As bloodbath continues in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian Ministry of Health has confirmed that more than 8,000 Gazans perished in Israeli attacks. In a statement, the Ministry said that the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) were targeting the Palestinian children, too. It predicted that the war would go on for the next few months, as the US and its Western allies were backing Israel. The Zionist Regime launched ground attacks in Gaza in the last week of October 2023 mainly to free the Israelis held hostages by the Palestinian Hamas Movement. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu has claimed that his country’s victory is certain, saying that the IDF will destroy Hamas in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, experts in global geopolitics are of the opinion that a third country is getting benefitted by the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in West Asia.

Israel and Palestine are situated near the Mediterranean Sea at the western edge of West Asia, while Qatar is about 1,700km away from them. Many believe that Qatar is the real beneficiary of this war. According to some, Doha actually plays a double game in West Asia, as it openly supports Hamas and also helps reconcile others with the Palestinian outfit.

Hamas has been ruling the Gaza Strip since 2007. The US and its Western allies have declared Hamas a terrorist organisation because the outfit believes in no other solution to the Palestine issue, except Jihad. Hamas does not respect any international peace treaty. The Palestinian Movement has declared that its main aim is to occupy the land of Israel and to expel the Jews. Hamas has also been accused of carrying out several terror attacks in Israel. Despite all these, Qatar has been backing Hamas since 2007.

The Emir of Qatar visited Gaza in 2012 in a rare first, and contributed USD 4 million to rebuild the city. Since then, Doha has been sending USD 30 million to Gaza every month as financial aid. Like Turkey, Qatar has claimed that Hamas is not a terrorist organisation, but a group of freedom fighters, fighting for Palestine. Most of Hamas’ top leaders do not live in Gaza. Majority of them were in Syria until 2012. Now, they live in Qatar. A senior Hamas leader left Gaza in 2019, saying that he was going to travel abroad. Since then, he has been managing various activities of Hamas from Doha.

Apart from providing Gaza with financial aid, Qatar has also assisted Hamas in carrying out various operations. Reports suggest that Hamas leaders operate in Gaza from abroad. In fact, Qatar plays a much bigger role. Qatar has been playing the role of a mediator in any geopolitical crisis of West Asia for a long time. Doha maintains cordial ties with Hamas, Hezbollah, Taliban and other such outfits. Qatar has often played the role of a mediator between these organisations and the Western countries.

Qatar also has an important US military base… the Al Udeid Air Base. The Taliban had taken a US sergeant into their custody in 2014. Qatar acted as a mediator at that period of time, and helped the release of the US soldier through negotiations with the Afghan outfit. In exchange, Washington DC had to release five Taliban fighters captured by the US forces. Due to such cooperation at various times, Qatar has emerged as a trusted friend of the Western World. At the same time, Doha also backs the activities of radical organisations, like Hamas, Hezbollah and Taliban. This dual role of Qatar is quite important, as far as the regional geopolitics is concerned.

Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have repeatedly accused Qatar of secretly supporting, funding and arming various terror outfits. However, one is yet to take any action against Doha. According to experts, Qatar maintains cordial ties with terror outfits, paving the way for reconciliation with them. With this, the peninsular Arab nation has gradually presented itself as a troubleshooter to the global community.

Moderating countries, like Qatar, benefit the most during a war because they can mediate in any situation by talking to the two warring parties. Hence, the importance of Qatar has increased a lot, amidst the armed conflict between Israel and Hamas. The Arab World, as well as the Western World, is aware of the fact that Qatar can control the situation when the time comes for reconciliation.

The death sentence handed down by a Qatar court to eight former Indian Navy personnel is the latest international outrage from the tiny gas-rich Arab sheikhdom. Qatar, in fact, is the region’s terrorism hub, said author and columnist Minhaz Merchant. He added: “The Qatar court has not publicly revealed the specific charge before sentencing the eight former Indian Navy officers to death – in itself a violation of international law… Since Qatar is a monarchical dictatorship, their fate rests essentially with the AI Thani family.“

Having discovered gas in the early 1970s, Qatar has set itself up as a regional power centre in West Asia to rival larger Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and the UAE. What Qatar has become in the process is the region’s terrorism hub. Earlier, Qatar had offered the Taliban an office in its capital city of Doha. The Times of India daily has quoted Merchant as saying: “Qatar played both sides. To the US, Qatar was the honest broker using its close ties with the Taliban leadership to allow NATO a face-saving withdrawal. To the Taliban, Qatar was a fellow Sunni Muslim State with plenty of money to keep the exiled Taliban leadership in comfort and Promise it future control of Afghanistan.” He stressed: “Qatar not only hosted terrorist-designated Taliban leaders, but also gave sanctuary to Islamist terror groups across the region. Doha has given Hamas more than USD 1 billion, enabling the Palestinian organisation to launch several attacks on Israel, including the biggest so far over the past one month.“

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das