Amit Segal@AmitSegal
It appears that Hamasโ latest bout of intractability has finally broken its patronโs back. After 20 years, Qatar is pulling its investment in the terror group. According to my sources, Doha will no longer play the role of host and negotiator, and most of Hamasโ leadership has already departed the country.
After two decades, the obvious question is: Why now?
The decisive turning point wasnโt Cairo, nor was it October 7โif anything, the latter represented a major appreciation of Dohaโs investment. The breaking point was Operation Roaring Lion. After 16 agonizing days of silence, torn between their two patrons, Hamas ultimately issued a statement defending Iranโs โright of self-defense,โ but asked Tehran to refrain from targeting โneighboring countries.โ For Qatar, a nation whose sovereign territory was actively being struck by Iranian missiles, this relatively weak, delayed condemnation from the group they had been funneling cash and support to for decades was not endearing.
This isnโt just about moral clarity or hurt feelings. In exchange for their luxury accommodations, Hamas provided Qatar with a highly marketable service: terrorist mediation. Alongside their shared ideological alignment, this mediation is precisely why Qatar reached out to Hamas after the groupโs 2006 electoral victory when the rest of the world cut contact. Doha cornered an unserved market. But the value of that service is in steep declineโnot only because a new status quo is settling over Gaza, but because the primary consumer of Qatarโs service, the United States, has developed a distaste for such intimate terrorist ties.
So Hamas is looking for a new home, both metaphorically and literally. Since the regional war began, a civil war has been raging inside Hamas: the more pragmatic camp led by Khaled Mashal wants to diversify their patronage toward Sunni Arab states, while the hardline faction led by al-Hayya wants to maintain their membership in Iranโs Axis of Resistance.
At one point, they successfully kept a foot in both camps, with a house in Tehran and a house in Doha. Now, they are locked out of one, and the other is a smoking ruin. Still, a smoking ruin is better than no house at all. Qatar cutting Hamas off will likely empower the Iran-aligned faction, despite the negligible amount of support a battered Tehran can currently offer.
There remains one wild card: a place for them may be opening up in Ankara, with Turkey offering sanctuary in exchange for regional influence. But for now, the arrangement remains tentative, and the amount of tangible support flowing to the group is unclear.
