How Qatar became a key broker in the Israel-Hamas deal

Late Tuesday, Qatar formally announced a deal between Israel and Hamas that would temporarily pause fighting in Gaza to facilitate a prisoner exchange of no less than 50 Israeli and dual-national hostages for the return of 150 Palestinian prisoners, amongst different parts.

Implementation of the deal is still being finalized, nevertheless it seems like a severe diplomatic breakthrough, though decidedly not a resolution to the conflict. The deal was so delicate that even because the settlement appeared imminent, senior White Home officers have been reluctant to substantiate till the Qatari authorities formally introduced something.

Qatar acquired the highlight right here due to its role as mediator by means of weeks of painstaking negotiations. America performed a job, for positive, as did Egypt. However Qatar was a key middleman.

Even earlier than this most up-to-date conflict between Israel and Hamas, the very tiny, very wealthy Gulf state had carved out a little bit of a repute as a diplomatic dealer, particularly in hostage negotiations. This has been a deliberate gambit on Qatar’s half, which has cultivated and managed pragmatic ties with the area’s primary gamers — changing into a sort of center man between events that in any other case don’t get alongside. It’s a key US ally, internet hosting an American army base important to US operations in locations like Syria and Iraq. Qatar additionally has ties to Islamist teams, together with Hamas, whose political arm has an workplace in Doha.

This has given Qatar leverage — and, most significantly, entry. America and Israel don’t negotiate immediately with Hamas. That has made the Qataris an indispensable go-between. “You must discuss to Hamas to get something accomplished,” mentioned F. Gregory Gause, professor on the Bush College of Authorities and Public Service at Texas A&M. “The Qataris are there that will help you out — and so they’re there to remind you that they’re serving to you out.”

Qatar’s function on this battle extends past this week’s deal. In late October, Qatar helped negotiate the discharge of a pair hostages held by Hamas, and it might be serving to to tamp down a wider regional battle, given its good relations with Iran and open channels with the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah. Qatar performed a role in mediating the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas, and has supported Gaza, together with financing salaries for Hamas civil servants by means of the sale of gasoline to the group — with the okay of Israel, partly as a result of Israel noticed it as a stabilizing measure.

Qatar’s diplomacy isn’t restricted to the realm of Israel-Hamas, both. Qatar served as an intermediary between the US and the Taliban earlier than the 2 in the end negotiated a peace deal immediately, in Doha. Qatar’s open traces with the Taliban helped facilitate evacuations from Afghanistan after Kabul’s fall in 2021, and even after. And Qatar has more and more turn into known for its skill in hostage negotiations, even exterior the area. It not too long ago helped broker a deal to get Russia to return four Ukrainian kids to their families.

“It needs to be influential, diplomatically, and it does perceive that, clearly, it’s not a regional superpower that may dictate issues,” mentioned Bessma Momani, a political science professor on the College of Waterloo. But sustaining these delicate ties — and dealing these connections — is an excellent approach for Qatar to advance its pursuits, and its safety. That method comes with some risks, however, no less than proper now, they don’t outweigh the upsides for Qatar.

Qatar finds “a technique to be useful and resourceful in particular, area of interest areas that may have outsized affect,” Momani mentioned. “That’s their technique.”

How Qatar deployed its strategic diplomacy to safe a deal between Israel and Hamas

After Hamas’s October 7 raid in Israel, the place it additionally captured about 240 hostages, Qatar approached the USA and the Israelis in regards to the potential launch of the hostages. In accordance with senior White Home officers, this led to the institution of a channel to work on these negotiations. That working group, or “cell,” as a White Home senior official termed it in a name with reporters Tuesday, ultimately helped safe the discharge of two American citizens held hostage by Hamas on October 20. The discharge served as a sort of take a look at case, and the success of the operation opened up the potential for a wider deal to get many extra hostages launched. “Qatar actually may ship by means of the cell we had established,” the senior administration official mentioned.

Weeks of intense diplomacy adopted, with the deal usually teetering, including over Hamas’s initial refusal to present proof of life. However ultimately Hamas agreed, Israel’s government adopted the deal, and Qatar made it official.

