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Qatar-Hamas relations tested by Hamas' refusal to negotiate

Qatar-Hamas relations tested by Hamas' refusal to negotiate

 


On April 20, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hosted Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul for talks. Official statements said they had met to discuss humanitarian aid to Gaza and the sanctions Turkey had recently announced against Israel, but the rumors were developing a completely different story.

Media reports suggested that this Ankara meeting was the result of a breakdown in relations between Hamas and Qatar. Hamas' political hierarchy has been based in Qatar since 2012, where the Gulf kingdom houses them in luxury hotels.

More recently, alongside the United States and Egypt, Qatar has taken on the role of mediator between Hamas and Israel. On the day of the Erdogan-Haniyeh meeting, the Wall Street Journal, citing an Arab official, reported that Qatar believed its role as a trusted mediator was compromised by Hamas's refusal to enter into a hostage-for-truce deal, and that he had threatened Hamas leaders with expulsion from Qatar if they did not do so.

Hamas could remove more leaders from Qatar

Other reports, emphasizing that truce talks have stalled and perhaps assuming that Hamas will remain intransigent, indicate that Hamas political leaders are actively exploring the possibility of moving their base of operations out of Qatar. The WSJ claims that Hamas recently contacted two countries in the region for its leaders to live there. One of them is Oman (which has denied this story). The other, according to a media report, could be Iran. Or, it now seems, it could be Turkey.

If Hamas leaders leave Qatar, long-standing relations between Hamas and Qatar could be severed, mediated negotiations would certainly be disrupted, and there would be little chance of reaching an agreement to free dozens of hostages Israelis held captive in Gaza would be reduced to nothing. burner. Israel's options for rescuing the hostages would come down to the long-awaited Rafah operation and a military defeat of Hamas.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian meets with the top leader of the Palestinian group Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, in Doha, Qatar, on December 20, 2023. (Credit: MINISTRY OF FOREIGNERS IRAN/WANA (L NEWS AGENCY 'WEST ASIA)/DOCUMENT VIA REUTERS)

On April 17, Democratic U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer accused Qatar of not putting enough pressure on the Palestinian group to accept a ceasefire proposal. He went so far as to accuse Qatar of “siding with Hamas”. If they failed to convince Hamas to accept a deal, he said Washington would reassess its ties with the Gulf country.

This prompted Qatar to issue a statement expressing surprise at Hoyer's threat.

“We share his frustration that Hamas and Israel have not reached an agreement on the release of the remaining hostages,” the statement said, “…but Qatar is only a mediator – we neither control Israel nor Hamas. »

Qatar, alongside the United States and Egypt, has been trying to negotiate a deal since the start of the Gaza war. Despite Hoyer's criticism, the Gulf kingdom received widespread praise for its efforts, particularly its success in negotiating the temporary ceasefire that took effect Nov. 24-30 and included the release of 50 Israeli hostages detained in Gaza and 150 Palestinian prisoners in Israel.

On November 27, the Qatari Foreign Ministry announced that a two-day extension of the ceasefire had been agreed, during which 20 Israelis and 60 Palestinians would be released. Towards the end of the first extension, another one-day extension of the truce was agreed by both sides, but it failed on 1 December and soon after hostilities resumed.

Since then, no mediation has led to an agreement on the terms of a new truce and the release of the hostages. Negotiations are at a standstill. And Qatar is unhappy, not only with its inability to convince Hamas to accept any deal, but also with the criticism leveled at it as a result.

Qatar to reassess its role as mediator

On April 17, Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani announced that Qatar was reassessing its role as mediator in ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

“Qatar is conducting a complete reassessment of its role,” he said, deploring, without naming Hoyer, “the exploitation by some politicians who are trying to run their electoral campaigns by defaming the State of Qatar.” There are limits to this role and limits to the ability with which we can contribute to these negotiations constructively.

Perhaps the limits were reached when all efforts to replicate the hostage truce deal – successfully concluded in November – were blocked by Hamas intransigence. So maybe the media reports are accurate. Perhaps Qatar has lost patience and is showing Hamas the door.

Although Hamas has denied seeking a new base, the Haniyeh-Erdogan meeting, followed by a trip to Doha, the capital of Qatar, by Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, could indicate something different.

Furthermore, some members of the Israeli government side with MP Hoyer and view the Gulf kingdom as too biased to be impartial. Some would even like Qatar to abandon its role as mediator, in the hope that if Qatar withdraws, Cairo will take over.

“Egypt should have been the main mediator from the start,” a member of Israel’s hostage negotiation team told The Daily Telegraph. “They do not align with the Muslim Brotherhood mentality and have no direct interest with Hamas like Qatar and Turkey. »

The Israeli negotiator is right. Qatar and Erdogan's Turkey have both supported Hamas for years and share the Sunni Islamist ideology it promulgates. Egypt, meanwhile, has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and declared it a terrorist organization.

On April 22, HuffPost reported that in rare, in-depth interviews last month, two prominent Hamas leaders spoke separately about flexibility over the location of their political leadership. They spoke shortly after the return of a Hamas delegation from a long visit to Iran. As a result, some experts view Tehran as a possible next base for the organization, a scenario that would leave the United States with far less access to or influence over Hamas.

Basem Naim, a member of Hamas' political bureau in Gaza, explained that if Qatar decided to withdraw its hospitality, the organization was fully prepared to act.

“Hamas leaders are used to [moving] from one place to another,” he said.

But Hamas is increasingly keen to project a confident image and challenge the notion that it is increasingly isolated. So when HuffPost contacted Naim again on April 21, he had changed his mind somewhat. He pointed to a statement he recently issued dismissing the WSJ article as “complicit in misleading Israeli propaganda.”

Claims that Hamas is “planning to leave Qatar for another country,” he said, “have no basis.”

Time will tell us.

The writer is the Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at: www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com.

Sources

1/ https://Google.com/

2/ https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/is-qatars-relationship-with-hamas-on-the-rocks-analysis-799105

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