A two-sentence tweet by Israel’s national security adviser has revealed the acute dilemma Israel and the west face in dealing with Qatar, the energy-rich state that has positioned itself as a mediator of conflicts around the world, from Khartoum to Kabul.
“I’m pleased to say that Qatar is becoming an essential party and stakeholder in the facilitation of humanitarian solutions,” Tzachi Hanegbi wrote. “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time.”
Qatar is using its voluminous diplomatic contacts book to mediate with Hamas for the release of more than 200 hostages captured when the militant group struck at Israel, leaving hundreds dead in a series of massacres.
Hanegbi does not often tweet, and wrote in English, not Hebrew, to ensure his message was widely understood.
Some interpreted his remarks simply as a hint that the rumoured release of as many as 50 hostages was imminent, a view supported by optimistic noises coming from Qatari diplomats. Others saw it as a sign that Hanegbi felt it necessary to redress the diplomatic offence caused by the Israeli foreign minister, Eli Cohen, who used the stage of the UN security council in New York to lay into Qatar, saying it “finances and harbours Hamas leaders”.
A third group saw the tweet as a form of national humiliation: the national security adviser of Israel was prostrating himself in front of a country that subsidised Hamas rule in Gaza and is now negotiating to undo some of the damage in which its client is implicated. Jonathan Schanzer, from the Washington Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said: “This is the most worrying statement from an Israeli official I have seen in this war. Qatar, a state sponsor of Hamas and an enemy of Israel (to be quite clear), is influencing the timing of Israel’s ground manoeuvres in Gaza.”
Either way, attention is being drawn once again to Qatar’s pivotal role as the Gulf’s answer to the UN, its motivations, modus operandi and how successful its efforts have been over the past 20 years. Qatar will probably be less concerned by the debate inside Israel than whether it finds echoes in the Biden administration. Qatar hosts a US forward military base at Al Udeid, and for its work in helping American service members and Afghan refugees flee the Taliban it was rewarded with the status of “a major non-Nato ally”.
The question Qatar faces is whether, in offering itself as mediator to the world, it has found itself not allied with, but too close to forces that – after the events of 7 October – the US can no longer tolerate.
Qatar has been at the mediation game for more than 20 years. No harm is done to a country’s image if it is cast as peacemaker and neutral problem-solver, as Switzerland and Norway can attest. In the Middle East, Oman often hosts reconciliation talks free from disruptive public glare. Kuwait also plays the role of therapist when the Gulf family falls out, as it did for three years when Qatar suffered a Saudi-led economic boycott between 2017 and 2020.
But Qatar is the pre-eminent mediator. Whether it is addressing civil wars or releasing hostages, Qatar likes to make itself useful, and in the process display its value to the larger surrounding powers. In September, Qatar helped secure the release of five Americans held by Iran, acting as the banker for the transfer of Iranian money frozen in Korea. Earlier this month, Qatar was in the middle of an effort to free Ukrainian hostages held by Russia. It has even played a role in brokering talks between the US and Nicaragua that might lead to fresh elections in return for sanctions relief. And it was at the Sheraton Grand Doha in February 2020 that the US and Taliban negotiated the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, leading to the fall of Kabul 17 months later.
In May, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, the Qatari prime minister, held secret talks with the supreme leader of the Taliban in Kandahar in an effort to make progress on the Taliban’s recognition. Stretching back, it has brokered deals, of varying durability, in Lebanon, Darfur and Yemen.
Now it faces its greatest test. If it can secure the release of all the hostages in Gaza, at a price Israel is willing to pay, its star will be in the ascendant. Yet the fate of the hostages cannot be treated as self-standing. As a defender of the Palestinian cause, Doha knows that once the hostages are released, Gaza will be laid open to an Israeli ground offensive. Equally if the hostage negotiation collapses, its claim that it housed the political wing of Hamas in Doha for a decade to maintain influence and lines of communication will look threadbare.
Qatar insists that, just as Taliban negotiators were given offices in Doha on the suggestion of the Americans, so Hamas officials came with US approval to Qatar from Damascus in 2012 as Syria was gripped by civil war. Both Khaled Mashal, the former head of Hamas, and Ismail Haniyeh, the current chief, operate from Doha. Both men are under US sanctions, but America’s secretary of state, Antony Blinken, under pressure from Republicans to break with Qatar, has so far appeared in public genuinely grateful for Doha’s mediation.
