Israel’s stable state structure and advanced military have gained significant new advantages over its neighbors in Egypt and Syria simply by standing pat. The Qataris, meanwhile, have become the flagship of revolution through the influence of the television broadcaster Al Jazeera, privately owned by the Qatari Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. Al Jazeera
helped overthrow Hosni Mubarak, protected the government of Bahrain through its silence regarding the Shia-majority uprising there, and has now turned against its onetime ally Syria. The victory over Libya—won in part with Qatari money and weapons and fighters, in addition to the soft power of Al Jazeera—may have been the crowning touch. Needless to say, Qatar allowed no street demonstrations at home, and somehow pulled off the incredible feat of overthrowing U.S. allies throughout the region with the acquiescence of Americans—while continuing to host U.S. Central Command, the strategic headquarters of the two Middle Eastern campaigns the United States is waging in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So, why of all times has Israel chosen now to pick a fight with Qatar, this clearly rising power?

Last week the Israeli daily Maariv relayed a report from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs explaining that Israel is incensed with Qatar and intends to break off relations with the spunky Persian Gulf emirate. Among other complaints Jerusalem has with Doha is its unyielding support of Hamas and efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state, like funding lawfare against Israel, including legal actions regarding the Mavi Marmara incident.

It wasn’t always like this between Jerusalem and Doha. Qatari officials are among the few Arab statesmen who have openly met with Israeli leaders, including Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, and Shimon Peres. Israel even opened an interest office in the Qatari capital in 1996 following a visit by then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres.

But in the wake of Operation Cast Lead in the winter of 2008 and 2009, regional pressure mounted on Qatar, which expelled the Israeli delegation from Doha. And so, it is in fact beyond Jerusalem’s ability to break off relations with Qatar—since it was Doha that cashiered the relationship first, more than two years ago. So, why has Israel waited until now to bare its teeth? It’s not like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu doesn’t have more pressing concerns, like a domestic protest movement, Iran’s nascent nuclear program, and the uncertain future of the 30-year-old peace treaty with Egypt.

As part of its campaign against Qatar, the Maariv report claimed that the Israeli government would no longer allow journalists employed by Al Jazeera, the Qatari emir’s de facto public diplomacy wing, to operate within its precincts. However, the station’s bureau chief is still working from Jerusalem and is in little danger of being chased out of the country. Nonetheless, by shining the spotlight on Al Jazeera, Israel is illuminating the satellite network’s negative influence in the region.

***

In one of the stolen Wikileaks cables, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan told an American diplomat that Al Jazeera might start the next war in the Middle East. Indeed, during the course of the Arab Spring, a piece of conventional wisdom has emerged: Once Al Jazeera turns its attention to despotic regimes, their days are numbered.

Mainstream Western opinion of Al Jazeera started to turn rosier with the introduction of Al Jazeera English (which Time Warner Cable now offers to its New York City subscribers). Media critics and policymakers remarked on the useful international programming, informed commentary, notable guests, and the appreciably moderate tone of the station. And it’s true that AJE generally avoids the anti-Semitic, anti-American, and anti-Shia invective of Al Jazeera Arabic, but this is only because the entire purpose of AJE is to legitimize the Al Jazeera brand in the West, and therefore legitimize the goals of the emir and his country’s foreign policy, which included toppling regional rivals like Hosni Mubarak.

To be sure, in the end it is the United States that topples Arab rulers: Either Washington turns its firepower on enemies like Saddam Hussein and Muammar Qaddafi or turns its back on allies like Mubarak and Tunisia’s Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali and compels them to relinquish their power. And it is Western and not Arab media that shape world opinion, including that of the White House. But beginning with the Egyptian revolution, the U.S. press has been challenged to match AJE and its tireless reporting, story by story. Otherwise, it is hard to see how an event taking place in Tahrir Square, two continents removed from the East Coast, could have come to dominate the news cycle for more than a week. When it did, the Obama Administration had little choice but to call for Mubarak to step down.

