Jacob Helberg, the under secretary of state for economic growth, energy and environment, told House lawmakers on Tuesday that the administration’s Pax Silica initiative could help pave a path toward normalization between Israel and Qatar.

The initiative, which has become the State Department’s flagship effort on AI and supply chain security, currently includes 10 signatories and five non-signatory participants. Israel joined the framework in December 2025, with Qatar signing on the following month. 

“Consider what this coalition has already accomplished that traditional diplomacy could not. Qatar and Israel now sit inside the same economic framework,” Helberg said during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on advancing national security through diplomacy. “A new road toward normalization built not on the same ideology, but on shared supply chains.”

During his testimony, Helberg also pointed to the United Arab Emirates’ early participation in the Abraham Accords, saying the UAE joined “incredibly early at great political cost to itself,” as evidence that economic and security frameworks can reshape regional relationships.

Helberg told Jewish Insider similarly upon returning from Doha for the Pax Silica signing, “My trip to the Middle East was actually incredibly significant, because this is the first time that Israel and Qatar have been brought under the same framework and signed the same document to actually agree that shared supply chains are more important than shared ideologies.”

“When people do business together, when people focus on shared goals, you inherently create, identify and focus on things that people agree on. It’s certainly my hope that this will pave the way for peace and economic integration of the region,” he continued.

But despite Helberg’s optimism, relations between Jerusalem and Doha remain deeply strained, and formal normalization appears distant.

Israel and Qatar do not maintain diplomatic ties, and Israeli and U.S. officials and policy experts remain wary of Doha’s support of anti-Western movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood and hosting of Hamas officials. 

During the war in Gaza, Doha served as a key intermediary between Israel and Hamas, helping broker temporary ceasefires and hostage-release agreements. That role was disrupted on Sept. 9, 2025, when Israeli aircraft struck Hamas figures in Doha, killing a Qatari security guard and prompting the Gulf state to scale back its mediation efforts.At the urging of the Trump administration, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later spoke with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani to express regret over the strike.