Diplomacy in the Middle East is so predictable that a drummer could use it as a metronome. It begins with a grand initiative, then comes the hope, then the skepticism, and finally it collapses in a decrescendo of excuses, objections, preconditions, provisos, and diplomatic filibustering.
US President Donald Trump may insist that “Phase Two” of his Gaza Peace Plan will be ready before the holidays, but the metronome appears set to its usual, dispiriting tempo.
It is astonishing how quickly the region’s habitual troublemakers have mobilized, not to rescue Gaza’s Palestinian Arabs from 17 years of theocratic tyranny under Hamas’ rule, but to manufacture obstacles to prevent Trump’s plan from ever being implemented.
The choreography is so transparent it borders on burlesque. Before anyone has proposed a single actionable idea for disarming Hamas, already Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt have raced to lay their rhetorical tripwires.
If the so-called Palestinian Arab cause were a genuine national project-as opposed to a nihilistic crusade aimed at destroying Israel-this would be a moment for its purported supporters to seize a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Instead, the usual bad-faith actors are moving the ceasefire’s goalposts not by centimeters, but deep into the Mediterranean Sea.
Let us begin with Qatar:
Qatar is an odious regime built on gas wealth and indentured South Asian labor. Doha, whose rulers remain enthralled to the Muslim Brotherhood’s deranged ideology, conducts a foreign policy of rare duplicity and unembarrassed hypocrisy.
Every major jihadist group seems to maintain a pied-à-terre in Doha. Qatar (along with Iran) funds Hamas, shelters its leadership in luxury suites, and then positions itself as the indispensable mediator between the US, Israel, and Hamas-attempting to extinguish flames it helped ignite.
This week, Qatar’s foreign ministry-straight-faced, as always, and behaving as though it possessed some divine veto power-declared that there can be no truce until Israel withdraws all its forces from Gaza.
Put simply, Doha is demanding no ceasefire until Israel hands Hamas the victory it failed to secure on the battlefield. Qatar knows that an Israeli withdrawal before Hamas is disarmed would simply reset the clock to October 6, 2023.
Trump’s plan is premised on the non-negotiable requirement that Hamas be disarmed, that Gaza be wrenched from the terror group’s grip.
Qatar is signaling that it has no intention of allowing any plan to succeed that does not preserve Hamas as a viable actor. It is not difficult to see why: Hamas is one of Qatar’s final levers of regional relevance. Without it, Doha’s geopolitical gravitas collapses to that of an opulent hotel lobby with a flag.
It is unclear whether Trump and his team fully grasp this, especially as the Qataris have thus far bribed, cajoled, and flattered Trump’s ego with skillful precision-an approach that often functions as a passkey through his defenses.