Qatar is forgiven to think it was immune to Israeli attacks.
The small country of the Persian Gulf is a key ally from the United States, who has received President Donald Trump just four months ago. Red rugs were extended, billionaire agreements were closed, and a controversial luxury plane from the royal family was given to the US president.
As for his role as a mediator to end the war in Gaza, the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Bin Jassim al-Thani, met Hamas’s chief negotiator, Khalil al-Hayya, on Monday (8), to press a new US-led ceasefire and hostage agreement.
Hamas’s response was expected at a follow-up meeting on Tuesday night (9); A few hours before this answer, killing five Hamas members and a Qatar security officer.
The feeling of shock and betrayal is palpable in the capital of Qatar. The vocabulary used by the Prime Minister of Qatar is strong, evocative and blunt, a distance from his usual response contained to the incessant twists of the attempt to end the war in Gaza.
In an interview with CNN On Wednesday (10), Jassim Al-Thani described the attack as “State Terrorism” and warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, that “” for hostages and undermined “.
Prime Minister Catari also stated that the Israeli leader should be “taken to court,” accusing him of “all international laws.”
A country without diplomatic ties with Israel invited his delegations to negotiate with Hamas; An effort appreciated by President Trump, who said that Doha “boldly took risks with us to negotiate peace.”
Qatar is also considered to be a victim of an attack on behalf of the United States when Iran attacked the Alu Udeid military base in June this year, the largest American military installation in the region.
Tehran said it was in response to US attacks on their nuclear facilities. Doha issued a strong conviction, but did not do much beyond that.
Questioning the turn towards the USA
The message of this attack is not limited to the borders of Qatar. Nations of the Gulf, which for decades have actively turned to the US, politically and financially, can now question the alleged benefits of this choice.
US security guarantees were implicit in the signed and signed memos. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates promised the impressive amount of $ 3 trillion in agreements during Trump’s visit in May, and his part of the agreement was maintained.
“I believe these nations will ask themselves what they can do to prevent future attacks,” said Hallyer, the member of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a non-governmental organization that generates independent strategies and analyzes.
“But in what kind of security architecture they need to invest now, rather than a partner who was not able to protect them even from one of his own allies,” the academic added.
The damage to the trust between the US and its Gulf partners has already been caused, although it is not yet clear to what extent, and depends to the President’s guarantees to his allies and public messages to Israel.
A broader question should be what kind of discouraging effect this will have about future mediation efforts.
Although Qatar has not closed the door for peace mediation in Gaza, negotiations are, at best, Limbo and, at the worst, in the coals of Israel’s latest attempted murder.
Hasan Alhasan, senior Middle Eastern policy researcher at the International Institute of Strategic Studies, said: “This is the type of risk that few countries in the region will be willing to bear in exchange for a mediation role.”
Qatar and Egypt are longstanding mediators between Israel and Hamas. Oman has facilitated negotiations between Iran and the US and, more successfully, between the US and the Houthis.
The United Arab Emirates facilitated the exchange of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine. Saudi Arabia is positioning itself as a place for peace negotiations in various conflicts.
The leaders of each of these countries will closely follow President Trump’s response to what seems to be US impotence in the Middle East. And the belief has long expressed by many in the region about Israel’s intention to sabotage peace negotiations was only strengthened by Tuesday’s attacks.
