Inside Trump's trip to Qatar: Long-time home to Hamas — and America's ultimate 'frenemy'

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When President Trump visits the Middle East this coming week — spending four days in a trio of Arabian Gulf nations — his most controversial stop will be Qatar. Claiming to be America’s friend, yet in intimate contact with America’s enemies,

Qatar is what many might call the ultimate “frenemy.”

This relationship is as complex as it is consequential. On one hand, US officials and pundits privately bemoan clear Qatar negatives — such as offering a home to the political leaders of Hamas, its warm ties with Iran, and establishing the frequently anti-American television news network Al Jazeera.

But as in any relationship, the other side often sees things differently. Fueled by billions in gas and oil reserves, Qatar has long-fielded a cadre of diplomats, investors and highly-paid communications consultants to burnish the country’s image as a pro-peace, pro-modernization, pro-moderation force in a region that surely needs more of that.

Qatar-affiliated funds have invested more than $40 billion in the US in everything from condo developments to universities, analysts say. And a handful of US schools, including Northwestern University and Georgetown University, have campuses in Qatar’s skyscraper-filled capital, Doha.

It’s investment as influence — and Qatar-critics say it’s paying off.

In 2017, Saudi Arabia — which along with the United Arab Emirates will welcome Trump this week — had a major falling-out with Qatar over its ties with Iran and Muslim extremists.

The Saudis mounted an economic blockade of far-smaller Qatar and. Trump took the Saudi side, condemning Doha as a “funder of terrorism” and “radical ideology.”

But the blockade ended in early 2021, and the president and senior US officials have changed their tune. The nation, some say, functions as a kind of Switzerland in the Middle East — a neutral space where foes can settle disputes peacefully.

Qatar, for instance, has emerged as a key mediator between Israel and Hamas for the releases of the hostages seized during the terror group’s Oct. 7 massacre.

And last month, Secretary of State Marco Rubio thanked Qatar for “securing the release of American citizens from Afghanistan” who had been held by the Taliban.

But many American analysts view US officials as naïve if they believe Qatar’s intentions are praiseworthy. Michael Pregent, a 30-year US intelligence veteran, says when Qatar mediates release deals, it’s almost always the kidnappers who get the better end of the bargain. Israel, for instance, freed 10 Palestinian prisoners for every hostage Hamas returned.

Pregent claims that Qatar, often through p.r. agencies and other intermediaries, deploys cash to coax think-tank members in Washington to write favorable articles about the nation. Qatar has also been tied to efforts to influence US politics more directly.

Former US Sen. Bob Menendez, for instance, was convicted in January of conspiring to act as a foreign agent for Qatar, while in 2021, Qatar hosted 20 Congressional aides on a lavish junket to the country.

More recently, Bernard Kerik, the former commissioner of the New York City Police Department — who was pardoned by President Trump in 2020 for financial fraud and tax evasion — was hired as a lobbyist for Qatar.

Despite its dubious political connections and openness to Iran, Qatar has been enormously useful to the United States. The Qatari desert is home to the largest US air base in the Middle East since 1996. Al Udeid houses up to 10,000 Americans and was the hub for air activity in the Afghanistan and Iraqi wars.

President Joe Biden extended the base’s lease arrangement in 2023 for a further 10 years. In fact, Biden raised the level of official US friendship by making Qatar a “Major Non-NATO Ally,” a status accorded to only 19 nations — notably Israel, Australia, and Brazil.

It is increasingly clear that the Trump administration is also choosing to frame Qatar as a friend, rather than an enemy. But Dennis Ross, who served five presidents as a Middle East mediator, views the relationship as a “dilemma.”

“On the one hand, our base, Al Udeid, meets our needs better than any other facility in the Middle East,” he says. “And the Qataris largely pay for it.”

However, according to Ross, now a senior scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, we should be troubled by “Qatar’s support for . . . groups [like Hamas] that use terror and threaten our interests and our friends. We must call them on it and make clear it must stop or there will be consequences.”

Recipients of Qatari largesse should be transparent. Yet last year, for instance, Yale University was accused by The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy of hiding millions in foreign funds, mostly from Qatar.

