There is a well-known and ancient aphorism that affirms that “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Two countries that are rivals can still unite to challenge and overcome a mutual adversary that threatens them both. Thus, during World War II, the United States and United Kingdom joined forces with the USSR (after Germany breached their non-aggression pact) in order to defeat the Nazis. Shortly after the war ended, the enmity between the erstwhile allies resumed in full force and the Cold War began.
What about a corollary to that hoary principle? How does one characterize “the friend of my enemy,” or in our case, enemies? Is the friend still a friend? Does the friend become an enemy? Is there an intermediate stage - can a country become a frenemy?
This is our new reality, as Israel’s closest friend and ally in the world - the United States - curries favor with Qatar and Turkey, arguably two of Israel’s most implacable strategic foes in the world today. It is impossible not to conclude that those two countries are our enemies, and this despite Israel’s longtime willingness to ignore the provocations of both and to dream of the past (Turkey) or better days ahead (Qatar).
We should not delude ourselves any longer. Qatar has for quite some time been the sponsors of Hamas and other terrorist groups. It literally hosted and shielded Hamas’ leadership before, during, and after the October 7 massacre, and Qatari wealth has sustained Hamas despite its designation as a terrorist organization.
Qatari money has allegedly fueled the anti-Jewish campus unrest in the United States the last several years. Their recent distancing from Hamas was solely the result of Israel’s attack on Hamas’ Qatar headquarters this past September, a shot across the bow that, among other things, informed the Qataris that the jig was up - and even induced them to pressure Hamas to free all the living Israeli hostages then held captive by Hamas.
Israelis still remember the Turkey that was the first (and for decades, only) Muslim country that recognized Israel. That bond was severed when Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became prime minister in 2003 and then president (apparently for life unless there is a coup) in 2014. Turkey before Erdoğan was a breath of fresh air in the Middle East. His ascension to power and his commitment to the tenets of radical Islam immediately soured relations, although Israel was slow to realize that and our diplomacy remained trapped in the fantasy world of the 1980’s.
Nothing Erdoğan’s Turkey could do - supporting Hamas, dispatching the Mavi Marmara, repeatedly condemning Israel on the world stage, calling our government “Nazis” and our prime minister “Hitler” - none of that dispelled the Israeli illusion that this was still the same Turkey that exports dates and welcomes Israeli tourists, and that we are just a few conversations away from reviving that halcyon era.
*Today, Turkey’s influence in our region is especially nefarious, and even in Israel itself. It designated its illegal consulate in Jerusalem, our capital city, as its “embassy to Palestine” - and we do nothing about it.
*Through a variety of social service, educational, and cultural organizations it sponsors in Jerusalem, funded by Qatar, it propagates radical Islam, rejection of Israel, and support for terror - and we do nothing about it.
*It routinely insults us, denies our legitimacy, and mocks our sovereignty - and we do nothing about it.
The fantasy about the old Turkey even precipitated an apology from our prime minister after the Mavi Marmara incident. In other words, Turkey sent a hostile craft meant to break our blockade and supply our genocidal enemy in Gaza - and we had to apologize.
Now, the United States is friends or at least allies with these two of our enemies, and the price of that friendship has not been the diminution of their hostility towards Israel. Turkey and Qatar have captivated the US and it is not because of the shared values of those three countries - unless the primary value is money.
These antagonists have infiltrated the US in different ways - Turkey as a longtime member of NATO serving as a counterforce to the Russians, and Qatar by spreading tens of billions of dollars of its oil revenues to buy influence in universities, politics, think tanks, school boards, and cultural institutions. Qatar has upped the ante in the current administration by engaging in sweetheart business deals with Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s ambassador for all things, and with Trump family members, and promising (although not yet delivering) investments in US infrastructure reported to be a trillion dollars.
Although the US could easily detach itself from Turkey, whose weak economy is obscured by its bellicose rhetoric and grandiose ambitions, it could not easily disconnect from the Qataris, so extensive is their influence in the United States. Qatari money is spread across numerous industries such as real estate, energy, aviation, and technology, and most reprehensible is their funding of dozens of American universities, including study programs which extol the virtues of Islam and denigrate Judaism and Israel.
Yes, money talks, and three American universities - Georgetown, Carnegie Mellon, and Northwestern - have received more than two trillion dollars to fund their campuses in Doha, Qatar.
The influence of Qatari money on American university campuses, and its connection to the rampant Jew hatred and anti-American activism that have erupted there in recent years, is being investigated. But the linkage should be unsurprising, as well the accompanying decline in support for Israel in the last few years among younger Americans.
Undoubtedly, Qatar and Turkey are masterful at playing the double game, promoting the interests of radical Israel under the pretense of befriending America and serving America’s interests. This should have been made clear to all through the machinations of Qatar and Turkey during the prolonged hostage negotiations, when both countries pretended to be intermediaries and peace seekers. In fact, their enmity to Israel was blatant. Even their supposed neutrality to Hamas was and is a moral obscenity.
