BY RIVKAH ROTHSCHILD

I know I should have listened to the full 88-minute interview of Steve Witkoff by Tucker Carlson on March 21, 2025 before making comments. My excuse for not doing so is, well, it was unbearable. The few exchanges that I heard were more than enough to confirm what I already knew: Witkoff is our very own “Alice in Wonderland.”

Witkoff In Doha

While Alice gets to explore the chaos and confusion of a world she doesn’t yet understand and does so without serious consequences, Witkoff, I fear, will not be afforded the same impunity. The price to pay for Witkoff’s education as he gets more familiar with Middle East terrorism, as he learns the regions of the Ukraine that Russia claims annexation rights over, and as he becomes acquainted with the unsavory means of defeating political opponents of his newly minted best friend forever, President Vladimir Putin, poison or prison, the world suffers from his ignorance and becomes even less stable.

A few months ago President Donald Trump returned to the Oval Office with a resolve to re-establish the solid foreign policy objectives that he worked to implement in his first term. Trump’s foreign policy is based upon former President Reagan’s motto of “peace through strength.” It is a welcome change from the appeasing and ineffective foreign policy of the prior administration.

On Jan.16, 2025, the president introduced us to his special envoy, Steven Witkoff, telling us that Witkoff knew how to make deals to settle geopolitical strife far better than any of the foreign policy experts that DC boasts of. The president also informed us that Witkoff could exploit a prior relationship in the Middle East to the advantage of the hostages being held in the tunnels of Gaza.

Stunned by this non-sequitur right on the heels of the president nominating a credentialed and highly-skilled Cabinet, although not without controversy and drama, we the public swooned, then steadied ourselves, determined to “wait and see” how Witkoff, the president’s real estate crony, would perform.

Things didn’t pan out as the president suggested they should. True, Witkoff had a close tie with members of the Qatari ruling class, evidenced by the fact that the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund bailed him out in 2023 when he was facing bankruptcy with the purchase of the Park Lane Hotel for $623 million. However, Witkoff did not demand that the Qatari mediators use every bit of leverage vis-à-vis Hamas they could muster to gain a quick release of all hostages. Instead, Witkoff heaped praise upon praise on his Qatari benefactors, and didn’t demand anything from them vis-à-vis Hamas.

“Wait and see” is over, and even a cursory comparison of what we know of the president’s foreign policy objectives— some of which may still be in formation – with the statements and actions of Witkoff reveals a concerning discrepancy. So much so that we can’t help but wonder how long it will be before Witkoff is ushered off the global stage. Equally, if not more perplexing, is the question as to why Witkoff is being allowed to muddy Trump’s foreign policy objectives for so long?

Different Scripts?

Here is a cursory comparison between Trump and Witkoff’s statements and actions.

Just recently, on May 13, 2025, according to Israel’s Channel 12, Witkoff told hostage families that the United States “wants to return the hostages, but Israel is not ready to end the war.” In this libelous statement, Witkoff contrasts the United States — the country that wants the return of the hostages — with Israel — the country that doesn’t want the return of the hostages?

In addition, I am trying to imagine why Israel would want to end the war right now, with Hamas nearly defeated and removed from power. I guess Witkoff hasn’t heard the goals of the war articulated by Israel’s prime minister (at least once a week for the past 18 months). Even AI has them down, as follows: Destroying Hamas’s Military Capabilities, Ending Hamas’s Governance and Returning the Hostages.

Now that Israel is weeks away from achieving the goals, Witkoff expresses frustration that Israel won’t end the war. Who does he express this frustration to? To hostage families who are already living on the edge and whose vulnerability could not be greater. This is cruel.

On the very same day, Trump spoke about the war in Gaza when he addressed the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum at the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh. Trump said: “All civilized people must condemn the October 7th atrocities against Israel …”. He then added, “The people of Gaza deserve a much better future, but that will or cannot occur as long as their leaders choose to kidnap, torture and target innocent men, women and children for political ends.”