For those that say Qatar should never have engaged with Hamas, it is worth recalling that, after Hamas unexpectedly won free parliamentary elections in 2006 in Gaza and then threw out its rival, Fatah, in a bloody battle in 2007, many respectable western voices, ranging from Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, Efraim Halevy, the ex-director of the Mossad, and Lt Gen Michael Flynn, the former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, favoured engagement with Hamas, warning that the group might not be as bad as it gets. With al-Qaida rearing its head, Halevy for instance said: “We are dealing in issues which are existential to free society. When you look around for potential allies in this war sometimes you have to settle for strange bedfellows.” Flynn said: “If Hamas were destroyed and gone, we would probably end up with something much worse,” adding by which he meant Islamic State, ironically the terror group to which Joe Biden now likens Hamas.
Tony Blair, as the Middle East Quartet envoy, in 2006 backed Israel’s call for a boycott of Hamas, but a decade later admitted this had been a mistake, saying “we should have pulled them into dialogue”. Out of office, he privately met Mashal numerous times in his home in Doha as part of an effort to secure a truce with Israel.
It was in Doha too, with Qatar’s encouragement, that, after a four-year debate, Hamas issued a set of principles in May 2017 that took the group closer to accepting a Palestinian state on 1967 borders, so aligning their views closer to Egypt than Iran.
Israel has been ambivalent about Qatar’s proximity to Hamas. At one level it liked Qatar providing funding to keep Gaza from reaching boiling point. But relations have been deteriorating for years.
The current emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has for instance refused to join the path to normalisation with Israel chosen by some of his Gulf partners. The downturn started in 2007 when Qatar was one of the only countries to back Hamas in the falling out with Fatah. Qatar had urged Hamas to stand in the elections. When Israel responded with Egypt by imposing its blockade on Gaza, Qatar felt it had no option at a humanitarian level but to come to the aid of Palestinians. In 2012, its then-emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, became the first head of state to visit Gaza under Hamas rule, pledging to raise $400m toward reconstruction. By 2018 these payments were approved by Israel.
Mohammed Al Emadi, Qatar’s envoy to Gaza and chair of the Gaza Reconstruction Committee, has since 2012 been a chief contact point for Israel and Hamas. He says his persistent message has been to get both sides to agree to a long-term ceasefire, even one lasting five to 10 years, involving Israel lifting its blockade. Qatar’s other persistent theme has been Palestinian unity.
Precisely how much Qatar had poured into Gaza, only for the buildings to be destroyed again, is not known, but Qatar itself has put the figure at £2.1bn. Despite the largesse, the average per capita income of a Palestinian stood at only 8% of an Israeli’s in 2022.
The payments have ebbed and flowed, either due to concern the money was reaching Hamas, or – for instance in the summer of 2023 – because Qatar possibly looked unfavourably on the increasingly pro-Iranian remarks of Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza.
After the massacre earlier this month, those Israelis that condemned Qatar for propping up Hamas feel vindicated. Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister, said this week: “Israel’s stated goal is to destroy Hamas. Qatar’s goal is the exact opposite: to save Hamas.”
Qatar, he predicted “will introduce limited hostage deals every few days to confuse Israel and hinder its efforts to eradicate Hamas”. Qatar’s critics point to its condemnation of Israel as being solely responsible for the escalation after the Hamas massacre as the true indicator of its politics. The funding of the media outlet Al Jazeera is another blot.
Dr Kristian Ulrichsen, Middle East fellow at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, said the successful release of four hostages showed Qatar retains the ability to engage with Hamas.
“What comes next, either after the hostage crisis is resolved or Israel mounts a ground invasion of Gaza, will be the challenge, as it is difficult to see Israel going back to the pre-7 October status quo, given the magnitude and scale of the Hamas attacks,” he said.
“… It is at times like this that Qatar’s strategy of developing and maintaining working relations with myriad groups and putting itself forth as an intermediary between parties which cannot engage directly will be put to the test.
“It became apparent after the fall of Kabul in 2021 that the Taliban representatives which had been based in Qatar since 2013, with tacit US support, were sidelined by more hardline factions back home, and the concern for Qatar and the international community will be that the same has been shown to be true of the Hamas political office in Doha vis-a-vis those in Gaza who planned and carried out the attacks”.
Blinken was asked on 13 October whether he had pressed Qatar to close the Hamas political bureau in Doha. He deflected the question but did say: “There can be no more business as usual with Hamas.” Quite what that will mean for Hamas and Qatar is not yet clear.
