Intense US diplomacy to secure the release of hundreds of
hostages held by Hamas is shining a spotlight on the complicated role held by
the tiny Gulf nation of Qatar.
At times a pariah among its immediate neighbors, the gas and
oil-rich monarchy has managed for years to straddle the line between being a
close US partner while enraging Gulf countries over its support for the Muslim
Brotherhood, a movement of political Islam that helped inspire Hamas’s
founding.
US
officials are putting increasing pressure on Qatar to distance itself from
Hamas following its abhorrent terrorist attack against Israel on October
7.
But
Qatar’s track record as a reliable mediator between authoritarian states,
terrorist groups and democracies make it one of the only countries that can
help retrieve hundreds of innocent people from the Gaza Strip.
“We’re using every connection we can to try to get the
release of the hostages. Qatar has avenues that we think are helpful,”
Sen. Ben Cardin, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told
The Hill.
“We have been very clear about Qatar’s role in allowing Hamas
reign in their country — it’s wrong. And we have pointed that out and we’ll
continue to point that out,” he said.
The
relationship is complicated, Cardin added, pointing to the Al Udeid Air base in
Doha, owned by Qatar but home to US Central Command and US Air Force Central
Command. The base is the epicenter of American military power overseeing the
Middle East and Central Asia, including Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and
countries of the former Soviet Union.
Hamas is estimated to have kidnapped more than 200 people
from Israel during the October 07 massacre that also killed more than 1,400
people in southern Israel. Americans are among those being held and their
families have advocated for their release in Israel and in Washington
D.C.
Qatar has allowed Hamas to operate a political office in
Doha since 2012 and it has mediated between Israel and Hamas in previous rounds
of conflict, also helping with the transfer of money and goods to the Gaza
Strip that came out of such deals.
The scale of the current hostage crisis is unlike anything
in recent memory. Among those kidnapped are toddlers, a nursing baby, the
elderly, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, all being held in locations and
conditions unknown.
Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, said this
week that dozens of the hostages have been killed in Israeli air strikes, but
they offered no proof. The US-designated terror group has otherwise provided
little to no information on the captives and no visitation from international
aid groups.
“Something
very basic, Red Cross, Doctors Without Borders are not allowed to get in, we
don’t even know if our loved one is alive or dead,” said Ruby Chen, a US-Israeli
citizen whose 19-year-old son Itay, a soldier in the Israel Defense Forces
(IDF), is believed to be held by Hamas.
“Want to think about that for a second? Make it happen.”
Qatar has so far helped facilitate the release of four of
Hamas’s hostages, an American-Israeli mother and daughter, and two elderly
women.
Gerald
Feierstein, a former ambassador to Yemen and four-decade veteran of the
foreign service in the Middle East and Gulf, said that Qatar likes to view
itself as a Switzerland-like mediator in the Middle East and that provides them
clout and protection in a hostile environment.
“They see that they can play a role by keeping channels of
communication open to people that the world despises. Whether it’s the Taliban
or Hamas, or the Iranians for that matter, they see that they can be useful by
being able to communicate or pass messages,” Feierstein said.
“They
really see themselves as playing a role much larger than their size and impact
would suggest.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has thanked Qatar for
playing a very important role in securing the release of the American-Israelis.
But the secretary has also said in Doha that there can be no more business as
usual with Hamas.
He reportedly
called on the Qatari government to tone down rhetoric in news coverage
about Israel on Al Jazeera, the nominally private but Qatari-funded English and
Arabic news group.
“I don’t think that — forced to choose — there’s any
question that the Qataris value the relationship with the US more highly than
with Hamas”, said Feierstein, now a distinguished senior fellow on US diplomacy
at the Middle East Institute.
Feierstein
also spoke to the Qatari’s track record in diplomacy, pointing to their role in
the early 2000s of trying to mediate between warring factions in Yemen;
mediation efforts between Ethiopia and Eritrea; and offering Doha as a venue
for the US to hold talks with the Taliban.
“I can’t think of any time where the Qataris said that they
would do something and didn’t do it. I think that they are reliable,” he
said.
“Generally speaking, their word is good. And obviously if
you want to play the role that they want to play, that’s an absolutely
essential component. If people didn’t trust you then they wouldn’t turn to you
to undertake these things.”
It’s unclear what it might take for Hamas to release the
hostages, who are among a wide range of factors that is seemingly delaying an
Israel ground offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Among
possible Hamas demands are a ceasefire amid heavy Israeli airstrikes, asking
Israel to release Palestinian prisoners, money or some type of immunity.
Rep. Haley Stevens, co-chair of the Congressional Task
Force on American Hostages and Americans Wrongfully Detained Abroad, called the
task of rescuing the hostages unprecedented, speaking to The Hill after a press
conference with the families whose loved ones are being held by Hamas.
The task force was an initiative started in 2021 to help
congressional offices navigate the support available for constituents and their
families in circumstances of their loved one being unjustly arrested or
detained abroad, or even taken captive by a terrorist group.
But she called this situation very different.
“This was an act of lawlessness. It wasn’t even an act of
war because it’s outside of the rules of war to do what has been done here. And
this has been part of the head spinning terror that was descended upon the
Israelis on October 7th,” she said
Asked about Qatar’s role as a mediator, Stevens called for
the administration to be open about how the US is carrying out its
diplomacy.
“Our diplomacy is going to be essential, the work of our
ambassadors, the work of our State Department, and that’s a place that we as
members of Congress can lend oversight and, if need be, appropriating authority
to our federal agencies to assist in those negotiations,” she said.
Haley
raised concern that the administration’s pending transfer of US$6 billion in
frozen Iranian funds — facilitated in exchange for the release of Americans
wrongfully detained — has raised the cost for hostages.
“While
we don’t want to slow things down by any stretch of the means, engaging members
as the administration can in classified settings is very helpful,” she said.
