The Middle East Institute hosted an on-the-record press briefing to discuss the role of key regional partners Qatar and Egypt in the Israel-Hamas conflict, from the question of hostage negotiations being led by Doha to the evacuation of U.S. citizens and the wounded to Egypt. Recorded Tuesday, November 7, 2023.
Speakers
Brian Katulis
Vice President of Policy, MEI
Mirette F. Mabrouk
Director, Egypt and the Horn of Africa Program, MEI
Rachel Dooley (Moderator)
Deputy Director of Communications
Transcript
The following transcript was automatically generated and may contain errors.
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:17
Rachel Dooley
All right. Welcome, everyone. I'm Rachel Dooley, the deputy director of communications at the Middle East Institute. Thanks for joining us today for our on the record briefing on Qatar and Egypt's role in mediating the Israel-Hamas conflict. I'm joined by my two distinguished colleagues at MEI, Brian Katulis, a senior fellow and the vice president of policy, and Mirette Mabrouk, a senior fellow and the director of our Egypt program.
00:00:26:19 - 00:00:50:00
Rachel Dooley
We'll be hearing from both of them on Qatar's position as a mediator with Hamas, the question of hostage negotiations being led by Doha, and Egypt's efforts in the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. And when we get to the Q&A portion, you can use the raise hand function on your screen to ask a question. And if you're called on, we will unmute you and then you can introduce yourself and direct your question to one of our panelists.
00:00:50:03 - 00:01:08:10
Rachel Dooley
And I'll go over all of this again later as well. But for now, let's jump right into it. I'm going to turn to Brian. Brian, we talk a lot about U.S. policies vis a vis the conflict and the policies and concerns of our partners in the region, one of which is Qatar. Can you lay out some of the key questions and issues?
00:01:08:12 - 00:01:31:18
Brian Katulis
Sure. Thanks, Rachel. And thanks to all of you for for joining us. Before I get into a brief outline of some remarks on this topic, I just wanted to say that obviously this issue touches a lot of people personally on an emotional level. I was shocked this morning to see the news of what looks to be the murder of a Jewish American man during protests in California.
00:01:31:20 - 00:02:03:08
Brian Katulis
It made me think of the six year old boy who was killed--a Palestinian-American a few weeks ago. So obviously emotions are running high and I hope that these sorts of incidents are isolated incidents. But what we try to do here at the Middle East Institute is approach what are very volatile and sensitive issues from multiple angles and offer analysis that hopefully helps you all and helps those in policymaking positions to make the best decisions and best judgments. Towards that mission...
00:02:03:11 - 00:02:36:22
Brian Katulis
Before I get into my remarks, I also want to highlight that tomorrow to advance our mission, we have a really great panel at 10 a.m. Eastern time on the topic of can mediation or negotiation bring a hostage release between Israel and Hamas? And our colleague Randa Slim, who runs our Track II programs will moderate a panel that includes in an Israeli voice, Gershon Baskin, Palestinian voice, Hiba Husseini, and a third voice, Sultan Barakat, who has actually worked on conflict mediation in many different settings.
00:02:36:24 - 00:03:07:14
Brian Katulis
So please tune in to that tomorrow at 10 a.m. Maybe a couple of notes on U.S. policy and where we are a month into the war and then four or five points on Qatar before I hand it to Egypt. First, it's my assessment that a month into the crisis, the Biden team has only achieved very meager or modest progress toward the goals that it set out for itself in the first week after Hamas started this war with its attack on October 7th.
00:03:07:16 - 00:03:31:13
Brian Katulis
If you look at the five main goals the Biden team has set out, the results are quite mixed. One, it aimed to support Israel's self-defense and its goal of defeating Hamas militarily. Two, it wanted to secure the safe passage and release of hostages and U.S. citizens who were trapped in Gaza. Three, it wanted to prevent a wider regional war.
00:03:31:17 - 00:04:01:00
Brian Katulis
Fourth, to offer protection to civilians and respond to the humanitarian crisis that continues to grow in Gaza. And then lastly, I think it seeks to maintain strong working relationships with Arab countries, understanding that America has a lot on its plate with Ukraine and China, and that working with these partners is essential. And in all of those five main goals, it's hard to say that there's been a leap forward in achieving sort of progress towards them, certainly.
00:04:01:02 - 00:04:27:10
Brian Katulis
I think the U.S. has backed Israel's self-defense and its military actions, though, raised some concerns about the need for a humanitarian pause, as they call it, rather than cease fire. And I think so far we've avoided a wider regional conflagration and a war. But like many things in a delicate situations and situations involving war, quick results from diplomacy are hard to find.
