The US-Qatar relationship is in dire need of a reset, and Israel’s recent actions provide a great opportunity to do just that.

Washington can’t seem to quit Qatar. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made that much clear when he departed Israel for Doha on September 15. Speaking to members of the press, Rubio doubled down on the administration’s view that “Qatar can play a very key role” in negotiating an end to the war in Gaza.

Nearly two years have passed since the White House tapped Doha to mediate between Hamas and Israel. Despite repeated failures at the negotiating table, successive US administrations have refused to sideline Qatar, a longtime sponsor of Hamas that has repeatedly blamed Israel for the war the terrorist group started.

Israel issued a stark reminder of the patronage Qatar has offered Hamas when it targeted the terror group’s leadership in Doha on September 9. Qatar’s relationship with Hamas goes back to the 1990s, when Doha offered the group sanctuary following its expulsion from Jordan. Hamas chose Syria but, in 2012, established a home away from home in Doha. Qatar continues to shelter Hamas’s politburo and, at least until the outbreak of the current war, shoveled millions of dollars into the terrorist group’s coffers.

Qatari officials maintain that Hamas opened an office in Doha following “a request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication with Hamas,” and that Doha has “no reason to close” the office if it can facilitate diplomacy. A former Obama administration official said in 2023 that there had been no such request.

Whatever the truth, the arrangement hasn’t worked to secure peace. Qatar has repeatedly failed to exercise leverage over Hamas, and neither the Biden nor Trump administrations have done anything about it. It’s past time for Washington to hold Qatar accountable for taking advantage of US trust.

The Trump administration’s first order of business should be removing Qatar from the Gaza talks and forcing Doha to divorce itself from Hamas. That means compelling Qatar to shutter what’s left of Hamas’s Doha office and extradite senior Hamas leaders left living in the emirate to the United States. It mustn’t be forgotten that Hamas officials orchestrated the kidnapping and murder of US nationals on October 7. 

Khaled Meshal, Hamas’s de facto foreign minister who reportedly survived Israel’s strike, should be at the top of the extradition list. Meshal has been living as a multi-billionaire in Qatar for years and has had charges filed against him in the United States for terrorism, murder conspiracy, and sanctions evasion.

The Trump administration shouldn’t stop there. The emirate has sponsored a laundry list of Islamist groups, harbored private funders of terror, incited anti-Israel hatred, and landed at the center of corruption schemes involving senior American and European officials. One of those corruption schemes brought down former senator and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez.

Washington should also review whether Qatar is adequately fighting against terror finance, including assessing the implementation and enforcement of a 2017 bilateral counter-terror finance agreement, and should consider using the Anti-Bribery Act, Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and Global Magnitsky Act to investigate and target Qatari entities and individuals.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration needs to bring the Qatar-owned Al Jazeera Media Network into line with US law. The Department of Justice ordered AJ+, a US-based subsidiary of Al Jazeera, to register as a foreign agent in 2020. The network has yet to comply. 

The administration should likewise assess whether or not Al Jazeera is a suitable target for sanctions. The US government previously sanctioned Iranian and Russian state-owned networks for serving as propaganda organs of their governments. Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV and Hezbollah’s Al-Manar have also been sanctioned for supporting terrorist recruitment and fundraising efforts. Al Jazeera engages in similar behavior by promoting Islamist propaganda, inciting violence, and employing Hamas terrorists. The network should not avoid scrutiny simply because it’s run by an allied regime.

Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar is another issue deserving of attention. A report accompanying the 2025 National Defense Authorization Act requires the Secretary of Defense to assess “the operational value of Al Udeid, taking into consideration the presence of Hamas and other United States-designated terrorist organizations in Qatar.” For starters, the Trump administration should consider replicating “elsewhere in the region vital military capabilities” to prevent Qatar from wielding Al Udeid as leverage against the United States. 

If Qatar fails to exert sufficient pressure on Hamas and prove that it’s a trustworthy ally, the Trump administration should consider revoking the emirate’s Major Non-NATO Ally status and cancelling its membership in the US Visa Waiver Program.

The U.S.-Qatar relationship sorely needs a reboot. Israel opened the door for change on September 9 when it targeted Hamas operatives on Qatari soil. Rarely has it been more clear that Qatar is not the neutral broker it claims to be. The Trump administration should take the point and then take action, first by dismissing Qatar from the Gaza negotiations and then addressing the US-Qatar relationship writ large.