The wealthy emirate of Qatar has been heavily investing around the world in land, art, professional sports, and media. This week, it made a play to corner the market in another high-profile industry: chutzpah.

Qatar is upset because Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a not-nice thing about them. On a recording, Bibi can be heard talking to families of Hamas hostages about diplomacy with the Gulf petrostate: “Qatar, from my point of view, is no different in essence than the United Nations… and the Red Cross.” Qatar is in fact even “more problematic,” he said, but it’s worth dealing with them if they’ll “help me get [the hostages] home.”

He added: “I have no illusions about them. They have leverage [over Hamas]… Because [Qatar] funds them.”

In other words, Netanyahu was defending Qatar’s role in the negotiating process as necessary because they have leverage over Hamas, but he is aware that that same leverage also makes them morally compromised.

Qatar is acting insulted, but Netanyahu’s comment strikes me as the nicest thing anyone could possibly say about Qatar in private.

“If the reported remarks are found to be true, the Israeli PM would only be obstructing and undermining the mediation process, for reasons that appear to serve his political career instead of prioritizing saving innocent lives, including Israeli hostages,” tweeted a spokesman for the Qatari Foreign Ministry.

The Qatari statement is idiotic. If Netanyahu had said this publicly, one could argue that it would be a breach of diplomatic politesse. Ill-advised, at the very least. But if Netanyahu is explaining in private why the usual objections about Qatar shouldn’t disqualify them from the diplomatic process, then the reaction is thin-skinned bush-league whining.

Fact is, Qatar funds and enables Hamas. It hosts Hamas leadership. And as Jonathan Schanzer wrote here last month, “In their efforts to steer the Gaza conflict toward a permanent ceasefire, the Qataris have actively tried to help save Hamas from destruction, which is Israel’s stated war aim.”

Qatar is a major reason that Hamas has the capabilities it possesses to pull off barbaric invasions like its Oct. 7 rampage, which resulted in the hostage standoff that it is supposedly helping to solve. I’m glad they’ve played some productive role in all this, but it is the role of an arsonist putting out the flames in a few of the rooms of the building it set ablaze. The suggestion that they’re doing the world a favor is risible.

In fact, Qatar has been far less useful than it should have been throughout the hostage crisis. Israel has had to turn to the Egyptians time and again when Qatar’s gold-plated incompetence gets put on display. That ineptitude is one reason Israel is in Gaza collecting the bodies of its citizens. Qatar is very good at ensuring the money keeps flowing to its clients but not very good at predicting what, exactly, its clients are preparing to do with that largesse.

Benjamin Netanyahu didn’t say any of this, of course. Publicly, he said nothing unkind, and privately, he offered mild criticism but no objections to Qatar’s role in the hostage negotiations. Qatar should put a Band-Aid on its wounded ego and go back to helping to fix a fraction of the problems it has caused the free world.