US President Donald Trump\u2019s 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 \u201cit\u2019s hurting me politically.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Arabs give her these horses and then Israelis come along with an old Bible worth about $12.\u201d Squirming, ambassador Duke told Mrs. Kennedy. \u201cI understand what you\u2019re saying, Angie,\u201d Jackie replied. \u201cBut… I want the horses.\u201d<\/p>\n
This story is doubly relevant as Israelis fear America\u2019s abandonment \u2013 yet again \u2013 as the stench of Qatari money finally clogs some nostrils, and Democrats belatedly yell \u201cfollow the Qatari money.\u201d Lesson One: The Qatari con has worked for years \u2013 on both parties. The regime shamelessly crossbreeds jihadism and capitalism, bankrolling Hamas and other murderous Islamists while buying up America \u2013 and Americans.<\/p>\n
Lesson 2: The US-Israel partnership, nevertheless, keeps strengthening. This relationship is, using the word of the week, \u201ctransactional,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
And all those Israelis \u2013 and American Jews \u2013 mourning the US-Israel \u201crupture\u201d overlooked the 177 Republican members of Congress and 52 Republican senators who wrote President Trump supporting \u201cyour efforts to secure a deal with Iran that dismantles its nuclear program,\u201d which means demanding \u201cthe regime must permanently give up any capacity for enrichment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Warning signals are flashing, as they occasionally do. But the US-Israel fundamentals remain strong. America\u2019s military first used Qatar\u2019s Al Udeid Air Base after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks \u2013 under George W. Bush. In 2011, Barack Obama asked Qatar to host Hamas\u2019s leadership \u2013 reflecting the bipartisan delusion that \u201cpragmatic\u201d Hamas preferred governing Gaza to destroying Israel. Joe Biden then designated Qatar a major non-NATO ally in 2022.<\/p>\n
Since October 7, both Biden and Trump tolerated Qatar\u2019s flimflam, shielding Hamas while pretending to seek peace. Last week, The Washington Post\u2019s Lally Weymouth showed how duped America\u2019s establishment remains, interviewing Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani with softball questions that make those Gazan \u201cjournalists\u201d moonlighting for Hamas look objective. The fawning headline proclaimed: \u201cQatari prime minister on doing diplomacy in a disordered world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Weymouth, daughter of the Post\u2019s 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\u2019t try freeing all 253 hostages immediately. She didn\u2019t challenge Qatar for bankrolling jihadists worldwide.<\/p>\n
Weymouth gushed: \u201cIn Gaza, you played a critical role in the release of American and Israeli hostages.\u201d That prompted the boast: \u201cYes, over the last year and a half, we managed to release more than 130 hostages. That was our mediation.\u201d<\/p>\n
She oozed: \u201cWhat was required to get to a deal?\u201d Al Thani admitted \u201cIt was pressure on Hamas,\u201d raising questions journalists should pursue about why he didn\u2019t pressure them sooner. Eventually, one non-question elicited a most revealing response: \u201cIt seems like Qatar is involved in all sorts of diplomacy beyond just the Middle East.\u201d Qatar\u2019s prime minister replied: \u201cWe are a small country, but we have a long outreach.\u201d Indeed.<\/p>\n
Some attribute the \u201clong outreach\u201d to Qatar\u2019s \u201csilent invasion\u201d of America: $72 million in lobbying efforts, $6.25b. to universities, and $33.4b. invested in critical businesses \u2013 as Qatar\u2019s $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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m honored,\u201d he replied, improvising. \u201cBut my wife gave me this watch. I cannot insult her by accepting one from anyone else.\u201d How many other visitors accepted such generosity and failed to report their gifts to tax authorities? That made them blackmailable, not just beholden.<\/p>\n
By contrast, supporting Israel is the gift that keeps on giving. Continuing its historic role as the West\u2019s front line of defense, Israel ultimately left Biden impressed. On January 13, summarizing \u201cthe progress we\u2019ve made in the last four years in our foreign policy,\u201d Biden asked: \u201cDid 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\u2019s been in decades.\u201d And \u201cjust take a look at Syria.\u201d Forgetting that these \u201cachievements\u201d mostly occurred because Israel defied him, Biden at least acknowledged: \u201cIsrael did plenty of damage to Iran and its proxies.\u201d<\/p>\n
Moreover, from Israel\u2019s 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 \u2013 military and medical \u2013 will save countless lives: protecting American soldiers better, helping them survive injuries, then saving civilians as hospitals adapt the battlefield technologies and techniques.<\/p>\n
Unlike Trump\u2019s 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 \u201cLittle Satan\u201d \u2013 America\u2019s \u201cBig Satan.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Israelis appreciate the ongoing benefits of America\u2019s long-term bipartisan support, that\u2019s a gift to America, too. Healthy democracies need issues on which Left and Right agree.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n