The Qatar conundrum

 Published in the Jerusalem Post, 7 April 2025

On April 2, prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described Qatar as “a complex country”.  The epithet seems a trifle inadequate.  Qatar is close to mirroring  Winston Churchill’s famous description of Russia –  “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.”

Dubbed “the wild card of the Middle East”, Qatar makes for an intriguing case study.  This  stand-alone and gas-rich Gulf state – the wealthiest country in the world on a per capita basis –is best known to the general public as having won the hosting rights for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in somewhat dubious circumstances. 

Qatar has long pursued a foreign policy that appears self-contradictory to the world in general, and positively infuriating to its Arab neighbors.  While offering itself as a key US ally in the Middle East, it has also consistently backed hardline Islamists — from Hamas in the Gaza Strip, to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to wild-eyed jihadists in Assad’s Syria.

 “We don’t do enemies,” a one-time foreign minister of Qatar once said. “We talk to everyone.” 

This policy, pursued with determination over the past thirty years, is a long-term effort to become a major player on the world stage.  It has succeeded.   From a standing start Qatar became central in a variety of delicate negotiations. For example it played a vital role in the events leading to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021.

Collaborating closely with the US, Qatar acted as mediator between the Taliban and what was left of the previous Afghan administration to assist the evacuation of tens of thousands of people — including US citizens and contractors.  As a direct result, on March 10, 2022, then-President Joe Biden formally confirmed his grant to Qatar of the status of “major non-NATO ally”.  

 During the current Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza Qatar has, together with Egypt and the US, helped negotiate the complex deals that have led to the release of hostages captured by Hamas.   

Perhaps the fact that Hamas has been largely financed by Qatar for years goes some way to explaining Qatar’s influence on them. Qatar began transferring  large sums of money to Hamas after the conflicts in Gaza of 2012 and 2014.  In 2018, Israel permitted Qatar to send $15 million per month to Hamas nominally to cover civil servant salaries, and provide humanitarian aid and economic relief.  Between 2018 and 2021, Qatar sent over $1 billion to Gaza.  

On March 5, 2025, the State of Qatar issued a statement refuting claims that linked Qatari aid to the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7, 2023.  It emphasized that all aid provided by Qatar to Gaza—including food, medicine, and electricity—was delivered with the full knowledge, support, and supervision of both current and previous Israeli administrations and their security agencies. It asserted that no aid was ever delivered to Hamas's political or military wing.

   Qatar’s bid for global status can, perhaps, be traced back to 1995 when Sheik Hamad al-Thani ousted his father, who was on an extended summer vacation in Europe, and pronounced himself Emir. Surviving a countercoup backed by Saudi Arabia, Sheik Hamad set out to convert Qatar into a high-powered modern state.

His first big achievement was to launch the Al Jazeera television news network.  Al Jazeera claimed from the start that its journalists and editors provided an objective service independent of state control – a claim often contested over the years, and with reason.  

 In 2002, when the US military began pulling forces out of Saudi Arabia, the emir offered his country as a home for the US Central Command’s forward headquarters.  Ever since, Qatar has hosted a large US military presence, one of the biggest in the region, at Al Udeid Air Base.

Yet as the Arab Spring dawned in 2011, with popular revolutions toppling dictators and autocrats in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, the emir had no hesitation in allowing hardline members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, as well as other jihadists, to establish a presence in his capital, Doha. 

In 2013, Sheikh Hamad voluntarily abdicated in favor of his son, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, making it a rare instance of voluntary succession in the Arab world.

In pursuit of its self-imposed policy Qatar’s tactics have sometimes puzzled, sometimes enraged, its neighbors. Its persistence in openly hosting Islamists, and especially prominent members of the Muslim Brotherhood – a proscribed organization in Egypt –  led Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain on June 5, 2017 to break off diplomatic relations with Qatar and impose a trade blockade.  This was the second time that Qatar was sanctioned by its neighbors.  Saudi, the UAE and Bahrain first took this step in March 2014.

For three-and-a-half years Qatar withstood the worst that the alliance could inflict, and in January 2021 diplomatic relations were restored without any concessions on Qatar’s part.  In the interim Qatar had transformed itself into a major diplomatic player, and the country had grown into an important commercial hub.

Qatar has sought to expand its global influence through diplomatic outreach, high-profile visits, and media engagement. The country's leadership has used wealth, soft power, and global platforms to enhance its international standing.

Over recent years Qatar has hosted a broad range of influential figures, including world leaders and politicians.  It has attracted business leaders and investors through events like the Qatar Economic Forum.  Recently, despite its historical support for Palestinian causes, it has even succeeded in persuading Jewish leaders to visit.  One notable example was in 2017, when Qatar hosted a delegation of prominent American Jewish leaders, including officials from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Qatar has invested heavily in media influence, using in particular its own Al Jazeera Network, one of the most widely recognized news outlets in the Arab world.  It also uses Western PR firms and lobbyists, spending millions on lobbying efforts in the US and Europe to help shape a favorable public perception of Qatar.

The extent to which Qatar’s actions are morally questionable depends on perspective.   From Qatar’s view they are strategic diplomacy, using wealth to build alliances and protect national interests. In critics’ view they are manipulative, seeking to whitewash its authoritarian governance and its engagement with terrorists. 

In fact Qatar’s pursuit of influence through these methods and others is not unique.  It is in line with the practice of other Gulf states. Perhaps, though, Qatar is rather more dynamic in its quest than others. And perhaps it occasionally oversteps that line – so difficult sometimes to discern – between acceptable and questionable practice.

Published in the Jerusalem Post, and the Jerusalem Post on-line titled: "Qatar's contradictions: Islamist terror ties and Western military alliances", 7 April 2025:
https://www.jpost.com/opinion/article-849055