With talks for an additional deal dragging on, Qatar continues to be the principle facilitator for negotiations.
Through the years, the energy-rich state has leveraged its in depth diplomatic relationships — together with with militant teams corresponding to Hamas and the Taliban, and U.S. adversaries together with Russia — to barter delicate points throughout worldwide conflicts. Qatar has bristled at current criticism, together with from Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), that it has not completed sufficient to push Hamas towards a deal, arguing that it stays impartial. The nation mentioned this week that it will reevaluate its function as a mediator, though no change appeared imminent.
Right here’s what to find out about Qatar’s function as a regional mediator.
How has Qatar been concerned?
Qatar was integral in facilitating the negotiations for the November deal for a pause in preventing and, earlier than that, helped safe the discharge of two American hostages for what Hamas mentioned have been “humanitarian causes.”
The nation has been concerned in subsequent talks, with dozens of hostages nonetheless believed to be held in Gaza. The negotiations have in current months bounced between Paris, Doha and Cairo. Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and international affairs minister, has participated within the dealings alongside intelligence officers from Israel, america and Egypt.
Why does Qatar have sway?
Qatar, a robust supporter of the Palestinians in addition to regional Islamist actions, has maintained ties with Hamas going again almost twenty years. Prior to now, Qatar tried to mediate disputes between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Fatah motion within the West Financial institution. In 2012, Qatar’s then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, turned the primary head of state to go to Hamas-controlled Gaza, pledging lots of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in assist. Hamas leaders have been hosted in Doha, Qatar’s capital, for years.
Qatar has additionally saved low-level relations with Israel at a time when different Persian Gulf nations have been firmly against any outreach. Within the Nineteen Nineties, Qatar allowed an Israeli commerce workplace because the nation’s solely outpost within the gulf.
After taking up from his father, the present emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has declined to comply with a few of Qatar’s neighbors in totally normalizing relations with Israel. Qatari officers mentioned that such a step would solely comply with peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
What are Qatar’s different mediation initiatives?
A gas-rich state of two.7 million individuals, Qatar has tried to exert affect in regional and international affairs, together with by way of mediation efforts that started in earnest within the mid-2000s, in keeping with Sultan Barakat, a professor on the Qatar Basis’s Hamad Bin Khalifa College. Barakat wrote a 2014 paper about these initiatives, together with early makes an attempt to mediate in Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, and between Israel and Hamas.
“Previous to 2011, these efforts produced blended outcomes,” he wrote. Starting that 12 months, as pro-democracy protests unfold across the Center East, Qatar was much less seen for its diplomacy and extra intently related to help for the Arab Spring uprisings in addition to Islamist teams concerned within the revolts. These interventions earned Qatar the ire of regional powers, together with the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Tensions with neighbors got here to a head in 2017. Saudi Arabia and others — angered by Doha’s ties with militant teams and Iran and by its sponsorship of the Al Jazeera information channel — imposed a years-long financial blockade of Qatar, reducing hyperlinks by land, sea and air.
Qatar, which has maintained relations with Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban motion for years, performed a key function serving to america evacuate its residents and allies through the chaotic American withdrawal from the nation in 2021. In September 2023, Qatar helped safe the discharge of 5 People held by Iran.
What are the advantages and dangers to Qatar?
The diplomatic forays are a part of a bundle of “delicate energy” initiatives Qatar has used to buttress its international standing and distinguish itself from regional rivals, an effort that features internet hosting campuses of American universities and supporting sports activities groups, together with staging the 2022 World Cup.
The mediation — particularly when it advantages america — can be used as a guard in opposition to a few of the criticism Qatar has acquired for supporting teams thought-about terrorist entities by Western nations.
Qatar this week emphasised that it needs to be seen as a impartial social gathering within the negotiations between Hamas and Israel. “Qatar is simply a mediator — we don’t management Israel or Hamas,” Qatar’s embassy in Washington mentioned in a assertion. The remarks got here after Hoyer referred to as on Qatar to push Hamas to just accept a deal. In an announcement Monday, he inspired Qatar to think about “refusing to grant Hamas’ leaders refuge in Doha” as leverage. “If Qatar fails to use this strain, america should reevaluate its relationship with Qatar,” he mentioned.
The Qatari Embassy mentioned it was “shocked by his menace,” and mentioned Doha’s “mediation function exists solely as a result of we have been requested by america in 2012 to play this function since, regrettably, Israel and Hamas refuse to talk to one another instantly.” The Washington Publish reported in October that america and Qatar had agreed to revisit Qatari relations with Hamas after the hostage disaster, however it was unclear whether or not the reassessment would come with the expulsion of Hamas leaders from Doha. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators final month referred to as for Qatar to cease internet hosting Hamas’s political workplace in Doha.
Qatar’s Overseas Ministry mentioned in a assertion Wednesday that mischaracterization of its mediation efforts has “necessitated a complete analysis by Qatar of its function.”
