitals adapt the battlefield technologies and techniques.
Unlike Trump’s transactional relationship with Qatar, these pragmatic payoffs rest on solid foundations of shared biblical, liberal-democratic, and liberty-loving values, overlapping interests, and common enemies from Iran to jihadists. Never forget: Israel is “Little Satan” – America’s “Big Satan.”
While Israelis appreciate the ongoing benefits of America’s long-term bipartisan support, that’s a gift to America, too. Healthy democracies need issues on which Left and Right agree.
Israel has long united Americans in common cause. Both countries must work harder to maintain this extraordinary friendship, which has overcome tensions before and always emerged stronger.
The writer, a senior fellow in Zionist thought at the Jewish People Policy Institute, is an American presidential historian. His latest books, To Resist the Academic Intifada: Letters to My Students on Defending the Zionist Dream and The Essential Guide to October 7th and its Aftermath, were just published.