The joint press conference held in Doha on 6 February by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken and Qatari Prime Minister Mohamed Ben Abderrahmane Al Thani heralded the prospect of an imminent truce and the release of the hostages. The extent to which Qatar has become central to this affair is clear to see. Is now the right time to slam it, as Benjamin Netanyahu is doing?
Because Israel is waging a war that seems to have no end in sight, and there is certainly no political way out without the intervention of a third party. We understand week after week that Hamas will not be defeated just like that. Diplomacy will have to return in order to envisage a future between the two peoples, which will involve the creation of a Palestinian state. A state that Tel Aviv does not want, still less the radical fringes of Benjamin Netanyahu’s extremist government. But Netanyahu is thinking only of himself and his political survival, not of the country’s interests.
Rather than trying to find a way out, in recent days the Israeli Prime Minister, faced with a flood of worldwide criticism of his hard-line strategy in Gaza, has taken to publicly criticising Qatar. He even recently accused Doha of being indirectly responsible for 7 October. But who is behind the public negotiations with the Americans and Egyptians to free the Israeli hostages? From the outset it has been Doha, which has been struggling to find a diplomatic solution while the Hebrew state has been bombing the Gaza Strip indiscriminately.
As even Yossi Cohen, the former head of Mossad, recently said publicly, there is no point in openly quarrelling with Qatar.
Netanyahu, who bears enormous responsibility for the security problems in the south of the country, is trying to drown out the problem by accusing Qatar of bearing the blame. And this even though Netanyahu acknowledged in 2019 that it was important to support Hamas in order to continue to weaken the Palestinian Authority, divide the famous inter-Palestinian camp and above all prevent the creation of a Palestinian state. Bibi’s policy has always been to deal with the Islamist organisation to the detriment of Abbas’s Palestinian Authority. The division of power between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was the perfect tool to condemn the formation of a Palestinian state. Since then, it has been the spearhead of his coalition, led by the extremist, nationalist, Islamophobic and racist right. A coalition run by Jewish supremacists who want to do away with all Palestinians.
Netanyahu’s attack on Doha is absurd, given that the Hebrew state helped to support Sheikh Yassin, its founder, in 1988, again with the same objective in mind. Despite its anti-Jewish doctrine, Israel has supported the development of the most radical branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and has played with fire. Just as the Americans supported the Afghan Mujahideen against the Soviets, the Hebrew state thought it could use a few bearded men to weaken Yasser Arafat’s Fatah for good.
Yes, Qatar gave shelter to the leaders of Hamas! But it was at the request of the Americans and Israelis so that they could negotiate the day they were needed. Since 7 October, almost 140 Israeli hostages have been held by Hamas in Gaza. Faced with Israeli intransigence, the UN is powerless, even though Antonio Guterres, its Secretary-General, has been trying to bring about a ceasefire and a halt to bombing in Gaza for the last three months.
The United States and Europe, with the support of Egypt and Qatar, are still trying to find a solution. As far as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is concerned, the United States, which for years has been disengaging from the Middle East conflict zones, can do little, especially as Joe Biden’s term of office, which is drawing to a close, further weakens his capacity for influence and action, if his administration has had any over the last three years. The European Union, mired in the Ukrainian crisis, has long since lost its diplomatic capacity. That leaves Egypt and Qatar above all.
The most constant is Qatar, which, from the Horn of Africa to Afghanistan and other countries, has become an inescapable crisis mediator. Qatar’s proximity to these Islamist movements, such as the Taliban at the time of the negotiations with the Americans in 2018, is a key asset for Doha. It is the perfect intermediary for Washington and Tel Aviv to keep a little hope in diplomacy in the midst of a war that has already killed too many people.
