Disturbing investment

The Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s recent visit to the Gaza Strip drew attention of the global community. It was labeled a “historic” visit, since he was the first head of state to visit this enclave since 2006, when the Islamist movement Hamas won parliamentary elections. This party has been classified as a terrorist organization by many countries, which resulted in Israel, the EU, and the United States imposing an economic blockade on Gaza.

According to the BBC, Al Thani entered Gaza by car and was greeted and welcomed by the Prime Minister and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. Unprecedented security measures were provided during the Qatari leader’s visit.

“The Emir’s visit today officially announces the breach of the economic and political blockade of the past five years,” said joyous Haniyeh during the official ceremony, quoted by the Qatari channel Al Jazeera. He had a great reason for joy, indeed. During his six-hour stay in Gaza, Al Thani launched a construction project for a large housing complex located in Khan Yunis. The cost of the project is estimated at 254 million dollars. The State of Qatar plans to assign a total of 400 million dollars for the development of infrastructure, which was severely damaged during the conflict with Israel. But the most important is that Al Thani’s meeting with Haniyeh should help the latter gain more prestige among ordinary Palestinians. However, according to Palestinian media, the visit can also be viewed as a catalyst of the population’s separation into two groups. “We call on the emir of Qatar or his representative to visit the West Bank too,” said the headline of the editorial carried by the leading Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds.

According to Viacheslav SHVED, head of the Middle East and Asian-Pacific department at the National Institute of Strategic Studies, the Gaza Strip was “doomed to war with Israel” since 2006, besides, it was blocked by “Hosni Mubarak’s regime.” “With this visit and the group of large-scale projects of reconstruction and peaceful restoration of the Gaza Strip’s agricultural sector, Qatar basically opens access for Gaza to a fundamentally new level of development. Thus, Qatar is giving a great boost to peaceful growth in this sector,” said Shved to The Day.

He also thinks that the timing of the visit is rather important as well, it happened

“when the Hamas leadership ceased being Iran-oriented.” “Basically, the Gaza Strip has stopped serving Iran and conducting its expansionist politics in Arab lands,” Shved adds. “Now it became closer to other Arab countries like Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey.”

However, the international community took Al Thani’s visit with caution. “This visit emphasizes Qatar’s actions during the past few years. It is obvious that the emir is trying to establish himself as the regional power broker. I think that he is trying to stop the blockade of Hamas, which is happening due to the latter’s terrorist organization status,” said Roland FREUDENSTEIN, deputy director at the Centre for European Studies, Brussels.

It is known that Qatar is one of the main sources of Hamas’ funding, especially after the recent events including the cooling down of relations with Iran, and Syria and moving its offices from those countries to Cairo and Doha. “It is strange that the emir of Qatar interferes in Palestinian domestic conflicts, supports Hamas, and therefore, creates an image of himself as a radical,” commented Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Yigal Palmor. Besides, according to him, “the money, assigned by the Qatari leadership for Palestinians’ needs, will inevitably end up in Hamas leaders’ pockets.” “In its turn, this will only increase corruption in the Gaza Strip, and Palestinians’ problems will not be solved. By this visit, the emir of Qatar buried the last hope for the restoration of peaceful process in the region,” Palmor said.

But according to Shved, Al Thani’s arrival is supposed to “finally break Gaza free from Iran’s pressure and influence.” “Of course, this will seriously affect the growth of reasonableness of Hamas itself. I think it will go through a transformation like the one that happened to Egypt’s Freedom and Justice Party. The recent changes in the Hamas leadership happened for a reason, too. The former head Khaled Mashaal resigned because he had been connected to Tehran and Damascus for too many years. That is why it is possible to say that Hamas has changed its orientation towards Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey. Instead of dedicating its efforts to bombarding the Israeli territory, the Gaza Strip will concentrate on peaceful development after the emir’s visit,” Shved thinks.

Freudenstein believes that Qatari investments will make the Gaza Strip “more independent from Iran,” but “it does not necessarily imply that Hamas will become less dangerous.” “What happens next is of crucial importance: if the leaders of other Arab countries do not visit Gaza or provide some other kind of official support, this should not be considered to be a breakthrough of the blockade. In my opinion, the West in particular should not fling its arms around Hamas, while this organization still supports the annihilation of Israel,” the Brussels expert notes.

However, according to Shved, it is Israel that “completely consciously fails all the attempts to solve the Palestinian problem.” “Israel does not see the available opportunities to improve relations with the whole Arab world in the period of the Arab Spring,” Shved says. “But Israel has to understand that this is a positive moment for them as well.”

Should the West and Israel show more reaction to the strengthening of relations between the Gaza Strip and Qatar? “First of all, we need to wait until the presidential election in the United States takes place,” says Shved. “If Obama is elected, he is more likely to support this process, I think. And concerning Israel, early parliamentary elections are scheduled to take place there at the beginning of 2013. The left-centrist forces became more active there again, for example, the Kadima party. Just recently, its leader Dalia Itzik announced the establishing of good-neighborly relations with other Arab countries and signing of peace treaties with them as Kadima’s main goals. This will be the main stabilizing force in the process of defining Israel’s national security.”

Freudenstein does not see “anything joyful” in Al-Thani’s visit, and this is rather a “message for the opponents of terrorism, and a sort of distinction of Hamas’ achievements.” “Therefore, the reaction of Israel and the West is quite understandable,” Freudenstein summarizes.