00:04:27:12 - 00:04:53:02
Brian Katulis
Of these five goals, shifting to sort of a couple of remarks on Qatar, I think four of the five goals, it's clear that Qatar plays a unique role in trying to help U.S. policymakers advance towards achieving them. Qatar’s role is quite unique, and it has a certain sway in Washington and then around the region, which is in a category all of itself.
00:04:53:02 - 00:05:27:19
Brian Katulis
And I think it's also generated a lot of controversy over recent years. And we already see increased scrutiny and big questions about the role Qatar has played on multiple fronts. And I think that's probably likely to increase. And for good reason. And it's important in our democratic system to have greater scrutiny and debate. If you look at the last three administrations, the current one, Biden, the Trump administration and the Obama administration, all three have in different ways leaned heavily on Qatar in many different ways.
00:05:27:21 - 00:06:07:13
Brian Katulis
Before this crisis, clearly, there was a lot of controversy about Qatar's role with negotiations on Iran and the release of prisoners and Americans who were held in Iran. Qatar also played an important role in Syria and the anti-ISIL campaign, which again is much debated these days. And obviously, I think the biggest one is that the Trump administration, as well as the Biden administration, coordinated heavily with Qatar in the withdrawal of Afghanistan and some of the negotiations with the Taliban, which I think it's fair to say produced very mixed results for the people of Afghanistan.
00:06:07:15 - 00:06:37:00
Brian Katulis
Let me just quickly go through five I think, key things about Qatar's role in all of this and then leave it mostly to your follow up questions. Clearly, number one, in this crisis, Qatar is playing a role in the hostage negotiations. From what we can understand, there are at least 240 hostages of many different nationalities still being held by Hamas and Islamic Jihad and perhaps other groups.
00:06:37:02 - 00:07:00:06
Brian Katulis
Only four have been released in a month of this conflict. It's a very protracted negotiation. And I think anyone from the outside, whether it's a journalist or think tankers like us, it's extremely hard to get verifiable information about the who, what, when, where of all of these negotiations, because intentionally, I think all of the actors try to keep it quiet.
00:07:00:06 - 00:07:37:05
Brian Katulis
I've heard various rumors and gossip about how it's going, but I think quite obviously, the facts demonstrate that a month into this it's not going very well. There was some hope and some talk of major release of large numbers of hostages a few weeks ago. That doesn't seem forthcoming. All of these issues, I think the Hamas leadership, my assessment is wrapping them up and interlinking them with the fate of the American citizens who are trapped in Gaza, not necessarily held under gunpoint like the Israeli and other nationals, like the Thai workers, as hostages.
00:07:37:05 - 00:08:04:13
Brian Katulis
But but U.S. officials repeatedly said over the past week that it was Hamas's fault that they were not be able to leave. So I think these these negotiations also have in some ways, it's hard to tell from the outside, but the injured and wounded who have gone across the Rafah border, I think some combination of Hamas and the Qataris have tried to expand and prolong these negotiations and complicate these things.
00:08:04:15 - 00:08:42:16
Brian Katulis
I think in an effort to forestall the Israeli military offensive, just two days ago, the Qatari foreign minister blamed the lack of a pause, the humanitarian pause that Secretary Blinken was trying to achieve, for complicating the negotiations on releasing these hostages. Again, I talked to Israelis who are extremely frustrated from what they hear from contacts in the Israeli government about a possible shell game in these negotiations and changing the terms and shifting the terms and simply trying to get the release of we're talking about innocent kids in some cases young children, elderly and all of that.
00:08:42:16 - 00:09:01:01
Brian Katulis
Second, Qatar plays a role along with Egypt in these negotiations. And it's linked on opening the Rafah border and humanitarian access corridors. I’m mostly going to leave that to Mirette because I think she's going to talk quite a lot about that, on Egypt's role and what she sees and her assessment is on all of that.
00:09:01:01 - 00:09:50:01
Brian Katulis
Third before this crisis--and people are debating this and I'm glad they are--Qatar played an important role in funneling cash. The estimates vary, but sending cash payments to Palestinians in Gaza. Teachers, doctors, public servants I've met with in the past, the Qatari envoy, Mohamed El Hammadi, who actually would go in earlier moments with the suitcases of cash, as he described it. But more recently, I think they set up some mechanisms to to fund the salaries of civil servants and people who, though Hamas controlled the Gaza Strip, many of these people were employed during the previous era when the Palestinian Authority was there.
