While other rich Arab states, including the UAE and Saudi Arabia, have slashed their contributions both to the Palestinian Authority and to UNRWA, Qatar has — until recently — loyally carried on, making payments to Gaza, which means payments to the rulers of Gaza, Hamas. And Hamas is the Gazan branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, and thus deeply disliked by the other monarchies of the Gulf, who regard the Brotherhood as a threat to their rule. Now it seems that Qatar itself has been having second thoughts about continuing to prop up Hamas financially. More on this developing story can be found here: “Palestinians left without aid as Hamas, Qatar squabble over delays,” Jerusalem Post, September 16, 2023:
Tensions are high between the Gaza-based Hamas terrorist organization and the oil-rich Gulf state of Qatar following envoy Mohammed al-Emadi’s refusal to hand over grants for Palestinian public sector officials in the Strip, the local Sada news agency reported on Saturday.
Hamas sources told Sada that al-Emadi “conveyed a clear message” to Hamas, explaining that “Qatar cannot always” transfer funds to the Strip. “Permanent and better solution must be sought,” al-Emadi was quoted in the report as saying to the terror group’s leadership.
Qatar halted periodic payments of some $7 million from the Gulf to Gaza for the civil servants’ salaries some three months ago, and negotiations on resuming the payments have reportedly reached a dead end.
In addition, Qatar is reluctant to transfer funds needed by Hamas to operate a fourth generator at Gaza’s sole power plant, the report stated.
Gaza suffers from a real crisis around the availability of the energy resources needed to operate the only power plant in the Strip. Providing the population of the Gaza Strip with a 24/7 power supply requires about 600 megawatts of electricity, according to a 2020 report published by B’Tselem.
However, the Gaza Strip receives only 180 megawatts—120 directly from Israel via 10 power lines, and 60 generated by Gaza’s power plant with the Qatari-funded fuel provided by Israel.
The talks were reportedly held during al-Emadi’s visit to the Gaza Strip last week, with goals to “calm tensions” with Israel and “check on the progress of projects supervised by Qatari-backed Gaza Reconstruction Committee,” according to a Fatah-linked website.
When the Emir of Qatar visited Gaza in 2012, he offered a $400 million grant to rebuild Gaza. Though that particular effort was never realized, Qatar became the main financial supporter of Hamas, a role that Israel at one time even encouraged in order to keep Gaza relatively calm. Hamas even moved its headquarters from Gaza to Doha. With Israel’s approval, Qatar since 2018 has periodically provided millions of dollars in cash to Gaza’s Hamas rulers to pay for fuel for the Strip’s power plant, allow the group to pay its civil servants and provide aid to tens of thousands of impoverished families. Until recently, the aid intended for distribution to poor families amounted to $30 million a month. Qatar then reduced its aid to periodic payments of $7 million. But now even that has been held back for the past three months.
What is going on? There are a number of reasons why Qatar is rethinking its aid to Hamas.
First, while the members of the GCC, especially Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, in 2021 lifted a blockade they had previously imposed on Qatar three years before, to punish it both for its ties to Iran and for its Islamist sympathies, meaning its support for the Muslim Brotherhood and its Gaza branch, Hamas, there is still a lingering animus toward Qatar for its support of Hamas. In rethinking its aid to Hamas, Qatar may be hoping to end any disquiet in the GCC about its support for the terror group. Perhaps Qatar is trying o figure out how to provide aid directly to the people of Gaza directly, without turning the funds over to the Hamas rulers.
Second, Qatar may want to improve relations with the Americans, who would prefer that Qatar stop supporting what Washington correctly describes as a “terror group.”
Third, Qatar may simply be suffering from donor fatigue. Both Saudi Arabis and the UAE have slashed their support to the PA and to UNRWA. The Saudi Crown Prince, exasperated by Mahmoud Abbas’ constant implorations for aid, in 2018 told Abbas to “just accept whatever the Americans offer you.” Why would not Qatar be annoyed, too, at Hamas’ assumption that Qatar will always be willing to keep funding it, no matter what?
Fourth, Qatar may want to show its support to the PA, by financially undermining its arch-rival Hamas. It may seek to create the conditions in Gaza whereby an impoverished population may finally, out of desperation and rage at the corruption and mismanagement by Hamas, turns again to the PA.
To repeat: The Qatari envoy to Gaza, Mohammed al-Emadi, “conveyed a clear message” to Hamas, explaining that “Qatar cannot always” transfer funds to the Strip. A “permanent and better solution must be sought,” al-Emadi was quoted as saying to the terror group’s leadership.
What “permanent and better solution” might al-Emadi have in mind? Possibly he, and his government, want a stop to the massive corruption among Hamas leaders, that has allowed just two of them, Khaled Meshaal and Mousa abu Marzouk, to amass fortunes of $2.5 billion apiece. At a slightly lower level, 600 so-called “Hamas millionaires” are living in grand villas in Gaza. Why should Qatar send money to Hamas, when so much of it is siphoned off by its greedy leaders?
And perhaps al-Emadi is also alluding to the need to halt the massive waste of resources by Hamas, which spends so much on preparations for war with Israel. Hamas built a network of tunnels crisscrossing under Gaza, to move both weapons and fighters around undetected by Israel. But the IDF both detected, and destroyed, that network that had cost hundreds of millions of dollars to construct. Qatar wants assurances that its money will be spent on alleviating the condition of the poor in Gaza , rather than on rebuilding a network of terror tunnels.
The negotiations between Qatar and Hamas are said to be “stalled.” But Qatar has no need to “negotiate” anything with Hamas. It gives to, but receives nothing from, Hamas. Whatever it offers, however small that offer may be, and whatever new conditions are attached to it, Hamas has no choice but to accept it.
࿗Infidel࿘ says
I don’t trust Qatar on this one. In Saudi Arabia, it looked like a change in rulers from Abdullah to MbS did the trick, except that Biden had to sour the relationship, sending Riyadh into the arms of Beijing and then doing something Iran likes: removing Israel from maps. In this case, there’s not even a change in rulers, so no reason to suspect that Qatar is mending its ways
abu taleb says
Seems like muslims think they are entitled to get easy money for free because of their being muslims. Who can blame them to think that way as their god promise to make them rich. If they are still not rich, it is the fault of the kuffar, not allah.
OLD GUY says
The only reason these crapy muslim countries are playing with the big boys is OIL. Destroy their ability to provide oil around the world and they are back to humping camels.