The West searches for the truth about Qatar, but fears the answers

Enemies of enemies are famously friends in the Middle East — except in the case of Qatar, which has managed to keep the world guessing by making all its neighbors the staunchest of frenemies.

Gauging Qatar’s true loyalties has long been a parlor game in the volatile region, but in the wake of October 7, the U.S., Europe and Israel may be done playing. 

Did Qatar, which is Hamas’ biggest financial supporter and has granted refuge to several of Hamas’ billionaire leaders in luxury hotels, really know nothing about the plans to attack Israel? 

While much of the public discussion surrounding October 7 has focused on the potential involvement of Hamas ally Iran, the question of what Qatar knew and when it knew it has been of equal urgency for Western leaders who have treated the emirate as a trusted partner.

Qatar’s talent for playing all sides has allowed the small kingdom of 2.6 million on the Persian Gulf to establish itself as the mediator of last resort for the West in the region, a role it is also playing in the ongoing efforts to win the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

In a series of conversations with POLITICO in recent weeks, Western intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue, said that while they have no hard evidence, there are indications the emirate may have known more about the October 7 attack than it has let on.

“We’re still looking into it,” a top intelligence official of a major European power told POLITICO when asked whether his country believed Qatar had advance knowledge of the attack, adding that though there was “smoke,” there was no smoking gun.

Qatar declined to comment on the record for this article.

Cui bono?

When it comes to the question of who stood to gain from the October 7 assault, however, Western analysts inevitably turn their gaze to Doha.

The primary motivation Qatar would have had to remain silent if it caught wind of the attack, the intelligence officials said, was its interest in derailing talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a regional rival, over normalizing relations.

An agreement between the two largest economies in the region could have opened the door to strategic cooperation across a host of areas, including natural gas, Qatar’s lifeblood. Given Israel’s direct access to the Mediterranean and European markets, any energy collaboration with Saudi Arabia would be a game changer. 

Such a deal, for example, could pave the way for a pipeline stretching from India to Israel via Saudi Arabia under an ambitious project proposed by major powers at the G20 summit in September known as the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, or IMEC. One country notably absent from the list of signatories to IMEC: Qatar.  

The outrage over Israel’s bombings of Gaza in the Arab world, including in Saudi Arabia, suggests the dialogue won’t resume anytime soon | Yahya Hassouna/AFP via Getty Images

“It is in Qatar’s interest to put obstacles in the way of the normalization process between Saudi and Israel,” one of the officials said. “Any refitting for the balance of power is going to undermine Qatar’s position as the top diplomatic player that can do everything.”

In the end, the fallout of October 7 scuttled the Israeli-Saudi talks. The deep outrage over Israel’s bombings of Gaza in the Arab world, including in Saudi Arabia, suggests the dialogue won’t resume anytime soon.  

‘Critical role’ 

By leveraging its geography and vast wealth, Qatar has built a formidable network of unlikely bedfellows, spanning from Washington to Moscow, Berlin, Jerusalem and even Tehran. 

The foresight of Qatar’s pliable foreign policy has been on full display since October 7 as the emirate has shown remarkable ease in juggling its roles as a trusted benefactor and friend to Hamas, host to the largest U.S. military base in the region, and a key behind-the-scenes partner to Israel. Qatar has become an increasingly important partner for Europe as well, especially for Germany, which has turned to the country as a gas supplier to help compensate for the loss of deliveries from Russia.

Qatar’s secret for pulling off these seemingly contradictory roles is the result of a decades-long effort to make itself an indispensable partner to all sides of the Middle East equation. That’s particularly true of the U.S., which, despite its troubled legacy of embracing autocratic leaders in the region, from the Shah of Iran to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, has made Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, its new best friend.

Two years ago, U.S. President Joe Biden even designated Qatar a “major non-NATO ally,” joining the likes of Australia and New Zealand on an exclusive list of only 18 nations. The U.S. turned to Qatar last year for the delicate task of handling the controversial transfer of $6 billion to Iran from South Korea in exchange for the release of several American hostages held by Tehran.

Qatar’s biggest strategic coup, however, is that its leaders succeeded in making key international players dependent on them without their even noticing, whether as a mediator, energy supplier, financial center, or all three. 

The question is to what end. 

Qatar’s unique role made the emirate a natural choice to act as an intermediary for hostage negotiations between Hamas and Israel — for which it earned strong praise from the U.S. 