There is more than daylight between the statements of Witkoff and Trump, made on the very same day.

Trump is repulsed by Hamas, whose barbarism on October 7th shocked the world’s conscience —at least that part of the world that has a conscience. Trump hardly ever refers to the suicidal regime by name, and when he does, it is usually in the context of an ultimatum or a threat. In 2025 Trump referred to Hamas in the context of one threat or another on Jan. 16, Feb. 11, and March 5.

Per Trump’s common sense and down-to-earth notion of right and wrong, terrorists who kidnap, murder, rape and torture civilians and soldiers are to be shunned. This is a presidential prerogative that Trump has exercised. It is as if the president is allergic to the very name of the jihadist death cult.

Contrast Trump’s principled stance with that of Witkoff. After Adam Boehler, the special envoy for hostages, spoke so highly of Hamas on March 9, 2025 to Jake Tapper, Witkoff admitted that Boehler was working under his auspices. Boehler sometimes characterized the hostages as prisoners, changing them from civilians into combatants with one unforgiveable slip of the tongue. But Boehler made so many faux pas that one wonders if doing that was really a mistake.

Humanizing The Enemy

For example, Boehler, said that the “most productive [approach to meeting with the Hamas politburo] is to realize that every piece of a person is a human.” While Witkoff garners our sympathy as we view him through the lens of little Alice, Boehler doesn’t garner sympathy. Clearly Witkoff is struggling in his role. He has often had to backtrack on his statements, showing how “in over his head” he is in Doha, Muscat, and Moscow. Boehler, on the other hand, projects confidence and assertiveness, and appears to be dangerously delusional.

In my opinion, there isn’t any piece of the Hamas barbaric jihadists that Boehler met with that is human, particularly not their hands.

It may be true that one of the things hostages did to survive in the hellish tunnels of Gaza was to try to engage with whatever humanity they could solicit from their captors. For example, playing cards with them, asking them about their families, etc. This is an important and useful survival tactic for a hostage, however it is hardly useful for a major world power to use in negotiations with a rogue terrorist regime. One of the wars of the terrorist regime is the propaganda war. Humanizing the enemy works to the terrorists’ advantage in the propaganda war, weakening our negotiating position and decreasing our leverage.

Seeks Accountability

Trump holds Hamas accountable, laying full blame for the bloodshed, hunger and displacement in Gaza at its doorstep. However due to Witkoff, Hamas is no longer dealt with at arm’s length. Witkoff’s diplomacy has muddied what was the most obvious of facts, i.e., that Hamas’s cause is suicidal, fanatical, genocidal, and without a crumb of legitimacy.

Trump doesn’t acknowledge Hamas, other than to issue it ultimatums, while Witkoff sends delusional Boehler to speak directly with the leaders of the extremist death cult.

Trump also wants to hold the sponsors of terrorist activity and organizations accountable. With respect to the Houthis, this means Iran. However, while holding Iran liable is crucial, it won’t be sufficient. Trump must also get to the bottom of the funding of terrorist and Muslim Brotherhood regimes and funding to United States universities, media, and lobbying firms with the hidden agenda of raising up a generation of radical American terrorist sympathizers. That, or course, means Qatar.

However, at the moment there is no holding Qatar accountable for any of its malign support of terrorism due to its position as mediator for the release of the remaining hostages, a very high-priority of Trump, not to mention of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Qatar As Mediator?

You may be wondering, why was a rogue regime like Qatar awarded the role of mediator between Hamas and Israel?

Qatar, Turkey and Egypt all vied for the role of mediator with Hamas over the hostages seized on October 7th. The Biden administration embraced Qatar for the role, as did Germany and other Western countries, because Qatar boasted of a means of communicating with Hamas and implied that it had considerable leverage that it could use due to hosting Hamas’s headquarters and various of its leaders in Doha.

Why else did Qatar get the role it desired as Hamas hostage mediator? It was also due to the perception that this role would be very short-lived. That is, the perception everywhere was that all the hostages were going to be released in a matter of weeks, if not days, for some obscene number of Hamas terrorist prisoners. The West could tolerate the bizarre paradigm of Qatar as mediator because the hostage nightmare and its negotiation were going to be over in the blink of an eye.