There’s nonetheless loads of uncertainty. Israeli strikes on Gaza continued Wednesday, and any prisoner alternate is not likely to start until at least Friday, an Israeli official said. This can be a posh, cautious, gradual course of, and the potential for one thing to go sideways persists. Perhaps the one factor predictable about any of it was Qatar’s involvement.

Hamas’s political wing has maintained an outpost in Doha since 2012, relocating there from Syria after the outbreak of civil war. This Hamas office has come under a lot of scrutiny in the wake of the October 7 attack, however Qatar had welcomed that workplace with the backing of the USA. At that time, the US had also been relying on Qatari intermediaries to cope with the Taliban.

“With these teams that we, the US, don’t interact with immediately, it’s higher to know the place to have the ability to attain them by means of intermediaries, ought to the necessity come up,” mentioned Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a fellow for the Center East at Rice College’s Baker Institute for Public Coverage. “It’s higher to have them in a pleasant associate state comparable to Qatar, than, say, in Afghanistan or in Iran, or in Syria, the place they can’t be reached by a 3rd get together, if mandatory, at a time of disaster.”

The Israel-Hamas war is that kind of a disaster, one the place a line to Hamas could be very, very tough for Israel and the USA to ascertain, but additionally very, very important. It goes each methods, too: For Islamist teams like Hamas, Qatar is a conduit to governments and superpowers.

For Qatar, being buddies with everyone seems to be a fragile geopolitical balancing act. It could possibly host a US army base, but it can also share an oil field with Iran. It could possibly hold shut ties to Islamist teams that America and many of its regional partners do not like at all. However as a result of it’s been capable of leverage these connections, it will get to maintain doing what it’s doing.

“It’s about mainly attempting to keep up working relationships with all events, after which working these relationships in instances of disaster to attempt to de-escalate complicated conditions that would in any other case have severe repercussions for safety instability, not simply in Qatar, however within the area,” Ulrichsen mentioned.

Mediation is a pillar of Qatar’s international coverage, a lot in order that, as Ulrichsen identified, the resolution of international disputes is actually in its constitution. However Qatar can also be a small nation in a risky area. It doesn’t have all that a lot besides a lot of oil and gas money — which, to be very reasonable, is just not an insignificant a part of this story. This can be a useful entree to energy politics, especially if you can, say, fund a global media outlet like Al Jazeera to promote your worldview, or be there with your hydrocarbons if an entire continent is in an energy crisis.

However general, Qatar believes that if it may well exhibit its utility within the area — and across the globe — that’s one thing of an insurance coverage coverage in case of insecurity and threats. The identical factor goes for internet hosting a superpower’s army base. Being helpful to different nations, and elevating its international stature, additionally helps the world overlook another troubling points about Qatar, including its poor human rights record.

“Qatar is attempting to carve out a worldwide function,” Gause mentioned. “We noticed that with the World Cup. We see that with Al Jazeera. We see that with all these mediation efforts, and we see it with the Islamist technique, and we see it with the American airbase. It’s all an try and make Qatar related and make Qatar mandatory so nobody will say, ‘Why do we’d like this little place?’”

To date, that is principally working for Qatar — and perhaps for the remainder of the world, too, relying on how this newest deal unfolds. It’s not a very risk-free technique although. It was examined in 2017, when Saudi Arabia and different states boycotted Qatar over its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Then-President Donald Trump jumped in on the side of Saudi Arabia to accuse the Qataris of funding terrorists, too. US diplomats rushed to undo the damage, however the regional boycott ended up lasting about three years. Qatar’s shut ties to Islamist teams may someday elicit extra stress from, say, Washington; its place nonetheless comes with reputational dangers.

Additionally it is probably that Qatar — like many different nations — needed to seek out some pathway to de-escalating the violence and horror in Gaza. This deal is just not a decision, however a short lived pause, hostage alternate, and humanitarian entry are first steps. As Vox’s Jonathan Guyer pointed out, the truce is a gap, not the tip level. “Extra diplomacy is required now. 4 days of pause isn’t sufficient.”

That’s probably the following take a look at for Israel, Hamas, the USA, and, so it appears, Qatar.