Australia/Israel Review

The United States is pressuring Qatar to expel Hamas leaders from its territory due to the terrorist organisation’s refusal to consider even a short ceasefire and new suggestions for a hostage release deal with Israel.

While Qatar has confirmed that it is stalling its mediation efforts in the indirect hostages-for-terrorists exchange talks between Israel and Hamas, it has not confirmed that it is ousting Hamas members.

Jonathan Schanzer, Senior Vice President for Research at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said, “The regime in Doha is trying to simultaneously confirm and deny the news. This is consistent with Qatar’s double-dealing. The goal right now should be to squeeze the regime to jettison Hamas,” he added.

While it is “unclear how Trump’s arrival will change any of this,” Schanzer assessed, the fear of a shift in American policy “is undeniably pushing Doha to make these moves and announcements.”

Meanwhile, “the Qataris are going to continue to buy up assets in the United States, regardless of who is president. This is their way of gaining leverage over our leaders in politics and business,” said Schanzer. “I believe that the next administration needs to conduct a careful and thorough review of these sovereign investments. The amount of money that Qatar has invested in this country is staggering. But it has not yet been made clear why it has invested so much – especially in sectors like education that do not yield a financial return.”

Brandon Friedman, Director of Research at Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Centre for Middle Eastern and African Studies, told JNS that US pressure on Qatar is the Biden Administration’s “last card to play. How effective it will be depends on how Hamas – and Qatar – perceive the Trump Administration. My guess is that the Qataris suspect the Trump Administration will ask them to expel Hamas, so there is no harm in playing this card now and pre-emptively dealing with a potential source of tension with the new Administration.”

According to Friedman, “The Qataris use their relations with various Islamist and jihadi groups as foreign policy tools to advance and protect their interests. Even if they expel Hamas, they will continue to host factions of the Muslim Brotherhood and let Al Jazeera be used to promote the Brotherhood’s ideology. It is also unclear whether the US asked Qatar to end its role as financial backer and conduit for Hamas’ extensive regional network of businesses and charities, which funded its terror infrastructure.”

Qatar, Friedman said, “was traumatised by the Saudi-led June 2017 blockade that lasted until the end of the Trump presidency. The blockade was imposed shortly after Trump’s visit to the Saudi kingdom. The Qataris are likely to make every effort to earn the good favour of the Trump Administration.”

Asked to address the American military’s ongoing use of Qatar’s al-Udeid Airbase, which Doha spent a very large sum of money to build and develop, Friedman said, “I don’t view the US as dependent on al-Udeid. I see it as a source of leverage for the US in dealing with Qatar. It is a symbol of US protection.

“If the US withdrew from al-Udeid, Qatar would feel unprotected. In fact, one might argue it is not a coincidence that the US quietly renewed its lease of al-Udeid for another ten years after the Qataris brokered the November [2023] deal for the hostages. It was almost as if it was a reward for good behaviour or a service provided.”

Addressing Doha’s global investments, Friedman said that “Qatar can use its immense wealth to purchase US arms, which would likely be viewed favourably by Trump. It can also invest its energy wealth in the US economy, which is one of the ways Saudi Arabia won favour with the first Trump Administration. It is worth noting that Qatar has been substantially increasing its activities in both of these areas – US weapons purchases [$1 billion in 2022] and investments in the US economy over the past five to ten years.”

Yaakov Lappin is an Israel-based military affairs correspondent and in-house analyst at the Miryam Institute, research associate at the Alma Research and Education Centre and a research associate at the Begin-Sadat Centre for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University. © Jewish News Syndicate (JNS.org), reprinted by permission, all rights reserved.