So what can Trump do this week to evolve a relationship that is both necessary and troublesome? Amine Ayoub, an analyst based in Morocco who often writes in the Middle East Forum, says the President: “should use his visit to put Qatar on notice: ‘Get in line with US values, or expect consequences.’ ”

That is probably too much to expect for the moment, especially considering Eric Trump signed a deal last month to develop a Trump International Golf Club and Trump Villas 40 miles from Doha, Qatar’s capital. Additional investments are likely to be announced during Trump’s visit this week.

As Qatar’s embassy in Washington told The Post: “We have confidence in the American economy and believe in its future.”

As for charges that Qatar is trying to influence American universities and think tanks to be more pro-Arab, softer toward Iran, anti-Israel and potentially antisemitic.

But the Qatar embassy’s media attaché in Washington, Ali Al-Ansari, insisted that “Qatar never interferes in the educational content or curriculum of any American school, college, or university.”

Yet not everyone agrees. “The global intifada directed against Jewish students and faculty like me is sponsored by Qatar,” says Max Abrahms, an expert on counterterrorism and professor of political science at Northeastern University. “No foreign country contributes as much money to schools in America.”

Still, former Northwestern University art history professor Stephen Eisenman says Qatari investment in higher education does not necessarily equate to outsized Qatari influence.

“It’s not worse than any other foreign money,” he told The Post.

But Eisenman is no Qatari apologist. Back in 2015 he made waves after visiting the Northwestern campus near Doha and criticizing — in a Washington Post interview — the limited freedoms granted to journalism and film students there.

Al-Ansari, however, denies censorship or limitations: “American universities at Education City operate with complete independence and autonomy,” he says.

For the past 12 years, Qatar — with a population of 3.1 million of which just 300,000 are citizens — has been ruled by Sheikh Tamim al-Thani.

The British-educated leader was seen as a dynamic young prince when he was granted the throne at age 33 by his father, Sheikh Hamad, who took the unusual step of abdicating. Although mildly plagued by illness,

Hamad’s chief malaise was the harsh criticism he received from neighbors like Saudi Arabia during the period surrounding the Arab Spring in 2012.

The nations accused Qatar of funneling cash and weapons to rebels in Tunisia, Libya and Syria, while offering billions in aid to the Muslim Brotherhood’s short-lived government in Egypt.

Tamim has helped reshape the narrative, presenting Qatar as a force for good in a fragile region. Sports and culture have been a crucial part of this effort. In 2022, for instance, Qatar hosted the FIFA World Cup soccer tournament, which brought 3.4 million visitors to the nation in barely three weeks.

The event was clearly a media triumph, though thousands of foreign workers were reported to have died during construction of the Cup’s seven marquee stadia.

Perhaps the most contentious claim against Qatar is that it offered lengthy and luxurious shelter to the political leaders of Hamas. Qatari officials in Washington reply that the Hamas office in Doha “opened more than a decade ago in coordination with the United States following a request to establish indirect lines of communication with the group.” Although the majority of Hamas personnel left Qatar last year, the office itself has yet to be fully shuttered.

Qatar has permitted Israelis to do business there, and Israeli sports fans were allowed to fly in for the World Cup. But Qatar did not join the Abraham Accords in 2018 — which normalized relations between Israel and a handful of Arab nations — and shows no interest in establishing diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

However, Doha is clearly keeping an eye on Jerusalem: Last month a pair of advisors to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were arrested for allegedly taking $40,000 each from an American public relations operative employed by Qatar.

Back in Washington, five senators — Ted Cruz (R-TX), Tom Cotton (R-AR), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Ted Budd (R-NC), and Rick Scott (R-FL) — have been especially critical of Qatar. Cruz even tried to block an arms sale to the emirate in 2023, stating: “Qatar is a deeply problematic ally.”

But they have not issued any anti-Qatar statements since Trump’s return to the White House this year.

The senators are doing what might be wisest at this geopolitically sensitive moment: providing the president with the maneuvering space for dealmaking. Vital topics — also In Saudi Arabia and the UAE — may include rebuilding Gaza and blocking Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

By strengthening alliances and welcoming investments, Trump may be able to tip the Qatar balance from “frenemy” to friend.

Dan Raviv is the author of “Spies Against Armageddon” and host of The Mossad Files podcast.