“We’re deeply grateful,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani during during a visit to Doha this week, “for your ongoing leadership in this effort, for the tireless work which you undertook and that continues, to try to free the remaining hostages.” 

Spies like us

Despite the public praise, behind the scenes, Western officials say Qatar has had trouble answering key questions surrounding October 7. 

One reason Western intelligence officials said they doubted Qatar’s claim of ignorance about the attacks is that the country’s security agency monitors every move of the Hamas leaders who live in the country, including Ismail Haniyeh, the group’s de facto chieftain. Both he and other top Qatari officials continue to enjoy refuge in Doha in the lap of luxury.

That said, the purported masterminds of October 7, including Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas in Gaza, are not based in Qatar. 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allowed the aid to flow even after it received detailed intelligence that Hamas was planning an attack | Pool photo by Abir Sultan via AFP/Getty Images

What’s more, a history of tension between Sinwar and Haniyeh raises the possibility that the Gaza leader kept his compatriots in Qatar in the dark, according to one of the intelligence officials who spoke to POLITICO.

Questions about what role, if any, Qatar played on October 7 are further complicated by the fact that Israel for years encouraged the emirate to support Gaza with humanitarian assistance.

Indeed, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu allowed the aid to flow — including in cash-filled suitcases — even after it received detailed intelligence that Hamas was planning an attack. 

Senior Israeli intelligence officials discounted those warnings because they didn’t believe Hamas had the ability to mount such an ambitious assault. 

Meantime, the Qatari assistance (estimated at about $2 billion since 2007) ensured Hamas remained a viable political force that could keep Gaza running. 

Since Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007, Qatar has financed the construction of everything from mosques to roads to homes, while also providing money to fuel Gaza’s main power plant and paying the salaries of civil servants. 

One of Qatar’s highest profile projects was Hamad City, a complex of more than 2,000 apartments in southern Gaza completed in 2016. Named for Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who also laid the cornerstone, the development was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike in December. 

Israeli officials long suspected Hamas was using cement from Qatar as well as its cash to construct the elaborate tunnel system under Gaza, a pillar of the group’s terror infrastructure.

Despite those concerns, Israel’s leadership did nothing to stop it. That’s because Qatar’s financial lifeline to Gaza was central to Netanyahu’s strategy to divide and conquer the Palestinians. By stoking rivalry between the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, Netanyahu believed Israel could put a two-state solution on indefinite hold. 

Muslim Brotherhood

Qatar’s allegiance to Hamas stems from their shared enthusiasm for the teachings of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni movement rooted in Egypt that believes politics should be grounded in its conservative interpretation of Islam. 

Qatar is a longtime supporter of the group, which has raised the hackles of some of its neighbors who regard the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization. 

In 2017, a Saudi-led group of Muslim nations that also included Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, severed diplomatic relations with Qatar over what they claimed was its support for terrorism. Qatar denied the accusations. 

Qatar has a population of 2.6 million of which only 300,000 people are Qatari citizens, leaving the country exposed to outside threats | Buda Mendes/Getty Images

Though the dispute was eventually resolved, the distrust remains. 

Qatar has a population of 2.6 million of which only 300,000 people are Qatari citizens, leaving the country exposed to outside threats in a dangerous neighborhood. 

The emirate’s fraught security position is one reason it has sought to play the role of regional mediator, which has helped ensure the continued support of key global powers, most importantly the U.S. 

That role has been evident in Qatar’s involvement in negotiating the release of Israeli hostages, many of whom also hold U.S. or EU passports. At the same time, some Western officials question why the emirate, given its sway with Hamas, hasn’t been more successful in brokering the release of more of the hostages.

“The Qataris may have an interest in long negotiations because it highlights the positive role they are playing,” one of the intelligence officials said. “It’s very clear to them that almost no one will criticize their role as long as they are being considered a positive player in terms of the hostages.”

Either way, time is on Qatar’s side. Given the delicate state of the region, the U.S. can’t afford to drop its “major” ally, whatever the fate of the hostages. With Russian gas off limits to most of the EU amid the war in Ukraine for the foreseeable future, the emirate has also become an indispensable partner for Europe. 

“It was tempting to get in deeper with Qatar and to use them as an intermediary in the region in order to focus on the bigger problems” in the world, one of the Western officials said of the West’s embrace of Qatar. “But now it’s clear the relationship was just a Band-Aid.”

Yet even if the U.S., Europe and Israel have woken up to the weakness of their position vis-à-vis the emirate, none of them is looking for another enemy in a region where they have few reliable friends.