What’s Really behind Qatar’s Spat with Its Neighbors, and What It Means for Israel

When Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies severed relations with Doha last week, they cited as their key grievances the small but wealthy emirate’s support for terrorist groups and its coziness with Iran. Although the friendliness toward Iran is real, Qatar also supports anti-Iranian forces in Yemen and Syria. The real issue, argues Eran Lerman, is the struggle between what he calls the “camp of stability”—the pro-American Sunni Arab states led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt—and the Muslim Brotherhood, affiliates of which control Gaza, Turkey, and part of Libya, are gaining ground in Syria, and receive support from Doha in the form of funds, arms, and the constant propaganda disseminated by the Al Jazeera news network. Lerman suggests Israel and America have a stake in this quarrel:

With the collapse of Islamic State (IS) in both Mosul and Raqqa now within sight, it is all the more important to ensure that the Muslim Brotherhood and its regional allies not be in a position to benefit on the ground. The best outcome—for both the U.S., which still relies on Qatar’s huge Udayd air force base, and for Israel, given that it is mainly Qatari money that now keeps Gaza from descending into a humanitarian disaster (and possibly another round of violence)—would be for Qatar truly to change course. This would entail permanently shutting down all support for terror infrastructures while maintaining a commitment to humanitarian needs. Given Qatar’s vulnerabilities, such a goal may well be within reach. . . .

Once IS is obliterated and the so-called caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is subjected to typical Iraqi retirement benefits, the main question in both Syria and Iraq will be this: will the Iranian camp be able to consolidate a contiguous corridor under its control from Iran to the Mediterranean, or will the forces of stability, with Jordan in a highly sensitive role, be able to prevent this from happening? The prospect of decisive struggles ahead is one more reason for the Saudi-led camp to shore up its position by reducing the room for maneuver hitherto enjoyed by some of its rivals in the Sunni Arab world.

Moreover, the ground is shifting, regionally and globally, on the question of support for terrorist groups. There has never been any doubt that Qatari largesse often ended up, deliberately or as the result of loose controls, in the wrong hands. Against the background of the horrors in Manchester and London, the pride taken in butchering children, the overall level of tolerance for terrorists of any color—including Hamas—is now near zero. . . .

This robust power play by America’s allies (who are also Israel’s partners in the camp of stability, broadly defined) poses challenges as well as strategic benefits.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Israel & Zionism, Middle East, Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar, Syrian civil war, U.S. Foreign policy

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF