Why the U.S. Tolerates Qatar’s Hamas Ties
Washington’s conflicting views of Qatar reflect the constraints of U.S.-Middle East policy.
By Steven A. Cook via Foreign Policy
OCTOBER 17, 2023
Among the questions that keep coming in the nonstop discussion of Hamas’s spectacular and bloody attack on Israel last week is this: “What is the story with Qatar?” Not long after the attack, when the violence perpetrated on Israeli civilians was becoming clear, the Qatari Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement blaming Israel for Hamas’s assault.
Given the scale of the killing (about 1,400 people have been killed in Israel), the statement was shocking. Saudi Arabia—which has developed a relationship with Israel that, at least before Hamas’s attack, was becoming more and more open—also pointed the finger at Israel, but its statement was more nuanced and less pugnacious in tone. And both stood in sharp contrast to the reaction of the United Arab Emirates—Qatar’s rival and Israel’s closest partner in the Arab world—which called Hamas’s attack “a serious and grave escalation” and said it was “appalled by reports that Israeli civilians have been abducted as hostages from their homes.”
Then, last Monday, Reuters reported that Qatari mediators were in talks with both Hamas and Israeli officials to negotiate the release of the women and children that the Palestinian militant group took hostage during its assault. It was a slim piece of good news since war broke out on Oct. 7. It seemed that despite what his foreign ministry had said a few days earlier, Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani was doing whatever he could to be constructive, befitting his country’s role as a U.S. partner and major non-NATO ally. The Qataris may not be successful, but whatever the outcome, they deserve credit for trying.
Still, much of Washington held the hosannas for Tamim. The muted response to Doha’s effort on behalf of Israeli families reflects the diverging views of Qatar within the foreign-policy community. To some, the Qataris are regional arsonists; to others, they are the fire department.
It is possible for two things to be true at once, of course. But Washington’s conflicting views of Qatar have less to do with any strategic genius on the part of Qatar’s leaders than the constraints of U.S.-Middle East policy.
From one perspective, it is clear that Qatar pulls more than its weight when it comes to helping Washington. In the mid-1990s, when relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia grew testy and large numbers of U.S. forces were no longer welcome in the kingdom, the Qataris swung open the doors to the United States and gave the U.S. Central Command a shiny new forward operating base in the Persian Gulf. The Qatari Emiri Air Force owns the base, which is called Al Udeid and served as the place from which the Pentagon ran the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as countless counterterrorism operations. As of a few years ago, it was home to as many as 10,000 U.S. service personnel, a large number, but down considerably from its peaks during the 2010s.
Of course, Emir Hamad bin Khalifah Al Thani —the current emir’s father—was not totally altruistic in doing this. Bestowing a base on U.S. forces was a way to invest Washington in his continued rule, which was the result of a coup in which he overthrew his father. The large number of U.S. troops in Qatar was a form of protection against vengeful family members, along with neighbors such as Saudi Arabia that did not like Doha’s independence streak.
Al Udeid was important in August 2021, when U.S. forces withdrew from Afghanistan and brought thousands of Afghans with them. Others in the region—notably the Emiratis—also did their part, but Qatar was the first destination for many refugees. When it came to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the following winter, Qatar’s leader—unlike other U.S. partners, including Israel—was unequivocal in his condemnation of the Kremlin.
When the Russians suspended a U.N.- and Turkey-brokered deal that facilitated the exports of Ukrainian agricultural products that are critical for global food supplies, the Qataris worked with Turkey and the Russians to find a solution. The emir’s diplomats were not successful, but they showed up and tried to make something happen. And while they have evinced little public interest in normalizing ties with Israel, Doha stations a diplomat in Gaza—with Israel’s blessing—to distribute aid to the poorest Gazans.
The Qataris are not just helpful to the United States abroad, but also at home. Before the war between Israel and Hamas began, I received an invitation from the Qatari Embassy inviting me to its fifth annual gala in support of the Autism Society of America. And when Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans in 2005, the Qataris pledged $100 million to help Louisianans in need.
Yet as positive and constructive as the Qataris have been in some areas, they have also been a troublesome partner. The same year that construction on Al Udeid Air Base began, the Qataris launched Al Jazeera.
At first, the state-owned TV network seemed to be a breath of fresh air, broadcasting actual news and commentary (except about Qatar) in a region where state media fare was little more than regime talking points and the tick-tock of a given leader’s day. In time, however, it became clear that many of the producers, journalists, and commentators on Al Jazeera’s flagship Arabic network had a yen for Islamism, antisemitism, and anti-Americanism.
