The Doha-based Al Jazeera TV reported last Sunday that “thousands” of Qataris had come out on the streets to welcome Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani from his trip to the US, where he addressed the UN General Assembly on September 19.
Sultan Barakat of the Doha Institute noted that “half of Doha” was on the streets, showing solidarity with the emir. Roughly, that means 400,000 amassed on the corniche of Doha last weekend — a figure that needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. But numbers aside, it’s worth looking at what Tamim had to say before the UN in his first overseas trip since the start of the conflict between Qatar and the Quartet last June.
Tamim was very unapologetic, stressing that his country was being subjected to an “unjust blockade” by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and Bahrain. He could have made history and triggered a standing ovation by announcing that Qatar will take a bold move towards ending the conflict, like distancing itself from Iran, for example, or expelling notorious figures from the Muslim Brotherhood. Instead, he boomed: “Qatar will remain, as always, a safe haven for the oppressed (in reference to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood) and will continue its mediation efforts to find just solutions to conflict zones”. The last part sounded funny — coming from a leader who couldn’t solve his own problems, let alone mediate the problems of others in faraway places.
Very unwisely, Tamim tried meeting senior American Jewish leaders in the US, hoping that they could salvage his regime’s reputation, asking Hamas to release the bodies of missing Israeli troops, including Lieutenant Hadar Golen, who is believed to have been killed in the Gaza War of 2014. The release didn’t happen and Tamim’s meeting request was declined by Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organisation of America specifically because of his well-documented funding of Hamas.
Tamim made no mention of Gaza, the besieged Palestinian territory of 1.8 million people, 800,000 of whom are below the age of 14. Thousands live in poverty and are homeless, once made to believe that Qatar would solve all their problems. Back in October 2014, Tamim’s father Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani visited Gaza and was hosted by the leaders of Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood. He pledged $400 million to rehabilitate the city’s infrastructure, destroyed by years of blockade and war with Israel.For years, Gaza was seen as Hamad and Tamim’s fiefdom due to their ties with Hamas, but not anymore.
Last May, Gaza’s former security chief Mohammad Dahlan met with Hamas’ new leader Yahya Sinwar in Cairo, and they agreed to set up the Palestinian Joint Liability Committee, bankrolling families left in need by Israel with $50,000 per household. Qatar was obviously left out of the agreement, as Egypt crept into Tamim’s Palestinian sphere of influence, promising to reopen the Rafah Border — something that no Qatar official can provide. All of Qatar’s investment in Gaza seemed suddenly in jeopardy — as Egypt, with backing of the Quartet — reminded Palestinians that real support can only come from the united Arab family, and neither from Qatar or Iran, another traditional backer of Hamas. More recently, Egypt sent one million litres of fuel to Gaza, outdoing a three-month grant that was offered to restore electricity to its residents by Doha.
With little surprise, Tamim had nothing to say about Gaza at his UN speech on last Tuesday.
Adding insult to injury, last week Tamim opened the mosques of Doha for absentee prayers for Mohammad Mehdi Akef, the former chief of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, who died in a Cairo hospital on Friday at the age of 89. Tamim placed all mosques at the disposal of Shaikh Yousuf Al Qaradawi, the spiritual godfather of the Egyptian Brotherhood, who mourned Akef as a “martyr”. Standing next to him was none other than Khalid Mesha’al, the Hamas chief wanted in the four corners of the globe. Earlier in the month, Qatari money had succeeded in removing Al Qaradawi from Interpol’s “wanted” list, after Egyptian authorities issued an international warrant for his arrest, accusing him of “murder and theft” during the era of Brotherhood rule in Cairo.
Tamim’s influence has virtually disappeared in other parts of the Arab World. In war-torn Syria, the latest de-conflict zones agreements were hammered out by Russia, Turkey and Iran, with zero influence from Qatar. The Turks were given a share of peacekeeping Idlib in the Syrian northwest, and the honours of fighting Jabhat Al Nusra — under a security blanket from Moscow. The Russians have been pouring troops into Aleppo, Al Ghouta, and the Syrian south, cementing their already powerful presence in the country, while Iran is getting to keep its pockets of influence in the Kalamoun Mountains and within certain neighbourhoods of Damascus itself. Qatar has been left out — completely — from the Syrian endgame, despite pumping the opposition with arms and funds since 2011. In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia got the upper hand by restoring Saad Al Hariri to the premiership in 2016, drowning all previous attempts by Doha, which had tried to position itself as a problem-solver in Lebanese politics.
Tamim’s father had in fact brokered a deal among warring Lebanese factions back in 2008, and had visited southern Lebanon where he was received with red carpets by Hezbollah. Billboards emerged on the streets of Beirut, saying: “Thank you Qatar”. Those signs have been torn down, and now replaced with photos of King Salman and his Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.
Squeezed out of Palestine, Syria, Lebanon — and recently Iraq, after Saudi Arabia put its weight behind talks with top Shiite figures — Tamim finds himself literarily toothless in Arab politics, denied the ability to solve problems throughout the region — but still capable, however, of stirring havoc and chaos.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian historian and former Carnegie scholar. He is also the author of Under the Black Flag: At the frontier of the New Jihad.