The most peculiar effect of the Arab Spring is that the Qataris have managed to leave the Obama Administration with the impression that they have been with the United States every step of the way. Doha, via Al Jazeera, also called for Mubarak and Ben Ali to step down; in Libya and Syria there has seemingly been little daylight between American and Qatari policy; and in Bahrain, the United States and Qatar both kept their mouths shut as a friendly, and strategically vital, Sunni government squashed its Shia opposition. Nonetheless, these coincidences hardly mean that Qatar is on the same side as the United States.

***

Two years before Doha broke off relations with Israel, Meir Dagan was telling U.S. diplomats that Qatar was a problem. If it seemed that the Qataris were playing both sides and engaging all comers, the reality, according to Dagan, is that the Qatari emir was “annoying everyone” in the region. Qatar had relations with both Hezbollah and its pro-democracy March 14 opponents in Lebanon, it dealt with Hamas and Fatah as well as Israel, and, most provocatively, Qatar hosted CENTCOM even as it shared the world’s largest natural gas field with Iran. Washington, Dagan advised, “should remove [its] bases from [Doha].”

The Maariv report essentially echoes the warning that Dagan relayed. Israel is airing out its differences with Qatar in public, but not because the Qataris themselves are ignorant about the state of relations with Jerusalem. The intended recipient of the message is Washington. Perhaps Jerusalem fears that the Obama Administration sees Doha as a more useful ally at present than Israel, or because the Israelis are concerned that the Americans do not understand that Qatar is not a benevolent actor. It seems that Jerusalem believes this is the one place where it can offer its advice to Washington, however obliquely.

From the American perspective, Qatar is extremely appealing. In the Arab Spring, Doha has picked nothing but winners for the last six months. Moreover, an Arab government with ties to the region’s likely rising powers—especially the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Libya, and perhaps Syria—may be a valuable friend as the new regional order begins to take shape. But just because Qatar has dropped the role of middleman and mediator—made evident by its severing of ties with Israel—and is now choosing sides in the region doesn’t mean that it has really opted to side with the United States. From the Israeli perspective, the Americans have been fooled at least once in the last six months, when they misread Egypt as the Qataris, via Al Jazeera, set the tempo and obfuscated the situation. Qatar is also lined up against Israel, which wants to remind the Americans that it is still a U.S. ally—America’s one real friend in the Middle East.

•Four Jewish summer camps in the Poconos have signed contracts with gas companies licensing the environmentally destructive practice known as “fracking.” [Forward]

• Maybe Israel and Turkey can make up over their shared love of circumcision. [JPost]

• The World Conference of Science Journalists was held in Doha, Qatar. So clearly there had to be controversy about a U.S.-Israeli citizen appearing on a panel. [Science Insider]

• Andrew Silow-Carroll takes up one of my biggest pet peeves: Namely, writers who turn the nouns bar mitzvah or bat mitzvah into verbs. We don’t do that, thank you (and yes I’m sure I have at some point). [Just ASC]

• Ten Bastille Day articles from the Forverts. My favorite is Abraham Cahan’s. [Forward]

A Tennessee-based sculptor wants part of the fallen Anne Frank tree. He hopes to use it to create the second-most beautiful artistic monument to Anne Frank ever.

• Obituaries of the 37 Jewish men and women of the U.S. armed forces who died in Iraq and Afghanistan. [Forward]

• Syria and Qatar offered Hamas $50 million to keep kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit and not do an exchange deal with Israel: This according to none other than Mubarak, who informed a U.S. diplomat, who then reported it in a cable since released by WikiLeaks. [JPost]

• Jewish settlers’ third annual Hebron 10K road race will, for the first time, pass through the Palestinian areas of Hebron itself. Stay classy, guys. [972]

• “The Dead Rabbis Society of Brooklyn” may not be great search-engine optimization bait, but it’s a damn fine headline. [The Brooklyn Ink]

• Alan Slifka, founder of the Big Apple Circus as well as of the Abraham Fund Initiatives—which aimed to bring about increased Jewish-Arab cooperation in Israel—died at 81. [NYT]

The Sway Machinery, the cantorial funk outfit (not a typo), has a new album coming out. And a new video:

• The Palestine Papers keep on giving: In 2009, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat told U.S. envoy George Mitchell that President Obama lost “credibility … throughout the region,” adding, “people in the Middle East are not taking Barack Obama seriously. They feared Bush, despite everything.” [JPost]