No Leverage

But the anticipated leverage over Hamas by Qatar proved false. Once each quarter Qatar threatened to shut down Hamas’s headquarters and throw its heads out of the country if Hamas did not agree to the hostage deal then on the table. However, those threats were all for the consumption of the West and were never carried out. The proof? Hamas has repeatedly not agreed to the deals presented by the negotiators and the current Hamas leaders, such as Khalid Meshaal, Muhammad Ismail Darwish, and others, are still living in Doha. Clearly, Qatar has no ideological or political motivation to oust Hamas. And Witkoff made no such demands.

Therefore, the savage leaders of Hamas, such as Khalid Meshaal and Muhammad Ismail Darwish, and various others that pop in and out, along with two sons of Ismail Haniyeh, reside comfortably in Doha. These so-called leaders reportedly reside at hotels like the Four Seasons where they live like kings, while the populace they claim to represent lives in tents and suffers the deadly consequences of their on-going terror campaign against Israel.

Apparently no amount of suffering in Gaza will motivate the heads of Hamas to return the hostages and lay down their arms. This is jihadist fanaticism, with a twist. The leaders don’t suffer the consequences of their fanaticism, only the residents who remain in Gaza.

I have heard of leaders that lead from the front of the troops, and I’ve heard of leaders that lead from the back of their soldiers’ formation. I have never heard of leaders that lead from the lap of luxury a safe distance from the devastation they unleashed upon their landsmen. This is not leadership, it is modern-day forced starvation and homelessness, akin to human trafficking.

To further highlight their corruption, it appears that these despots have garnered wealth off the backs of Gazans, resulting in a net worth that rivals that of a multinational CEO. Meshaal’s worth is estimated at $4 billion, which is the same as was Haniyeh’s, whose two eldest sons split their time between the bars and discos of Istanbul and Doha.

It would serve the interests of the populace of Gaza to depose these human traffickers. However, that isn’t possible since a sovereign state gives them a safe haven. It is beyond the imagination to fathom a country that would allow such perpetrators of crimes against humanity a safe haven, yet one exists, and that is Qatar.

Qatar Is A Bad Actor

Qatar is not only a supporter and protectorate of Hamas; it stealthily funds numerous other activist terrorists with a Muslim Brotherhood ideology around the globe. The regime’s stealth funding of terror and the Moslem Brotherhood creates havoc and instability the world over, which is contrary to the peace and prosperity that Trump wishes to usher in for the United States, its allies, and the rest of the world.

Qatar is a rogue regime even within its own borders. In order to build the stadiums needed to host the World Cup in 2022, Qatar imported large numbers of South Asian foreign workers. The number of workers that went home in coffins shocked Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. In 2021 Human Rights Watch publicized that foreign workers were suffering from horrid working conditions and wage and labor abuse. Further, Human Rights Watch estimated that there were thousands of deaths of migrant workers, mostly from heart attacks caused by working long hours in extreme heat, although the Qatari government claimed there were 40 such deaths over a period of six years when the stadiums were being built.

Undermines Democracies

In addition to its malign activities mentioned above, Qatar pours funds into Western not-for-profit organizations and lobbyists to buy influence to allow it to promote anti-West ideologies to a variety of constituencies. Here are a few examples of how Qatar pursues its jihadist agenda within Western democracies. A much more detailed expose can be found in The Free Press article, How Qatar Bought America, by Frannie Block and Jay Solomon (May 13, 2025).

Quoting Dr. Charles Small, CEO of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (“ISGAP”), Ynet reported on March 20, 2025 that for years Qatar has been using “soft power” to shape narratives and policies in the United States, Europe and Israel by investing large sums in lobbying firms, academia, research and media. The investments discovered included $3 billion in donations to Yale and other universities over a number of years that were not reported as required by law, i.e., they were undisclosed foreign funding, not to mention all the funding in the U.S. that was disclosed.

