January 18, 2023 - 12 PM ET

Why do the United States and Israel treat Qatar—which has a strong relationship with Iran and Hamas, with kid gloves?

According to Hillel Frisch, during the COVID pandemic, Qatar was the only country that maintained flights with Iran, and it is the leading state sponsor of Hamas. It is also home to a potent media outlet, which is state-sponsored by Qatar, Al Jazeera, which is very different in Arabic than in English. Its Arabic version has been used to whip up incitement in much of the Arab-speaking world against the state of Israel.

About Hillel Frisch:

Hillel Frisch is a professor emeritus in the Departments of Political Studies and Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and a senior research associate at Jerusalem Institute of Strategy and Security. Fluent in Arabic, he is the author of several books and numerous articles on Middle East and Palestinian politics. Amongst his latest studies are "Rethinking the "Arab Spring": Winners and Losers," Middle East Quarterly (2021), "The Palestinian Military, Two Not One," Oxford Handbook on Military and Security Studies (2021) "Jordan and Hamas," Handbook on Jordan (2019) and "Assessing Iranian Soft Power in the Arab World from Google Trends," The Journal for Interdisciplinary Middle Eastern Studies (2019). He has frequently published in the Jerusalem Post, and many of his articles have been disseminated in other venues such as The Daily Alert.