If part of their current game is currying favor with President Trump through money (including a promise of a new Air Force One, which has not yet been fulfilled) and overblown flattery, then it is working. And if a long-term Arab goal has always been to distance the US from Israel, then that hasn’t happened, but it is clearly on their agenda.
Well, how do we react when our strongest ally sees itself as friends with our enemies? We can pretend to our detriment that perhaps those enemies are no longer enemies because they are friends with our friend. That would be absurd, which is not to say unlikely given our diplomatic dithering. But it should be clear that one might be a friend of my enemy but that does not make that enemy my friend. An enemy remains an enemy because of divergent interests and objectives, and hostile actions. Friendship with a third party will not change that.
We cannot compete with Qatari money. Trump is a sucker for flattery and has been played by multiple countries - Russia, China, Syria, and others - but we should not play that unsavory game more than is necessary, such as calling Trump “the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House,” which is true, but does not preclude Trump pursuing American interests first, as he should. We pretend to our detriment that US and Israeli interests are always aligned.
What we can do is try to minimize the impact of that so-called friendship by emphasizing our shared interests with the United States, and especially by calling out Qatari and Turkish actions that conflict with US interests, of which there are not a few. Qatar has announced it will not fund Gaza’s rebuilding, despite promises made to the Americans. Both countries have long flirted with America’s global adversaries and skillfully play one off against the other.
The presence of a US Air Force base in Qatar serves one US interest, but means that the US literally defends Qatar from all hostile elements, something that makes American troops targets which should trouble America Firsters. Israel has never sought that type of on the ground protection, and it is a mistake to allow an American base in Kiryat Gat.
Under Qatari and Turkish influence, the US will try to force Israel into accepting the disappearance of the remains of deceased hostage Ran Gvili, diluting our insistence that Hamas be disarmed and disabled, speed up Gazan reconstruction, and advance our withdrawal (again, for the eighth time) from Gaza. None of this is in Israel’s interest, unless our goal is a few months or years of relative tranquility as the enemy prepares for the next, and even deadlier, round of terror and atrocities.
Trump has good instincts and is unpredictable because of his tendency to engage in bold actions. But he also has a short attention span, is easily distracted, and enjoys more the good PR from claiming diplomatic triumphs than the reality on which his wishes are implausibly imposed, which is always less auspicious. Hence, the series of “wars” he has ended which have not actually ended - whether in Congo, Thailand, Gaza, or the Middle East. The day of agreement concerns him more than the day after an agreement. He lacks the tenacity and patience to see his vision through or to ensure it endures.
That is why he urges Netanyahu to “take the win,” even if there is no win to be taken. It is akin to Senator George Aiken’s famous quote (he did not actually say it) in 1966 that the US in Vietnam should “declare victory and go home.” But Gaza is home, part of the land of Israel, and the enemy’s objective is to survive, and during the respite rebuild, rearm, and plan for the next attack. Now that Hamas is on the ropes and Gaza is devastated, we would be foolish to allow true victory in that tiny territory to slip away.
And we would have to be insane to allow the introduction of troops from Turkey and Qatar into Gaza, knowing full well that they will do little else than facilitate their plans for our demise. Their forces would not be Trojan horses but rather the enemy itself, armed and dangerous and in plain sight.
Qatar has infiltrated the highest levels of the American government and it should be sobering for us to realize the outsized influence Qatar now has on American foreign policy, including Trump’s pronouncements. It puts paid to the boring cliché prevalent among anti-Israel Americans that Israel controls US foreign policy, although it will not stop our haters from professing it. Every administration statement, including leaks to journalists from “senior officials,” has to be filtered through the prism of Qatari influence.
In truth, it is Trump who should “take the win,” the win being the release of all the living hostages at once which would not have happened without him. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. If we do not take advantage of Hamas’ current vulnerability, we will be left dealing with a resurgent terror network and an explosive Gaza long after Trump leaves office, and under much less favorable conditions for us to respond.
Israel is remiss is not clearly defining our interests and sticking to them, in not establishing red lines and proclaiming their indelibility. Ruling out Turkish troops in Gaza is a god start but Qatari forces are no better. We, too, are desperate for friends and allies, but we should be forthright in recognizing that our enemies are not just those who physically attack us but also those who subsidize the attackers.
Israelis too have been seduced by the allure of Qatari business and investments. That the US is unduly swayed by Qatar and Turkey is probably inevitable, given the US interest in countering the growing sway of China and Russia, but it need not be permanent. Those countries’ influence on the Trump administration is troubling but not exclusive. We too have influence - and that influence is enhanced when our interests are unambiguously projected and our shared values are transparent and transmitted.
The reborn Jewish commonwealth after the miracle Hanukkah foundered because of, among other reasons, ill-considered alliances with foreign countries that gradually depleted its sovereignty in the land of Israel. Having learned from our long and providential history, we know better. Or do we?
Happy Hanukkah!
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, Esq. was a pulpit rabbi and attorney in the United States and now lives in Israel where he teaches Torah in Modiin, serves as the Senior Research Associate for the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy and as the Israel Region Vice-President of the Coalition for Jewish Values, and is the author of “The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility” (Gefen Publishing).