According to a researcher at ISGAP, Qatari funding reached K-12 education in the U.S. by providing teachers with Middle East history courses, including travel expenses and registration fees paid for by funding from the Qatar Foundation International. The courses incorporated an overtly anti-Israel narrative, including questioning Israel’s legitimacy, omitting historical facts such as the Balfour Declaration and the Abraham Accords, and erasing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. The researcher explained that this is not an issue only for Israel because Qatar is “[a] foreign nation [that] is promoting an ideology that is fundamentally anti-Western and anti-democratic, directly influencing American children without any oversight….” The lack of oversight is accomplished by stealth funding of institutions within the US. Even where there is reporting, there is a lack of oversight that has allowed Qatar to buy influence and then shape narratives with anti-democratic ideologies.

According to The Free Press (April 27, 2025), Qatar is the largest source of reported foreign donations to U.S. universities since reporting began in 1986, with $6.3 billion coming from the Gulf state, over $2 billion of which was given between 2021 and 2024.

Al Jazeera

We can take stock of the narratives Qatar is flouting from the information spread around the globe by the Al Jazeera news network that launched in 1996, now boasting 430 million readers in 150 countries. Wikipedia states that Al Jazeera is a private media conglomerate that is funded by the government of Qatar.

According to The Jerusalem Post (February 13, 2025), the broadcast of a recent Al Jazeera investigative program called the October 7th massacre in Southern Israel a “legitimate military operation” led by a “warrior leader” named Yahya Sinwar.

Furthermore, according to The Jerusalem Post, the program claimed that the attack was aimed solely at Israeli military personnel while avoiding harm to civilians, and that the attack was a “religious jihad justified by Islam.”

According to The New York Times (February 17, 2016), Al Jazeera American merited being banned in the U.S. in 2016 because Qatar had given a well-known Muslim Brotherhood cleric, Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent platform on the news network from which he espoused the concept that “Americans in Iraq are all fighters and invaders” and there is “a duty for all Muslims” to kill them.

Al Udeid Airforce Base

It is important to mention that the United States has an air force base in Qatar, the Al Udeid, that hosts American and U.K. Royal Air force military personnel. The base is home to 11,000 American troops. Although Qatar is an excellent strategic location for the base, it puts the United States in an awkward and untenable position. That is, the United States is free to condemn Iran for supporting terror, however, it is constrained by the use of the base and other entanglements from condemning Qatar’s malign activities.

Trump took office just a handful of months ago. Thus, it is perhaps premature for the president to be doing an analysis of how the use of the Al Udeid air force base and other entanglements with Qatar undermines his foreign policy objectives. However, once the fires raging in the Middle East and Ukraine are put out, the Trump doctrine of peace through strength should require that the president take stock of the cost of the United States’ alliance with Qatar. And if the president doesn’t take stock, then our senators and congressional representatives should.

To accomplish our nation’s most important foreign policy and domestic objectives, it should become clear that we need to go our separate ways vis-à-vis Qatar. The inertia of the past should not prevent the Trump administration from disrupting something that never should have happened in the first place, which is agreeing to house our air force at the base built by Qatar as a “favor” to the United States. We need to do an analysis of the price we are paying for cozying up to a regime that is stealthily funding terrorism, the Moslem Brotherhood, the axis of resistance, and anti-Western ideologies all over the world, including on our college campuses.

More on this in a later section. It appears to this writer that Trump’s primary goal in his very recent first trip abroad to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the Emirates was to secure economic and defense contracts that position the United States as the leading world power in the region, as opposed to China. For this reason, making deals with Qatar in addition to the more ideologically aligned Emirates, a member of the Abraham Accords and the builder of a state-of-the-art multi-faith center that houses a mosque, a church, and a synagogue, as well as the progressively-oriented regime led by Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud in Saudi Arabia, was expedient at the moment, to oppose China’s designs on the region.