• The Qatari emir told Sen. Kerry about a year ago that now is the time for the United States to engage Syria, and that Hamas will accept a deal along the 1967 borders, though won’t say so publicly. This one’s WikiLeaks. [WikiLeaks]

• Her intentions aside, Anthony Grafton condemns Sarah Palin’s invocation of the term “blood libel” for the damage it does to history and to the memories of countless Jews who suffered because of it. [TNR]

• A new entry in the “who sucked more, Hitler or Stalin?” debate from Bloodlands author Timothy Snyder. Turns out that Stalin was more motivated by ethnicity than was thought … but that Hitler really did kill significantly more innocents. [NYRB]

• Tablet Magazine contributor Nicholas Noe argues that U.S. policy toward Lebanon since the 2005 Cedar Revolution was a colossal failure, only helping Hezbollah, and that the one way to head off a really bad confrontation with Israel would be to push Israel to make peace with Syria. [NYT]

• Gal Beckerman remembers the late Samuel T. Cohen, the little-known inventor of the neutron bomb whose memoir was called F*** You: Mr. President. [Forward]

• David Nesenoff, the journalist who asked the question that prompted Helen Thomas’s infamous response, has been appointed editor and publisher of Long Island’s The Jewish Star. [The Jewish Star]

• Hélène Grimaud is a courageous, amazing, and beautiful French pianist. So naturally she has to be Jewish, right? Wikipedia, take it away: “She is descended from Sephardi Jews from Corsica on her mother’s side and from Berber Jews on her father’s side.” God, French Jews are great. [NYT]

• Weekend reading: Two articles by the late Daniel Bell. [Dissent]

• The legendary Eric Hobsbawn tackles the strange tale of the Jews of San Nicandro, ably handled in Tablet Magazine by books critic Adam Kirsch. [LRB]

• Futurist-novelist William Gibson finds Stuxnet’s roots in the world of digital vandalism. [NYT]

30 Rock makes a joke about Tablet Magazine’s official Canadian Football League head coach, the tastefully named Marc Trestman (h/t Kaplan’s Korner):

Answer: Yes. As a condition of the bid, Qatar pledged to allow all FIFA teams to play (also to allow people to drink alcohol).

That’s good. Now if only Qatar could also improve its dismal record on women’s rights, then maybe in 2022 every decent person won’t feel obligated to boycott World Cup viewing.

After the jump: Qatar’s official bid video, which really has to be seen to be believed.

Russia and Qatar Earn World Cup Bids [NYT]
Qatar: Israel Team Welcome if We Win World Cup Bid [Haaretz]

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf and Daisy Khan are the couple behind the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA) and the Cordoba Initiative, the latter of which held a noon event yesterday flaunting its supporters, many of them Jewish. The Cordoba Initiative is not wealthy. As of 2008, according to tax files, its net assets were $18,255. ASMA has deeper pockets, with an annual intake of nearly $1 million, according to its 2009 filing [pdf]. It received substantial grants from the United Nations Population Fund, a Dutch Fund for gender equality, as well as standard U.S. philanthropy groups. Nearly half of its funding, though, comes from the Qatari government. (The building was actually purchased by SoHo Properties, a private real estate company run by Sharif el-Gamal, a congregant of the imam.)

This obviously leaves the center well short of its ambitious fundraising goal. Oz Sultan, a spokesman for the new nonprofit that will take charge of the fundraising effort, called Park51, told me that fundraising efforts were “super-nascent right now.” Funds will arrive, he said, “from a variety of different sources,” including grants, bond issues, and private contributions. Arts funding are a possibility, he shared, noting Park51′s aspirations to create a city structure on par with the Guggenheim. “There’s not going be minarets,” he added.

Park51 intends to have an interfaith board. Sultan could not offer specifics, but noted the ongoing involvement of the Cordoba Initiative, which he called the “programming and interfaith head of the project.” In their search for funds, they will likely turn, in part, to their existing relationships and networks.

Sayyed Nadeem Kazmi is an adviser to the Cordoba Initiative with a resume, like Imam Feisal’s, steeped in NGO and government work spanning continents. In addition to work with the U.S. State Department and British government, Kazmi has served with a host of interfaith organizations here and abroad. His bio lists work with the Open Society Institute, the liberal organization led by George Soros. (An OSI spokesperson confirmed that Kazmi had been a consultant.) For five years, he was a senior adviser to Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan.

