It took just a few hours after Hamas’ assault on Israel for Qatar’s prime minister to assemble a team at an undisclosed location in the capital, Doha. As the images emerged of missile attacks, gunmen on motorbikes and hostages seized across the border from Gaza, the Gulf state’s leadership knew what it needed to do.
As the days unfolded from Oct. 7, the round-the-clock operation worked the phone lines — one to Hamas, another to the Israelis — to mediate as retaliatory bombs rained on Gaza, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
For Qatar, it was a case of cometh the hour, cometh the country. The nation has spent more than a decade trying to position itself as the Middle East’s indispensable go-between, criticized by its neighbors for housing Hamas leaders while maintaining channels to Israel. The time had come to step up.
It’s that status in an unstable region that Qatar sees as key to the security of the tiny peninsula, sandwiched between the two great rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran. The crisis in Gaza — with Israel launching a ground invasion over the weekend — has now become the ultimate test of Qatar’s ability to show its Western allies they need it as much as it needs them.
“Qatar has wanted to play a useful role for important states for a very long time,” said David Roberts, an associate professor at King’s College London who worked in Qatar and specializes in Middle East security. “It gives Qatar a certain influence on one of the central questions in the Arab world, building up relations with this very important group in Gaza — like it or loathe it.”
In a soft-power play backed by its $475 billion sovereign wealth fund, the gas-rich nation put itself on the international stage. Over the years, it invested in companies like Barclays and Volkswagen, bought Paris Saint-Germain football club and hosted the World Cup. Its Doha-based broadcaster, Al Jazeera, also helped put it on the map.
Meanwhile, Qatar sought diplomatic influence with everyone. It’s had on-off trade ties with Israel since 1996, even though it doesn’t have formal diplomatic relations with the Jewish state. It liaised with the Taliban in Afghanistan — hosting them in exile — and helped mediate the release of American prisoners from Iran.
Source: Bloomberg