Qatar’s pull with powers and pariahs

A truce between Israel and Hamas is only days old – marked by a limited release of hostages and prisoners as well as a silencing of war in Gaza and a delivery of aid to its people – yet this precious period of peace has also brought something else: Top leaders of Hamas, Israel, and the United States have all thanked the tiny Gulf nation of Qatar for brokering the Jan. 15 agreement.

Despite many outside efforts to shake Qatar’s role as neutral arbiter, it “was ready to deal with all these pressures,” one Hamas official, Basem Naim, told Doha News.

These public expressions of gratitude reflect Qatar’s own mediating style: focus less on finding the specific problems between adversaries and more on nurturing qualities such as empathy to build respect and a mutual recognition of a vision of harmony.

While Israel’s military might has swayed the conflict in its favor, it took Qatar’s soft leverage of being patient and listening to both Hamas and Israel to hammer out compromises for peace.

Qatar’s years of success in mediating in international conflicts – such as negotiating the return of children whom Russia had moved from Ukraine – have relied in part on its willingness to play host to both big powers and reviled militant groups. Hamas and the Taliban have been allowed to set up offices in the capital, Doha, even as Qatar is home to the largest U.S. military installation in the Middle East. The country has also learned valuable lessons from balancing ties with two giant and rival neighbors: Iran and Saudi Arabia.

“In contrast to the more Western focus on swiftly identifying problems and executing interventions, the Gulf approach significantly emphasizes the slow and careful building of trust and rapport,” wrote Nickolay Mladenov, a former United Nations envoy to the Middle East, in a paper.

Now, after its role during 14 months of negotiating a deal between Hamas and Israel, Qatar is active in starting talks to fulfill the next phase of the agreement: more releases of captured people and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces. Qatar has built up the trust and channels of communication between the two sides. In their thanks for that role, Israel and Hamas may have learned something about the qualities necessary for peace.