The Gaza war presents the most severe test to relations between Hamas and Qatar, which has served as an intermediary between the militant group and its adversaries for many years and, in the process, boosted Doha’s geopolitical and diplomatic clout.
Since the devastating attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 Israelis and led to the capture of more than 200 hostages, Qatar has used its connections with all sides to help secure the release of four hostages from Gaza, including two American citizens, and the evacuation of injured Palestinians through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. Some of the hundreds of foreign nationals caught in Gaza when fighting broke out also began to leave the besieged strip on Nov. 1 after Qatari mediation.
Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, the “Islamic Resistance Movement” or Hamas, was created in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Twenty years later, it took control of Gaza from the secular Palestine Liberation Organization and began periodic rocket and guerrilla assaults on Israeli territory.
Qatar, which first opened a channel of communication with Hamas in 2006 at the request of the United States, according to an informed source, helped broker ceasefires between Israel and Hamas in 2014, 2021, and 2022. Doha has also provided Gaza with economic and humanitarian assistance. The gas-rich emirate has helped Washington engage Hamas in ways prohibited to Washington by U.S. law because of the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Since Oct. 7, U.S. officials have thanked the Qataris for their assistance in freeing hostages while seeking to disrupt the Palestinian militant group’s financing in regional countries. Many U.S. officials depict Hamas as the same as the Islamic State group – a nihilist, extreme, religious, fanatic organization — and see the Qatar-Hamas relationship as increasingly problematic. It is possible that the Biden administration will put pressure on Qatar to end its close relationship with Hamas after more hostages are freed. One sign came when Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region in October. During the Qatari leg of his tour, Blinken declared, “There can be no more business as usual with Hamas.” Standing next to Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Blinken dodged a question about whether the Biden administration was calling on Doha to shut down Hamas’s political office, which has been based in Qatar for more than a decade.
Doha’s relationship with Hamas actually began around the time of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa’s ascension to power in 1995. Saudi Arabia clamped down on contributions from Saudi individuals to Islamic causes outside the Kingdom following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S. Western countries stopped aid to the secular Palestinian Authority after Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and Hamas took over Gaza the following year. Qatar moved to fill the vacuum and committed $50 million to Gaza that year.
In 2011, the uprising in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule led Hamas to break with Assad – and for a time with Iran, which came to Assad’s assistance. In early 2012 Hamas divorced itself from Damascus and sided with Syrian Sunni Islamist groups fighting Assad’s regime. Hamas’s exiled political bureau left Syria for Qatar and Egypt. Egypt became a less hospitable base after the military overthrew the country’s only elected president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013. Hamas patched up relations with Iran after it became apparent that Assad’s government, with Russian and Iranian support, would survive. At present, Hamas’s political leaders continue to operate out of Doha. Hamas representatives frequently appear on Qatar’s state-run satellite network, Al Jazeera, as well as making themselves available for interviews with the Western press.
The presence of Islamist groups like Hamas in Qatar was one of the reasons cited by four conservative Arab countries—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain— for blockading Qatar from 2017 to 2021. Neo-conservative voices in Washington who championed the blockade, and lobbied the Trump administration to back it, also pointed to Doha’s relationship with Hamas when arguing that Qatar had unacceptably close links to various nefarious players in the Middle East.
Since that crisis ended in 2021, however, Qatar has been under substantially less pressure from its neighbors. Qatari and Saudi official responses to the October 7 attack were similar—both avoiding any condemnation of Hamas. In the West, however, criticism was swift and harsh. Rep. Max Miller, a Republican from Ohio, called for the extradition of Doha-based Hamas senior official Ismail Haniyeh, and others in the organization. “I want to see President Biden go after our allies that we have, like the Qataris, and military relationships that we have, and extradite these Hamas terrorists. We know that they are there,” said Miller. “And I would like to see that happen in a very forceful way.”
Pro-Israel U.S. groups such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have also pushed the Biden administration to “put maximum pressure on Qatar to terminate its support to Hamas without delay.” A more middle-ground approach would have the White House attempt to convince Qatari authorities to make Hamas’s activities in Doha less visible by curtailing Hamas leaders’ access to the press.
Regardless of how U.S. policymakers view Hamas and the extent of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, it is likely that the organization will remain an important actor in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Those who advocate that Qatar expel Hamas’s political leadership like Jordan did in 1999, when Amman was under heavy pressure from Washington, must consider where Hamas would go to next.
Would Hamas’s relocation to Iran or Malaysia advance Washington’s interests? Or is it better to maintain a channel to Hamas that has proven useful in the past?
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy, and an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project.
The Future of Hamas in Qatar
By Giorgio Cafiero
Middle East & North Africa
The Gaza war presents the most severe test to relations between Hamas and Qatar, which has served as an intermediary between the militant group and its adversaries for many years and, in the process, boosted Doha’s geopolitical and diplomatic clout.
