With talks for another deal dragging on, Qatar is still the main facilitator for negotiations.
Over the years, the energy-rich state has leveraged its extensive diplomatic relationships — including with militant groups such as Hamas and the Taliban, and U.S. adversaries including Russia — to negotiate delicate issues during international conflicts. Qatar has bristled at recent criticism, including from Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), that it has not done enough to push Hamas toward a deal, arguing that it remains neutral. The country said this week that it would reevaluate its role as a mediator, although no change appeared imminent.
Here’s what to know about Qatar’s role as a regional mediator.
How has Qatar been involved?
Qatar was integral in facilitating the negotiations for the November deal for a pause in fighting and, before that, helped secure the release of two American hostages for what Hamas said were “humanitarian reasons.”
The country has been involved in subsequent talks, with dozens of hostages still believed to be held in Gaza. The negotiations have in recent months bounced between Paris, Doha and Cairo. Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign affairs minister, has participated in the dealings alongside intelligence officials from Israel, the United States and Egypt.
Why does Qatar have sway?
Qatar, a strong supporter of the Palestinians as well as regional Islamist movements, has maintained ties with Hamas going back nearly two decades. In the past, Qatar tried to mediate disputes between Hamas and the rival Palestinian Fatah movement in the West Bank. In 2012, Qatar’s then-emir, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, became the first head of state to visit Hamas-controlled Gaza, pledging hundreds of millions of dollars in aid. Hamas leaders have been hosted in Doha, Qatar’s capital, for years.
Qatar has also kept low-level relations with Israel at a time when other Persian Gulf nations were firmly opposed to any outreach. In the 1990s, Qatar allowed an Israeli trade office as the country’s only outpost in the gulf.
After taking over from his father, the current emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, has declined to follow some of Qatar’s neighbors in fully normalizing relations with Israel. Qatari officials said that such a step would only follow peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
What are Qatar’s other mediation initiatives?
A gas-rich state of 2.7 million people, Qatar has tried to exert influence in regional and global affairs, including through mediation efforts that began in earnest in the mid-2000s, according to Sultan Barakat, a professor at the Qatar Foundation’s Hamad Bin Khalifa University. Barakat wrote a 2014 paper about those initiatives, including early attempts to mediate in Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, and between Israel and Hamas.
“Prior to 2011, these efforts produced mixed results,” he wrote. Beginning that year, as pro-democracy protests spread around the Middle East, Qatar was less noticed for its diplomacy and more closely associated with support for the Arab Spring uprisings as well as Islamist groups involved in the revolts. These interventions earned Qatar the ire of regional powers, including the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.
Tensions with neighbors came to a head in 2017. Saudi Arabia and others — angered by Doha’s ties with militant groups and Iran and by its sponsorship of the Al Jazeera news channel — imposed a years-long economic blockade of Qatar, cutting links by land, sea and air.
Qatar, which has maintained relations with Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban movement for years, played a key role helping the United States evacuate its citizens and allies during the chaotic American withdrawal from the country in 2021. In September 2023, Qatar helped secure the release of five Americans held by Iran.
What are the benefits and risks to Qatar?
The diplomatic forays are part of a package of “soft power” initiatives Qatar has used to buttress its global standing and distinguish itself from regional rivals, an effort that includes hosting campuses of American universities and supporting sports teams, including staging the 2022 World Cup.
The mediation — especially when it benefits the United States — is also used as a guard against some of the criticism Qatar has received for supporting groups considered terrorist entities by Western countries.
Qatar this week emphasized that it wishes to be seen as a neutral party in the negotiations between Hamas and Israel. “Qatar is only a mediator — we do not control Israel or Hamas,” Qatar’s embassy in Washington said in a statement. The remarks came after Hoyer called on Qatar to push Hamas to accept a deal. In a statement Monday, he encouraged Qatar to consider “refusing to grant Hamas’ leaders refuge in Doha” as leverage. “If Qatar fails to apply this pressure, the United States must reevaluate its relationship with Qatar,” he said.
The Qatari Embassy said it was “surprised by his threat,” and said Doha’s “mediation role exists only because we were asked by the United States in 2012 to play this role since, regrettably, Israel and Hamas refuse to speak to each other directly.” The Washington Post reported in October that the United States and Qatar had agreed to revisit Qatari relations with Hamas after the hostage crisis, but it was unclear whether the reassessment would include the expulsion of Hamas leaders from Doha. A bipartisan group of U.S. senators last month called for Qatar to stop hosting Hamas’s political office in Doha.
Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday that mischaracterization of its mediation efforts has “necessitated a comprehensive evaluation by Qatar of its role.”