The dilemma for the Trump administration is going to be how to implement these new agreements with Qatar without compromising United States’ national security and Western values, which a regime with the ideology of the Moslem Brotherhood as its core ideology is sworn to undermine.

Qatar Versus Iran

It is worth noting that Qatar and Iran, the two main supporters of the axis of resistance, operate differently, albeit they have a shared vision for the Middle East —and the world — with a caliphate and Sharia law at the vortex of their vision.

Qatari support of terrorism is strictly funding, primarily stealth funding, making it difficult to know the extent and the recipients of its largesse. Media sources report that Qatar spent $1.8 billion financing Palestinian resistance groups since the early 2000’s, which averages to be $72 million per year.

This differs markedly from Iran’s funding to Hamas’s military wing in addition to donating equipment, training and military advisors to the cause. It is estimated that Iran has contributed $350 million a year since 2020 to Hamas’ efforts to stay in power in Gaza and rain destruction on Israel. Together with Qatar’s generous funding of $72 million a year, Hamas is flush with cash to the tune of over $420 million per year since 2020, not to mention a sizable budget prior to 2020. Hamas has tyrannically ruled Gaza since 2007. No president can look at the world bustling with anti–West propaganda and activism and not see that wealthy Qatar – the county that has long been funding terrorist entities and organizations – is no friend or ally of the United States in spite of Al Udeid, whose upkeep is paid for in full by Qatar.

Qatar’s stealth funding of Moslem Brotherhood entities and terror activities destabilizes not just the Middle East, but also the entire world, which is contrary to the goals of peace and prosperity that is the bedrock of Trump’s foreign policy. This is not only an issue for Israel with respect to Qatar’s funding of Hamas and the axis of resistance, as there are many rogue and terrorist regimes that get their coffers filled by Qatar. In stealth, Qatar’s funding of malign regimes undermines world trade and increases drug and human trafficking.

Continues As Mediator

The facts mentioned above beg the question: why is Qatar still in the mediator role? Inertia and lack of a credible replacement are the simple, obvious answers. Once a rogue regime gains power in a specific arena it takes a great deal of international muscle to wrest it from them. In this case, the UN member states that are rogue regimes themselves are happy with the situation, which aligns perfectly with their malign support of Hamas.

Another answer emerges when he look closely at ties between the Trump family and the Qatari royal family. Not only was Witkoff bailed out of a bankruptcy-threatening real estate deal by the benevolent Qataris, so was Jared Kushner. In 2007 Kushner’s purchase of an office building in Manhattan for $1.8 billion turned out to be financially crippling. According to The New York Times, in or about 2016, an investment firm with ties to the Al Thani royal family bailed Kushner out. Furthermore, after Trump left office in 2021, Kushner solicited investments for Affinity Partners, his newly formed investment fund, from what is known as the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund. It has been reported that Qatar became the second largest investor in Affinity Partners after Saudi Arabia, and that in 2024 the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund added another sizeable investment to its prior investment in Affinity Partners, raising its total investment to between $1 and $1.5 billion. It is difficult to know the exact amount of Qatari investment since the disclosures made state that Qatar and a UAE firm called Lunate together invested $1.5 billion in Affinity Partners in 2024.

In my opinion it was a collateral misstep to give Qatar, a significant funder of Hamas and other terrorist organizations around the world, a role as a mediator in the hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas. This role, however, won’t last forever, and the day of Qatar’s reckoning is coming. The Qatari rulers must answer for their regimes’ support of terror, which is a crime against humanity, and none of Witkoff’s praises will exonerate them. Their investments in Affinity Partners also should not protect them from a true reckoning.

Trump To Do What?

It is also terribly distressing to read about a proposed $400 million gift to President Trump from the Qataris in the form of an Air Force One jet. Considering Qatari malign activities around the globe — and right here in our own backyard — that need to be reined in by sanctions and other forceful governmental policies, this further enmeshment is contrary to U.S. interests. Although Trump is busy making economic deals with the Qataris and President Biden extended the lease on Al Udeid for another decade, there are no executive actions that are not enshrined in a treaty that can’t be overturned for national security reasons.