Since the devastating attack by Hamas on Israel on October 7, which killed 1,400 Israelis and led to the capture of more than 200 hostages, Qatar has used its connections with all sides to help secure the release of four hostages from Gaza, including two American citizens, and the evacuation of injured Palestinians through the Rafah crossing into Egypt. Some of the hundreds of foreign nationals caught in Gaza when fighting broke out also began to leave the besieged strip on Nov. 1 after Qatari mediation.
Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, the “Islamic Resistance Movement” or Hamas, was created in 1987 during the first Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation as an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. Twenty years later, it took control of Gaza from the secular Palestine Liberation Organization and began periodic rocket and guerrilla assaults on Israeli territory.
Qatar, which first opened a channel of communication with Hamas in 2006 at the request of the United States, according to an informed source, helped broker ceasefires between Israel and Hamas in 2014, 2021, and 2022. Doha has also provided Gaza with economic and humanitarian assistance. The gas-rich emirate has helped Washington engage Hamas in ways prohibited to Washington by U.S. law because of the U.S. designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Since Oct. 7, U.S. officials have thanked the Qataris for their assistance in freeing hostages while seeking to disrupt the Palestinian militant group’s financing in regional countries. Many U.S. officials depict Hamas as the same as the Islamic State group – a nihilist, extreme, religious, fanatic organization — and see the Qatar-Hamas relationship as increasingly problematic. It is possible that the Biden administration will put pressure on Qatar to end its close relationship with Hamas after more hostages are freed. One sign came when Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited the region in October. During the Qatari leg of his tour, Blinken declared, “There can be no more business as usual with Hamas.” Standing next to Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman al-Thani, Blinken dodged a question about whether the Biden administration was calling on Doha to shut down Hamas’s political office, which has been based in Qatar for more than a decade.
Doha’s relationship with Hamas actually began around the time of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa’s ascension to power in 1995. Saudi Arabia clamped down on contributions from Saudi individuals to Islamic causes outside the Kingdom following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the U.S. Western countries stopped aid to the secular Palestinian Authority after Hamas won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006 and Hamas took over Gaza the following year. Qatar moved to fill the vacuum and committed $50 million to Gaza that year.
In 2011, the uprising in Syria against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule led Hamas to break with Assad – and for a time with Iran, which came to Assad’s assistance. In early 2012 Hamas divorced itself from Damascus and sided with Syrian Sunni Islamist groups fighting Assad’s regime. Hamas’s exiled political bureau left Syria for Qatar and Egypt. Egypt became a less hospitable base after the military overthrew the country’s only elected president, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2013. Hamas patched up relations with Iran after it became apparent that Assad’s government, with Russian and Iranian support, would survive. At present, Hamas’s political leaders continue to operate out of Doha. Hamas representatives frequently appear on Qatar’s state-run satellite network, Al Jazeera, as well as making themselves available for interviews with the Western press.
The presence of Islamist groups like Hamas in Qatar was one of the reasons cited by four conservative Arab countries—Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt, and Bahrain— for blockading Qatar from 2017 to 2021. Neo-conservative voices in Washington who championed the blockade, and lobbied the Trump administration to back it, also pointed to Doha’s relationship with Hamas when arguing that Qatar had unacceptably close links to various nefarious players in the Middle East.
Since that crisis ended in 2021, however, Qatar has been under substantially less pressure from its neighbors. Qatari and Saudi official responses to the October 7 attack were similar—both avoiding any condemnation of Hamas. In the West, however, criticism was swift and harsh. Rep. Max Miller, a Republican from Ohio, called for the extradition of Doha-based Hamas senior official Ismail Haniyeh, and others in the organization. “I want to see President Biden go after our allies that we have, like the Qataris, and military relationships that we have, and extradite these Hamas terrorists. We know that they are there,” said Miller. “And I would like to see that happen in a very forceful way.”
Pro-Israel U.S. groups such as the Foundation for Defense of Democracies have also pushed the Biden administration to “put maximum pressure on Qatar to terminate its support to Hamas without delay.” A more middle-ground approach would have the White House attempt to convince Qatari authorities to make Hamas’s activities in Doha less visible by curtailing Hamas leaders’ access to the press.
Regardless of how U.S. policymakers view Hamas and the extent of the Israeli offensive in Gaza, it is likely that the organization will remain an important actor in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Those who advocate that Qatar expel Hamas’s political leadership like Jordan did in 1999, when Amman was under heavy pressure from Washington, must consider where Hamas would go to next.
Would Hamas’s relocation to Iran or Malaysia advance Washington’s interests? Or is it better to maintain a channel to Hamas that has proven useful in the past?
Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, a Washington, DC-based geopolitical risk consultancy, and an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project.
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