GATESTONE
For Peace in the Middle East, Trump Must Move the US Al-Udeid Air Base from Qatar to the United Arab Emirates
Robert Williams
January 23, 2025

“This is Qatar’s classic game: support the Islamist terrorists and then present itself as a mediator, liaison, and even peacemaker – the arsonist playing firefighter. As in Afghanistan, as in Egypt in 2010, and as in every Muslim country. In every Muslim country where there is a battle between the Islamists and the secularists, Qatar supports the Islamists, as in Gaza supporting Hamas for years, building its military might and enabling October 7.” — Colonel Yigal Carmon (ret), MEMRI, January 21, 2025…The US cannot continue to reward terrorism. President Donald J. Trump would do well to declare as a Foreign Terrorist Organization the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the font of all Sunni Islamist terrorism and is effectively promoted worldwide by Qatar’s television bullhorn, Al-Jazeera. READ MORE

MIDDLE EAST FORUM Daniel Pipes Trump and the Art of the Double Pander The tiny but fabulously wealthy Qatar regime has for thirty years brilliantly pursued influence for itself and the Islamist cause through funding, diplomacy, and public relations. Think U.S. university curricula, major non-NATO ally status, and the 2022 World Cup. It has also worked hard to reach Trump’s inner circle, including Steven Witcoff. Witcoff’s uncouth and insolent treatment of Netanyahu, as reported in Ha’aretz and the Wall Street Journal, “appears to have saved Hamas,” writes Daniel Greenfield. I add: thus enabling it to massacre another day.

JEWISH INSIDER Lahav Harkov: Israeli right still hopeful about Trump presidency despite ‘terrible’ cease-fire deal Since Israel and Hamas reached a cease-fire and hostage-release agreement last week, with significant pressure from the incoming administration, the Israeli right’s take on Trump has been much less ecstatic. In the wake of the agreement, a new narrative has taken hold: that Trump will give Israel something else in return for the deal it made. Many hope Netanyahu received promises from Trump for the future, such as support for attack on Iran, peace with the Saudis.

FRONT PAGE MAG Which ‘Trump Transition Official’ is Pushing ‘Palestinian’ Nation Building? Presidential teams have all sorts of players on them. And much as some might have hoped that after the first term, the Trump team would be ‘clean’, that’s proving not to be the case. The adoption of Biden’s disastrous surrendering to terrorist deal by Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, appears to have saved Hamas. And we’re getting all sorts of leaks to the media by people supposedly on the Trump team blasting Israel and propping up Islamic terrorists in Gaza and Lebanon.