Qatar’s Gamble
World Cups and radical Islamists usually don’t appear in the same sentence, or even in the same section of a newspaper. But in the last few years, Qatar, the Monaco of the Middle East, has managed to balance the cosmopolitan worldliness of a future World Cup host (2022) and the anti-Western Wahhabism of a Hamas bankroller.
Qatar has become a leader in the Arab world through its material support for al-Jazeera, the global broadcaster based in the Qatari capital, Doha. As a Sunni ally of Saudi Arabia, the emirate is a vital bulwark against Iranian influence in the Gulf, even hosting al-Udeid U.S. Air Force base. But this week, with Qatari Head of State Prince Hamad bin Khalifa III becoming the first head of state to visit Gaza since the Hamas takeover in 2006, the tiny but ambitious Gulf state risks losing its balance in an always-unstable region.
Prince Hamad bin Khalifa made the visit to Gaza ostensibly to promote solidarity with the Palestinian cause and to appeal for unity between Hamas and Fatah, the party that controls the West Bank and dominates the Palestine Liberation Organization. The rift between the two dates back at least to 2006, when supporters of the two parties fought a brief civil war in Gaza following contested election results. Hamas, using extreme brutality (Fatah supporters were shot and beaten) ultimately took over the coastal enclave and has controlled it ever since, without the recognition of Fatah. Qatar recently hosted unity talks in Doha in an attempt to reunify the Palestinians, but little progress has been made.
A key stumbling block in the reconciliation process is that many European states, the U.S., Israel, and several other nations label Hamas as a terrorist organization, and any unity government would thereby taint Fatah and the entire Palestinian Authority. For President Mahmoud Abbas and his lieutenants that means hundreds of millions in lost foreign aid. Worrying about how to line their pockets, Fatah has made it clear that they alone are the legitimate representatives of the Palestinian people. The West backs that stance, as they worry that with hardline Islamists in power, they will have significantly less leverage in regional affairs, particularly in the endless-yet-nonexistent peace process.
But with Europe and the United States both dealing with severe financial troubles, the oil rich Gulf states have finally stepped up to fill the foreign aid vacuum. During his six-hour trip Sheikh Hamad pledged around $400 million to development projects in Gaza. Material support for Hamas will win Qatar allies in Cairo and Turkey, but its protectors in the Pentagon and the White House can hardly be pleased.
Nevertheless, the U.S. will likely publicly overlook the trip to Gaza –in the end, not much harm can be done from a bit of improved infrastructure–so long as Qatar continues to support U.S. interests like the fall of Bashar Assad in Syria and the installment of stable governments throughout Arab Spring nations. Also, there is a reason the al-Udeid Air Base remains in Qatar–Doha fears the nuclear mullahs of Iran as much as every other Sunni state in the area and values the security a U.S. military base provides. As for Fatah, with little actual leverage they will simply have to deal with Qatari support for Hamas and attempt to make their case to other Arab nations and the West as the sole aid-deserving representative of the Palestinian people. So far, Qatar has skillfully navigated the treacherous contours of Middle Eastern diplomacy. How it will manage to reconcile puritanical Wahhabist norms and thousands of profane soccer fans is anyone’s guess.