Why did the Israelis and Hamas fail to reach agreement in Egypt during the latest truce talks? According to the Palestinian Authority, the problem is interference from Qatar. Wait...What???? Qatar is a super rich oil emirate on the Persian Gulf. It has no military force. It has a tiny population. But it has two things that make it extremely important. First, it has billions and billions of dollars with the flow continuing as the oil comes out of the ground. Second, it is the home of Khaled Mashaal, the head of the Hamas Political Bureau, who lives in luxury in Qatar rather than in the squalor of Gaza. According to earlier reports, the problem in the Cairo talks was that every time a deal was close, Hamas added a new demand that was unacceptable to the Israelis, and those demands came from Mashaal. Yesterday, a senior member of the Palestinian Authority was quoted in Al-Hayaat as saying that the government of Qatar had threatened to expel Mashaal from that country if Hamas agreed to any long term deal with Israel.
To say the least, this sounds bizarre. Can it really be that Qatar would work so hard to undermine any peace agreement between Hamas and Israel, particularly since those who would suffer from continued hostilities would likely be the people of Gaza? Normally one would say this is impossible, but remember, this is the Middle East, and it is unlikely if the emir of Qatar cares very much about the people of Gaza. More important, Qatar is on the outs with Egypt. Qatar had supported former Egyptian president Morsi and the Moslem Brotherhood, and it has had poor relations with Egypt since the ouster of Morsi. In fact, Egypt has refused to allow Qatar to take part in the ongoing negotiations in Cairo. It may well be that Qatar is undermining the talks to avoid allowing Egypt to be the peacemaker.
So we have the wounded pride of the emir and the desire of the head of Hamas to stay in nice surroundings that may well have destroyed the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Or maybe we have the Palestinian Authority trying to make Hamas and its ally Qatar look bad. Unbelievable!
To say the least, this sounds bizarre. Can it really be that Qatar would work so hard to undermine any peace agreement between Hamas and Israel, particularly since those who would suffer from continued hostilities would likely be the people of Gaza? Normally one would say this is impossible, but remember, this is the Middle East, and it is unlikely if the emir of Qatar cares very much about the people of Gaza. More important, Qatar is on the outs with Egypt. Qatar had supported former Egyptian president Morsi and the Moslem Brotherhood, and it has had poor relations with Egypt since the ouster of Morsi. In fact, Egypt has refused to allow Qatar to take part in the ongoing negotiations in Cairo. It may well be that Qatar is undermining the talks to avoid allowing Egypt to be the peacemaker.
So we have the wounded pride of the emir and the desire of the head of Hamas to stay in nice surroundings that may well have destroyed the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations. Or maybe we have the Palestinian Authority trying to make Hamas and its ally Qatar look bad. Unbelievable!
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