The winds didn’t just blow hot when Donald J. Trump recently touched down in Qatar on the first visit ever to the Gulf state by a sitting US president, which generated deals worth US$s1.2 trillion.

They also blew cold, chilled by a long-standing, Israel-inspired campaign aimed to sully Qatar’s reputation.

Donald J. Trump and the American economy are two beneficiaries of the president’s Gulf road show. So are the Gulf states, Syria, and Make America Great Again supporters within Mr. Trump’s administration.

In less than 24 hours in the kingdom, Mr. Trump received a standing ovation from Arab leaders and hundreds of thousands poured into the streets of Syrian towns and cities to celebrate his lifting of long-standing crippling sanctions—a rare achievement for an American president.

On the surface, Syrians, Saudis, and Israel critics have much to celebrate, including Syrians’ prospects for reconstruction, Gulf states’ defense, technology, and aviation mega deals with the United States, and seemingly upgraded Gulf relations with the US that potentially put them more on par with Israel.

Even so, Mr. Trump has yet to pass the litmus test on whether, how much, and what history he wrote on his Gulf tour, packaged in pomp and circumstance.

Syria could be the Middle East’s next exploding powder keg.

Alarm bells went off in Jerusalem and pro-Israel circles in Washington when US President Donald J. Trump this week announced a truce in America’s Red Sea tanker war with Yemen’s Houthi rebels that failed to take Israeli interests into account.

Mr. Trump’s announcement of a deal that protects US assets and international shipping but leaves space for continued Houthi targeting of Israel suggested that the president and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu differed on multiple issues, including Yemen, Gaza, and Iran.

US President Donald J. Trump and Hamas have separately opened a Pandora’s Box that could fuel Middle Eastern fires for years to come.

Hamas did so when it unleashed Israel’s assault on Gaza with its October 7, 2023, attack on Israel that killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians.

With more than 50,000 dead and tens of thousands wounded and/or maimed for life, Palestinians have paid a stark price.

Israel’s assault has devastated the Strip and opened the door to Israeli reoccupation 20 years after the Jewish state withdrew its forces from the territory.

Mr. Trump played his part when he called in February during Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s first visit to Washington this year for resettling Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians elsewhere and turning the Strip into a high-end luxury real estate development.

In doing so, Mr. Trump allowed Israel to adopt a plan long envisioned by ultra-nationalists but not the general public as its official policy.

Now, the Pandora’s Box could come home to haunt Mr. Trump as he prepares to visit the Gulf next week.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s embrace of the global far-right faces a difficult choice.

The question for Mr. Netanyahu is whether to maintain Israel’s boycott of Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD), the country’s second-largest political party, and Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ) amid an escalating feud between the Trump administration and Germany over attitudes toward the far right.

Algeria may be the latest target in efforts to garner further Arab recognition of the Jewish state, despite its Gaza war conduct and rejection of Palestinian national aspirations.

To that end, a Philadelphia-based far-right pro-Israeli organisation, the Middle East Forum, has put Algeria in its crosshairs in an apparent attempt to build pressure on the North African state to establish diplomatic relations with Israel.

Algeria would be a prize catch.

Netanyahu hardens his position despite pressure to lift the Gaza blockade by James M. Dorsey

The coming days will tell whether it’s crunch time for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

The litmus test will be whether US President Donald J. Trump forces Mr. Netanyahu to lift his almost two-months-long blocking of the flow of humanitarian aid into war-ravaged Gaza.

Betar, the far-right youth movement of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, is happy to help US President Donald J. Trump curtail pro-Palestinian speech and academic freedoms.

That has mainstream American Jews fear that the Trump administration’s crackdown on democratic freedoms of speech, assembly, and academia will fuel anti-Semitism rather than enhance their security.