In a round of negotiations on Nov. 15, Qatari mediators sought a deal between Israel and Hamas. The deal currently under discussion and coordinated with the United States includes the release from Gaza of 50 civilian hostages in exchange for a three-day ceasefire, an official briefed on the negotiations told Reuters.
However, the biggest irony of hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas is that they are being facilitated by Qatar, a country that is a home away from home for many Hamas leaders, experts say.
They say the small Gulf nation is once again central to Middle East geopolitics because it is vital to determining the fate of the 200 hostages.
Political scientist Joseph A. Kéchichian is a senior fellow at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the author of several books. Mr. Kéchichian told The Epoch Times: “The Al Thani ruling family is heavily engaged with ongoing negotiations with Hamas and the Israeli government to secure the release of hostages.”
The Al Thani family is the ruling family of Qatar.
Negotiations aren’t a simple process, and with each passing day, anxiety is increasing, particularly for the families of the hostages. Mr. Kéchichian thinks Iran may have a role to play in dragging out the process.
“Although [it is] impossible to know for sure, Iran may have also slowed down the process, recommending caution for stronger bargains. Still, the process is ongoing and will eventually prove to be effective, given that Qatar is a privileged interlocutor for both sides,” he said.
Why Qatar?
The last time geopolitical analysts talked about Qatar was in August. At that time, it negotiated a prisoner swap deal between the United States and Iran that saw $6 billion of frozen Iranian funds being wired to banks in Qatar in September.Prior to that, Qatar was host to the U.S.–Taliban peace deal, or Doha Accord, of 2020.
On a more minor scale, in October, Qatar helped to secure the release of four Ukrainian children who had been taken to Russia.
The question thus arises—why Qatar?
In an attempt to answer this question, counterterrorism expert NishaKant Ojha, an adviser to several terrorist-affected countries including Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, spoke to The Epoch Times via phone. Mr. Ojha pointed to Qatar’s history of serving as a middleman between the United States and countries with which the United States does not have a relationship.
The “gas-rich nation,” he said, “has become a key intermediary over the fate of some 200 hostages held by Hamas militants after their unprecedented attack on Israel, once again putting the small Arabian Peninsula country and its strong strategic presence in the spotlight.”
Tiny, super-wealthy Qatar is unusual in that it has ties to both Hamas and the United States and has a direct line of communication with Hamas and Israel. It previously helped mediate truces between the two.
Mr. Ojha noted that Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political officers in its capital, Doha, for over a decade. Among the Hamas officials based there is Khaled Mashaal, an exiled Hamas leader who survived a 1997 Israeli assassination attempt in Jordan. As the assassination attempt threatened to derail Jordan’s peace deal with Israel, Jordan’s King Hussein pushed Israel to provide an antidote to the poison, and Mr. Mashaal survived.
Hamas’s supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, is also based in Qatar.
“Strategically if we see history, after the 2012 war raged between Syria and Hamas, the Hamas leadership was opposed to the Syrian government and Doha provided it with the shelter,” Mr. Ojha said.
The counterterrorism expert said there are many reasons why Qatar enjoys this mediator’s role—the most important being its ability to reach and communicate with anyone in the region.
Qatar has an “emotional” relationship with Gaza, Mr. Ojha said, noting that between 2012 and 2021, Qatar helped Gaza financially with aid worth $1.49 billion.
“Qatar had a 360-degree and effective foreign policy. We can see they hosted Hamas senior leaders and on the other hand, provided the U.S. with a huge air base. They also closed any relationship gap with Iranians,” said Mr. Ojha.
Mr. Kéchichian stressed that Qatar is also a supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is a key member.
“Moreover, and because of its unique ties with Iran, Doha acted as an indispensable go-between Tehran and Israel, which enhanced its own position. Over the years, the Al Thani ruling family earned the confidence of all sides, which is why it is now [playing], and will continue in the future to play, an important role as a mediator, ” said Mr. Kéchichian.
What Mr. Ojha and Mr. Kéchichian describe as a strategic strength others call the ability to destabilize the region while strengthening one’s position.
Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, Senior Research Fellow at the New Delhi-based Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, called the Qatari regime “the Sunni version of the Ayatollah-cracy in Iran.”
“Jordan first demonstrated how you can slowly engage and tame the Muslim Brotherhood. Qatar is trying to do the same thing,” Mr. Iyer-Mitra said.
“More importantly, what Qatar is trying to do is, it loves to create friction and destabilization—where, you know, all the internal energies of a jihadi are pushed outwards,” he said.
By channelizing outwards the “internal energies of a jihadi,” Mr. Iyer-Mitra meant diverting home-bred jihadis for missions elsewhere.
“In a sense, they’re doing what the Saudis used to do 20, 30, 40 years back, because they had a huge amount of excess [jihadi] energy that needed to be pushed outwards, somehow or the other,” he said.
The defense expert believes that Qatar’s case is unique in that it uses these opportunities to gain advantages “distinct” from other powers in the Middle East, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
“It’s very calculating as well. So Qatar is both your solution and the cause for what’s happening,” said Mr. Iyer-Mitra.
If Qatar wants to put a stop to the hostage issue, it could do so quickly, by simply putting Mr. Mashaal, Mr. Haniyeh, and their families in jail, he said.
However, this is unlikely to happen, he said, and the United States is unlikely to put pressure on Qatar to do so.
“They won’t. Why? Because, you know, this is one of those things where, you know, Americans love pseudo-complexity. This is why they went on fighting the symptom in Afghanistan, but they refuse to attack the cause of it in the headquarters in Rawalpindi,” Mr. Iyer-Mitra said.
Rawalpindi, one of the largest cities in Pakistan, is home to the headquarters of the Pakistan Army. Mr. Iyer-Mitra cited it as the center of the Afghan insurgency as well, a claim put forward by politicians from the erstwhile Afghan regime as well as Afghan activists. Ties between Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban regime have deteriorated recently, with reports ascribing the tension to increased security threats in the region.
Mr. Iyer-Mitra said Qatar “has learned very well from Pakistan ... how to play double games.”
Cobra-like Qatar
Meanwhile, according to Mr. Ojha, Qatar will be successful in gaining the release of the hostages only with the blessing and coordination of the United States.Despite Qatar’s conflict of interest, it is seen as vital to the negotiation process.
Mr. Iyer-Mitra said, “Qatar is vital in determining the fate of the Israeli hostages. As you know, a cobra is for producing anti-venom. You can’t produce anti-venom without a cobra, possibly the same cobra that bit you in the first place.”
“The U.S. and Qatar mathematical equation is proving to be more effective than other equations like the intervention of Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia,” Mr. Ojha said.
“Also [the] U.S. has a long-held position for not negotiating with any terrorist groups, and since Hamas has been designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization since 1997, [the] U.S. is in not in [a] position to negotiate directly with Hamas, so technically they need a mediator and that is Qatar,” he said.