When it comes to the Palestinians, the Qataris are true to their principles in support of Palestinian justice and rights, and as noted above, can be constructive, but the effort to win the release of Israeli hostages in Gaza seems to be the exception that proves the rule.
This is, perhaps, best encapsulated in the emir’s speech to the 2023 U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19. The Qatari leader declared, “It is not acceptable for the Palestinian people to remain prisoners of the arbitrariness of the Israeli settler occupation, and the rejection of any just political solution in accordance with the principles of international legitimacy by successive Israeli governments.”
Fair enough. But then, Tamim proceeded to cast doubt on the Jewish connection to Jerusalem. He did not criticize Israeli appropriation of property in East Jerusalem, but rather decried the “Judaization of Jerusalem.” It is a distinction that should not be lost on anyone, and it was not helpful, to say the least.
At the risk of being accused of whataboutism, the emir spent two full-throated paragraphs of righteous indignation aimed at the Israelis, but a mere two sentences on the decadelong tragedy in Syria that has taken the lives of hundreds of thousands and displaced millions—a horror that Qatar had a hand in through its support for resistance groups there, some of whose tactics Hamas seems to be emulating.
The combination of the Qataris’ approach to the Palestinians, the groups they funded in Syria, and how they welcomed the accumulation of Islamist political power after the Arab uprisings—along with Al Jazeera’s commentary—has long fueled suspicions in the region and among observers in the West that Qatar’s leadership is directly linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
Doha’s diplomats, lobbyists, and friends in Washington argue that extrapolating that the Qataris represent the Brotherhood from this group of issues drains the nuance from the emir’s approach to the world, which is principled and pragmatic. After all, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a disaster. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is a killer whom, at one time, most believed had to go. The Arab uprisings produced political outcomes where Doha saw opportunities to extend its influence, and Al Jazeera, according to Qatari officials and their paid agents, has editorial independence from the Qatari government.
Those arguments are also fair, but only to a degree. Qatar did welcome the Muslim Brotherhood when it was chased out of Egypt in 2013, and the top leaders of Hamas, which the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood created in the late 1980s, have maintained a presence in Doha for a little more than a decade. Then there is Qatar’s strategic relationship with Turkey, whose Justice and Development Party is not part of the constellation of Brotherhood affiliates in the region but has made common cause with them over the past decade. With all this come the allegations that the Qataris fund Hamas through the aid that is ostensibly intended to support poor Gazans.
There is a view that the Islamist presence in Doha is useful to the United States. The Qataris provide a venue and go-betweens for Washington to communicate with people it does not want to—and cannot—have ties with. The Qataris themselves make this argument and suggest that they are keeping an eye on the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas’s leadership by welcoming them in Doha.
That makes some sense. But one piece does not add up: It would be one thing if the Qataris kept Hamas and Brotherhood leaders bottled up in Doha, allowing them to have tea at the Four Seasons and enjoy long walks along the corniche, but they allow them operate openly and seemingly without restriction to pursue their agendas, whether it is working to undermine the Egyptian government or plot against Israelis. Hamas leaders are alleged to have watched the attacks on Israel and their aftermath from safety in Qatar.
If the Qataris had, in fact, welcomed Hamas figures into their capital in order to surveil and constrain them, then Doha might have been able to provide advanced warning of the Oct. 7 attack, thereby helping to avert the current regional catastrophe. As far as anyone knows, Qatar’s leaders were not paying attention and had no knowledge of the attack.
No one should be terribly surprised that the Qataris play both ends of the fence. The real issue is why successive U.S. administrations of both parties let them get away with it.
Part of it has to do with the nature of foreign-policy making itself, which is a series of bad choices. U.S. officials tend to overlook bad behavior in one dimension because they know or hope that a partner is helpful in another one. The juice is not worth the squeeze to take Tamim to task publicly about his ahistoric speech at the United Nations (it’s the U.N., after all) when he can be helpful in other areas—for example, by working to secure the release of the Israeli women and children held hostage by Hamas.
Then there is the more Qatar-specific problem: Because the United States is so invested in Al Udeid—an artifact of an overly ambitious effort to transform the Middle East and a facility for which there is no current substitute—U.S. policymakers are reluctant to address the least helpful aspects of Doha’s approach to regional problems.
It is hard to lay the blame entirely on the Qataris, however. Their Janus-faced foreign policy is a source of power, influence, and prestige. The problem is that Washington lets them get away with it.
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