Qatar’s strategy of backing Islamists while also offering itself as a key US ally had long infuriated its neighbors.
By NEVILLE TELLERThe logo for the 2022 Qatar World Cup displayed on Doha Tower (photo credit: NASEEM ZEITOON/REUTERS)
Qatar – dubbed “the wild card of the Middle East” – makes for an intriguing case study. Not much is generally known about this stand-alone Gulf state except perhaps that it established what is now a global media empire called Al Jazeera, that its national airline is a long-time sponsor of the Sky News TV channel, and that it won the hosting rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in somewhat dubious circumstances,On that matter it should be remembered that when Qatar was awarded that prize, it stated that Israeli players would be allowed to compete – and indeed in March 2019, Israel’s national anthem was played in Qatar after an Israeli athlete won a gold medal at the Artistic Gymnastics World Cup. But will there be any Israelis present in Qatar’s stunning new stadium in 2022 to cheer their team on? That is still unclear. So far, Israeli citizens have been unable to apply for visas to visit Qatar.The international NGO StandWithUs is formally requesting FIFA to ensure that the Qatari government will allow Israeli citizens to receive entry visas into the country to attend the 2022 World Cup. FIFA’s code of ethics specifically prohibits banning people based upon their country of origin.Qatar, possibly the wealthiest nation in the world, persists in going its own sweet way, unfettered by diplomatic norms. Take its relationship with Israel. Since the 1990s, Qatar has both built ties with Israel and severed them, not once but several times. In 1996, Qatar allowed Israel to open a trade office in the capital, Doha. For four years, Qatar was the only Gulf Cooperation Council country to have normalized relations with Israel.In November 2000, though, following the Second Intifada, Saudi Arabia and Iran threatened to boycott a summit being organized by the Organization of the Islamic Conference unless Qatar broke off relations with Israel. Qatar succumbed, and closed the Israeli trade office.Just a month later, former Israeli foreign minister Shlomo Ben-Ami and a Qatari official met secretly in Geneva and contacts were resumed. Over the next few years, Shimon Peres, Ehud Barak and Tzipi Livni were among the high-profile Israelis to visit Qatar. In 2006, Israel supported Qatar’s bid to become a member of the UN Security Council, a major step in Qatar’s rise as a regional peace broker.Although Qatar severed trade relations with Israel after the 2009 Gaza conflict, it twice sought to restore them. It offered to allow the Israeli mission in Doha to be reinstated, provided Israel allowed Qatar to send building materials and money to Gaza to help rehabilitate the infrastructure there. Israel refused on the grounds that Qatari supplies could be used by Hamas for military purposes against Israel.Qatar took matters into its own hands. In 2012 it set up a Gaza Reconstruction Committee (GRC), pledged to invest more than $400 million in humanitarian and infrastructure projects in the Strip over the following six years. It has lived up to its word. It has constructed the Bin Khalifa residential city encompassing 116 buildings and more than 2,000 apartments, the Palace of Justice, several sports facilities and stadiums, a reservoir, more than 40 km. of roads, a hospital and rehabilitation center and several other housing complexes. The GRC works in tandem with other multilateral and international reconstruction groups. All projects go through a rigorous planning and approval process with the Israeli government.ON SEPTEMBER 10, as the six-year funding project reached its end, Mohammed al-Emadi, chairman of the GRC, spoke on Al Jazeera TV, claiming that Qatar had been instrumental in ensuring calm on the Gaza-Israeli border, “despite the occasional flare-up of violence.”Whatever its rationale, Israel has raised no public objection to Qatar pouring millions of dollars into Gaza. “Life is full of contradictions and strange things,” was how Yossi Kuperwasser, former head of research for Israel’s military intelligence, described the situation.
An even stranger thing is the fact that for more than two years, Qatar has been under a siege initiated and operated by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt. Qatar’s strategy of backing Islamists while also offering itself as a key US ally had long infuriated its neighbors. Back in January 2014, Gulf states suddenly pressured Qatar to sign an agreement undertaking not to support extremist groups and not to interfere in the affairs of other states. When the Qatari government flatly refused to comply, it broke off diplomatic relations. Qatar’s 33-year-old emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, had been in power for less than a year and was unable to withstand the pressure. A few months later the Qataris signed an undertaking known as the Riyadh agreement.Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain clearly gained a very different impression of what had been agreed than the Qataris. Expecting Qatar to curtail its support for extreme Islamism, they were soon to find that it had no intention of meeting their expectations. Finally, their patience exhausted, the Gulf states and Egypt took drastic action. On June 5, 2017, without any sort of warning, they broke off diplomatic relations with Qatar, and suspending all land, air and sea traffic, imposed a trade blockade.With most trade routes closed off, Qatar has been sustained by continuous shiploads of food and other goods from Iran and Turkey. But its vast global export market for liquefied natural gas has been maintained. As a result, the country has weathered the blockade and seems able to sustain itself indefinitely. In fact, in 2018, Qatar’s economy showed one of the fastest growth rates in the region. Its gross domestic product grew by 2.8%, and is expected to maintain that growth into 2020.So Qatar continues on its capricious way, regardless. Recently it has been wooing US Jewish American leading figures by way of meetings with the emir and has funded trips to the Gulf state. These overtures, to which some distinguished individuals have succumbed, sit uneasily alongside Israel’s fragile, developing and vitally important relationship with the Sunni Arab world, which initiated the blockade of Qatar in the first place.Winston Churchill once described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Qatar is close to meriting the same description.The writer is Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is The Chaos in the Middle East: 2014-2016. He blogs at a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.