Witkoff In Doha

Back to Witkoff. Despite Doha never using its leverage to save hostages’ lives, Witkoff has had nothing but praise for the chief negotiator from Qatar, Mohammed Bin Abdulaziz al Khalifa. He has dubbed Qatar as a “peace maker,” forgetting that a central tenet of Qatari foreign policy is the funding of Islamic terrorism around the world, including sending substantial funds to American colleges to teach the Jihadist version of Middle East history and drum up vocal and violent support for the axis of resistance.

The special envoy used his role to reward his benefactors, the Qataris, for bailing him and Jared Kushner out, and for investing in Affinity Partners. Instead of lavishing praise on Qatar, Witkoff should have maintained allegiance to his mission to free the hostages, a mission that required pressure, not praise, on Qatar.

Furthermore, praising Qatar undermines Trump’s domestic policy objective to eliminate anti-American, diabolical foreign influences within the United States’ academia, which is going to mean surgically removing Qatar’s funding and influence from our universities and educational institutions. But poor little Witkoff, similar to Alice, says that the Qataris are wonderful. “After all,” says Alice, “they served me tea!”

The first thing Witkoff should have done, even prior to accepting the role of special envoy, should have been to demand that the negotiations be moved from Doha to a different location, one which is not home to Hamas’s leaders. In fact, this should have been a condition before the Qataris were allowed to assume the role of mediator, a role they lobbied for. And since the Qataris wanted Witkoff to represent the United States in the negotiations, he could have also used this as leverage to situate negotiations on neutral soil. Can you imagine, for instance, that Putin would agree to negotiations regarding the Ukraine in London? Witkoff then should have demanded that the Red Cross visit the hostages and report on their condition.

Furthermore, if there was no hostage deal within 10 days of the first session, then all of Hamas had to be evicted from Doha or Qatar had to resign as mediator. These demands would have been stepping-stones to establishing boundaries to create the right paradigm in which to negotiate. Instead, Witkoff, like Alice, couldn’t quite figure out the contradictions and characters that he encountered in Doha and he is tricked by their deceit. He admitted as much when speaking to Fox News on March 23, 2025, “I thought we had an acceptable deal…maybe that was just me getting duped….” Witkoff, similar to poor little Alice, is befuddled and he doesn’t make any of the demands referenced above.

Witkoff In Moscow

Witkoff, performed just as badly when meeting for the fourth time with President Putin in Moscow on April 25, 2025.

Putin informed Witkoff that he prayed for Trump and that he had commissioned a painting of Trump as a gift for the president. That was all Witkoff could talk about after the meeting in Moscow. That would all be fine and good if the war in Ukraine was something we read about in history books. However, the war in Ukraine is still raging and it has morphed into one of the longest and bloodiest wars since WWII, lasting over three years and, as of March 31, 2025, taking the lives of approximately 160,000 Ukrainian and Russian soldiers and Ukrainian civilians, according to Kyiv, U.N. statistics, and open-source data published by the BBC. However, there is evidence that the death toll is actually exponentially higher.

Putin claimed, and Witkoff then faithfully parroted, that the September 2022 elections in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions of the Ukraine had the overwhelming result of proving that the residents in those areas want to be part of the Russian Federation. However, Putin’s claims were roundly criticized and controverted in every corner of the free world. The TASS Russian State News Agency admitted that most of the voting was carried out by poll workers under armed guard, bringing paper ballots door to door, as the process was so rushed that there wasn’t time to set up a more complex voting infrastructure. Further, according to The Kiev Independent, there are a significant number of soldiers fighting Putin’s army from those very regions.

Do we see a pattern? The morality goes something like this: whoever cozies up to Witkoff is a hero and can do no wrong. That makes foreign diplomacy simple and the world a comprehensible place. Personal relationships replace all past and present crimes and we dance together with jihadists —murderers and rapists and their deniers — because otherwise the world is just too baffling and confusing for poor little Alice.