Offering a crucial bridge between great powers and non-state actors, Qatar has become an important force multiplier in the age of global entanglement [Originally published at Middle East Eye]
Celebrations were widespread across Gaza last night. After 15 months, there is hope that one of the most brutal military onslaughts in modern history committed by Israel in Gaza is coming to an end.
As in November 2023, when a deal brokered the only release of hostages from Hamas captivity so far, Qatar was instrumental in getting a deal across the line. How did the small Gulf monarchy become a brand in mediation?
In a world where size does not matter, it is still remarkable that a small team of diplomats from a country of just 350,000 citizens - in addition to an expat population of more than two million - has been able to mediate another deal in the world’s most complex and protracted conflict.
For 15 months, Qatar kept its side of the bargain - exercising any possible leverage on Hamas - while the Biden administration in the US remained unwilling to use all its weight to push Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to accept a deal.
The magnitude of the negotiations Qatari diplomats have been able to have with Hamas interlocutors only becomes clear when understanding the context of the mediation.
Israel has repeatedly killed Hamas leaders on the ground and overseas. Conferences were held, with Netanyahu government ministers in attendance, on how to recolonise the Gaza Strip. These same ministers have leaked to the media that there was no intent on Israel’s side to withdraw from Gaza.
Regardless, Qatari mediators were relentless in pressing Hamas’s surviving second guard.
A three-phase deal to return the hostages captured by Hamas on 7 October 2023, in exchange for thousands of often arbitrarily arrested Palestinians, has been on the table for a year. Hamas’s seal of approval was mostly extracted by Qatar in the summer of 2024.
What changed was Qatar’s ability to invoke its close rapport with Steve Witkoff - the designated Middle East envoy of the incoming US president, Donald Trump - to twist Netanyahu’s arm to accept a deal. Qatar’s bet on the Trump factor paid off.
Guiding principle
Mediation is part of the Gulf state’s strategic thinking. The national myth of being the “Kaaba al-madiyoum” - the Kaaba of the dispossessed - is a guiding principle in Qatari statecraft.
Qatar has been eager to invite to the negotiating table those whose positions are usually not heard. Compromise and win-win games have become a deep-seated element of Qatar’s strategic culture, rooted in the peninsula’s historic tribal feuds.
This leads to a degree of strategic pragmatism that allows Qataris to leave their own politics outside the negotiation room.
For more than a decade, Qatari mediators sat with the Taliban to hammer out a deal for Afghanistan, ignoring fundamental differences in worldview that for Qatari diplomats were more than alienating. In the same way, Qatari negotiators left their strong feelings about Israel’s injustices against the Palestinian people to one side when meeting Israeli representatives.
Anchored in Qatar’s constitution, mediation is the main pillar of statecraft for the small, hydrocarbon-rich monarchy in an insecure environment. It provides Doha with relevance, importance and prestige in the international system.
It allows Qatar to break out from the apathy and passivity to which many small states are condemned.
Offering a crucial bridge between great powers and non-state actors, as well as the global south and global north, Qatar has become an important force multiplier in the age of global entanglement. It delivers stability.
The networks Qatar can extract from its various engagements allow Doha to hedge its bets. As the “Switzerland of the Middle East”, it has emerged as an indispensable hub in a global mediation network. Nobody would be foolish enough to kill the mediator.
Still, mediating between unlikely parties is not without risk. Qatar taking centre stage in this conflict has triggered the envy of neighbours and competitors.
Information warriors have been having a field day with Doha hosting armed non-state actors of the likes of Hamas and the Taliban - albeit at the request of consecutive US administrations. Years of weaponised narrative campaigns against the Gulf state have made some in Doha question whether mediation is really worth it.
Tough road ahead
Qatar’s prime minister, who has patiently owned the mediation process, has been key in rallying support around it domestically. The breakthrough achieved on Gaza certainly proves him right.
Many have reduced Qatar’s role to that of a mere messenger passing notes from one room to the next. But 15 months of mediation have shown that it is more than that. It has leverage and is eager to use it.
For the likes of Hamas, their now virtual office in Doha has provided them with legitimacy and access, creating a codependency on Qatar’s goodwill, which mediators have used transactionally to extract concessions.
Traditionally, however, Qatar has used accommodation to smooth out deals, promising aid for reconstruction or paying ransoms for hostages.
The Gulf state’s hydrocarbon wealth is also a reason for Washington to bank on Qatar, hoping it will play a role after mediation to inject much-needed cash into the Gaza reconstruction effort.
All enthusiasm aside, Netanyahu’s long history of obstructing and disrupting negotiated deals gives more than enough reason for scepticism and cynicism. Qatar owns the implementation process and follow-up mechanism for the deal, together with Egypt and the US. Trump will be key to ensuring the deal is followed through.
Here, Doha must not only mediate between Israel and Hamas to smooth over hiccups, but also rally the Trump administration around the implementation process.
The greatest challenge will be to transform the agreement from a hostage and prisoner exchange to a sustainable ceasefire deal that ends the war in Gaza. At the moment, there seems to be insufficient political will within the Netanyahu administration to end the war and withdraw from all of Gaza’s territory. Qatar’s influence with key interlocutors in the Trump administration - above all Witkoff - will have to be used proactively to ensure the new White House does not take pressure off Israel’s far-right government.
Only when phase one of the deal can be transformed into phase two and three, will the road to a long-term solution in Gaza run through Doha.