Last week, the Israeli Air Force struck a guest house in Qatar. At the time, both Qatar-based and Turkey-based Hamas leadership were meeting to discuss their response to the latest ceasefire proposal and Israeli demands that Hamas release hostages they seized on Oct. 7, 2023, ironically during a ceasefire.
Both Qatar and Turkey responded with outrage. Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani demanded retaliation “from the whole region” against Israel. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, meanwhile, likened Israel to a terrorist state and declared, without a sense of irony given Turkey’s occupation of portions of Cyprus, Syria, and Iraq that “Israel is being governed with an expansionist mindset and is trying to maintain its stability by exporting instability.”
All pretense is gone. Qatar, a country that bankrolled Hamas before, during, and after the Oct. 7 massacre, is showing its true, anti-Semitic, hateful colors. As Iran appears on the verge of shedding its reactionary, rejectionist Islamic Republic, Turkey actively positions itself to take Tehran’s place as the leader of the anti-Israel, anti-America bloc.
The opprobrium of Qatar and other Arab states juxtaposes sharply with the reaction of Doha and those states flocking to the emergency summit after Iran launched several missiles at Qatar’s Al-Udeid Air Base on June 23, 2025. That attack met largely with silence or perhaps a few pro forma denunciations, but none of the vitriol.
While President Donald Trump might be annoyed at Israel both for the strike and for largely missing (the terrorists reportedly kept the cell phones the Israelis were tracing in a different room), by any subjective measure, he should be furious with the Qataris. Trump long ago demanded Hamas release its hostages, yet Qatar refuses to convey this demand without diluting it or throwing life rafts to Hamas.
Now, Qatar is rallying the region to the anti-Abraham Accords, seeking to create a block that could wield military might against Israel. Egypt is talking about an Arab NATO. Iraqi Prime Minister Muhammad Shia al-Sudani last week called for a “military Islamic alliance” to confront the Israeli threat. Sudani told Al-Jazeera, a television channel that a decade ago cheered terrorism against Iraqis, that “the Israeli aggression on Qatar is a shocking event and a violation of all international laws and norms,” and that “the Israeli aggression… confirms the aggressive approach of the criminal Israeli government.” Al Jazeera did not ask nor did Sudani offer what then he might call Iraqi militias launching missiles and drones against Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Israel, or previous Iranian missile and drone attacks on Iraqi bases.
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Trump should react to the Qatari-Turkish hate conference with moral clarity. He should end Qatar’s valuable major Non-NATO Ally status and withdraw U.S. forces from Al Udeid. He should do so because Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim has plainly shown he cares more about hosting terrorists and eradicating the Jewish state than he does about Iran shooting missiles at U.S. forces on his territory. If Turkey, meanwhile, acts as a state sponsor of terrorism, the United States should designate it as such, NATO member or not.
Qatar may believe dispensing money widely will buy it immunity. Perhaps for some it does, but no amount of cash or public relations contracts can hide the reality that it is a regime that embraces rather than excises the terrorist rot within.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential. He is director of analysis at the Middle East Forum and a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.