In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Daisy Khan said Park51 would not rule out receiving funds from foreign governments. Politicians pounced on this possibility. Rep. Peter King (R-New York) and Rick Lazio, a Republican gubernatorial candidate, have called for investigations into the funding, which Mayor Bloomberg dismissed as “un-American.” (King’s charge packs less of a punch since he has fiscally supported actual terrorist outfits.)

Park51, Sultan insisted, will fully comply with state and federal investment regulations. “If anyone doesn’t fit with what the Treasury or Homeland Security [Departments] say,” he assured me, “then they won’t be an investor.” Government agencies would, he noted, be eager to support Park51′s mission—which is to say, creating what he repeatedly referred to as “moderate communities.” Sultan sounded mildly frustrated with the calls to unveil their funding structure. “We just got landmark status two days ago,” he said. “I do not have a hundred-page plan.”

At yesterday’s noon event, which swarmed with as much press as participants, the Cordoba Initiative flaunted its partners. Representatives from Jewish organizations, led by the liberal Shalom Center, gathered at the proposed site for a show of support, ceremony, and general amicable goodwill.

One of the speakers was Rabbi Richard Jacobs of the Westchester Reform Temple, who commended the center’s didactic approach. “I pray that the funding for this noble project,” he said into the pack of microphones, “will come from individuals, countries, and institutions that share this vision.” As the event ended, he clarified his remarks. The estimated price for the center, he admitted, was a lofty sum. “We need people,” he told me, “moved by the mission of the center to come out” and back it financially. Then the funding, he added, “won’t be from sources that don’t support the core mission.” He predicted that Park51 would find several willing contributors among liberal and moderate Jews. Like the other speakers, Rabbi Jacobs lavished Imam Feisal with praise, citing him as an intrinsic testament to the center’s virtuous purpose: “His life is the message.”

Reached by phone, Yossi Klein Halevi, a Shalom Hartman Institute fellow (not to be confused with the group from yesterday, the Shalom Center, nor with the Israel-based Shalem Center) and frequent contributor to The New Republic, agreed. When a panel was organized around Halevi’s latest book, Imam Feisal was the only Muslim who would participate. And enthusiastically so: “He’s someone who doesn’t hesitate to interact with the Jewish community,” Halevi told me.

For the record, Halevi does not endorse the center “as currently conceived.” He echoed Abraham Foxman’s concerns for the families of 9/11 victims and urged instead the creation of a center that fused the Abrahamic faiths. At the same time, he expressed contempt for the “attempts to demonize the Imam.” And anyway, he argued, extremist organizations would not back an imam so close to Jews. Feisal’s views may occasioanlly depart from his own, Halevi explained. “But if we hold every Muslim moderate under a microscope,” he continued, “then we’re really going to be left with no one to talk to.”

Earlier: Foxman Keeps Digging
Ground Zero Mosque Organizers Pledge 9/11 Memorial [WSJ]
Mosque Plan Clears Hurdle In New York [NYT]

It’s an interesting idea—a Jewish half-ownership in the Arabic news network. Saban’s spokeswoman declined to comment one way or the other. But we’re a bit skeptical: If a huge media deal were in the offing, what are the odds that the story would be broken not by any of the media reporters who cover Saban and the TV business—either here and in the Emirates—but instead by an Egyptian site we’ve never heard of? (And one which, if our Google Translator steers us right, only launched last year, and looks more the Huffington Post than Wall Street Journal.) Plus, if Al Jazeera is losing money, as the story claims, is it really likely that the Qatari emir would turn to an Israeli billionaire for help? And why would Saban—the world’s 261st-richest person, according to Forbes, but also, as the single largest donor to the Democratic Party, an extremely politically astute individual—want to invite the kinds of headaches that would be involved in taking on this particularly thorny, supposedly cash-strapped overseas enterprise? After all, if he wants another television channel he could just, like, buy out Al Gore over at Current or something.

Report: Saban wants to buy al-Jazeera [Ynet]
Related: Morphed [Tablet]