One of the lesser noted aspects of the weeklong truce between Israel and Hamas, which collapsed at the beginning of this month, was the country that made it possible: not the US, nor the EU, but Qatar. Even though the ceasefire faltered and the Israeli military has resumed its devastating attack on Gaza, the negotiations helped cement Qatar’s role as a global mediator. But why Qatar – and what do its rulers really want?
A tiny emirate in the Persian Gulf that is rich in natural gas, Qatar seems an unlikely centre for high-stakes geopolitical negotiations. Yet the country’s leaders have built a muscular foreign policy based on keeping channels open between enemies: in recent years, Qatar has hosted peace negotiations between the US and Taliban leaders, and indirect talks that led to a prisoner exchange between Iran and Washington. Just this week, it was reported that Qatar had distributed billions of dollars in aid to people in Gaza over the past decade, with the tacit approval of the Israeli government.
The Israel-Hamas negotiations are the most high stakes undertaken by Qatar’s leaders, but they have also exposed Qatar to new potential dangers. Since Hamas’s brutal attacks on 7 October, Republicans and other rightwing politicians in the US and Israel have stepped up their attacks on Qatar for hosting the group’s leadership in the capital city, Doha, framing the issue as an example of the emirate supporting terrorism. Mike Lee, a Republican US senator from Idaho, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “Qatar has blood on its hands” and demanded that Joe Biden’s administration force the Qataris to “arrest Hamas leaders and seize their assets”.
Qatari officials insist that they decided to host Hamas’s political leaders........