00:09:50:01 - 00:10:15:09
Brian Katulis
And there's a certain infrastructure. So if you talk to Qataris these days, they say, we've got the receipts for this and we've got the basically all of this aid in addition to salaries and reconstruction, was done in coordination and cooperation, not just with the US officials and successive administration, but also Israelis who who commented on this role as helping them keep the calm.
00:10:15:11 - 00:10:55:17
Brian Katulis
Clearly, that didn't work out much in the same way that a blockade of more than a decade and a half on Gaza did not achieve the goal of keeping Israeli civilians and people safe from the threats that emerged in Gaza. And there's an important debate that's just only beginning about what are the lessons learned from that period? What are the lessons learned from trying to keep the system in Gaza on life support in the hopes that we would forestall a wider cataclysm and questions about how much this helped underwrite because money is fungible, underwrite some of these actions that we saw that threaten our partners in Israel and now threaten the United States.
00:10:55:19 - 00:11:15:19
Brian Katulis
Two other things not closed. Sorry for going on here. I think clearly Qatar has for years played a leading role in some of the propaganda media networks that we see shaping attitudes, not just in the Middle East, but we see here how people view things differently from different perspectives through our media.
00:11:15:19 - 00:11:38:21
Brian Katulis
So Al-Jazeera is one of them. If you watch Al Jazeera Arabic or English, it has a certain line on this conflict, and it's a line that got noticed from Secretary Blinken and others who raised some complaints about how it does that and what it portrays in different sides. Again, it's part of the messy debate here in America and then also around the region about how people see things.
00:11:38:22 - 00:12:00:04
Brian Katulis
And if you remember, just a few days into the war and the airstrikes made by Israel, that there was controversy or controversy over a bombing of the hospital which actually scuttled a meeting that President Biden was planning to have with some Arab leaders in Amman, Jordan. And like a lot of things in the Middle East, there's ten sides to every story.
00:12:00:06 - 00:12:15:19
Brian Katulis
Part of what Qatar is seen as doing is is reinforcing some of these networks that sometimes don't operate with the high standards in an era of truth decay. But again, that's up for debate and people will debate that forever.
00:12:15:21 - 00:12:52:21
Brian Katulis
And I think the last role, which is important and it's pretty basic, but I was last in Qatar in May on an MEI trip. We met with many officials. We met with U.S. diplomats as well. Qatar has had a longstanding relationship outside of the diplomatic context they talk about before militarily. We have America has a very large airbase where most of the operations, the air operations against ISIL were were run out of. It was a key link to also Afghanistan. What's interesting is that the CENTCOM presence there actually is multinational.
00:12:52:23 - 00:13:40:11
Brian Katulis
And what I learned on this trip a few months ago was that since Israel was brought into CENTCOM a few years ago, Israel itself has a presence in Doha. I don't know if that is still the case today after these this conflict. So even though Israel and Qatar don't have formal, open, recognized ties with embassies like Jordan and Egypt or the UAE, Bahrain and Morocco, there have been these links that some were established back in the 1990s, a trade office between Israel and Qatar, in addition to sort of those contacts between Mohammed al-Mahdi, the Gaza envoy for Qatar, and people in the Mossad and the Israeli security establishment, there are now military links.
00:13:40:11 - 00:14:37:21
Brian Katulis
And when we asked Qatari officials whether there were limits on how much is the Israelis who were on the basis of a day where they could go or not, they were that they operate freely, they live freely and operate out of the base. Again, this was pre-war. So I don't know whether that's changed or not. Another question and I'll close here on this military aspect of it, is as tensions rise with Iran and we see this sort of game of chicken that's being played, especially coming from the Iranian leadership threatening to escalate if the conflict in Gaza continues, it raises some curious and interesting questions for countries like Qatar, where the United States has a military presence, especially with the U.S. feels the need to deploy and use some of those military assets to to respond to threats. So went on a bit longer. I hope it's helpful to you and look forward to your questions. Mirette, over to you to talk about Egypt's role in this.
00:14:37:23 - 00:15:11:20
Mirette Mabrouk
So good morning. Thank you to everyone for joining us. I'm actually going to keep this quite brief so as to make sure that we can get everyone's questions. So on Egypt's role. Egypt, whether it likes it or not, is an integral part of this conflict, basically because it shares borders with Israel and really with Gaza. The only way in and out of Gaza, there are only two spots, one controlled by the Israelis and one controlled by the Egyptians
00:15:11:22 - 00:15:54:05
Mirette Mabrouk
Since the day the conflict started--because I know that there is confusion about this--Since the day the conflict started, the border has not closed on the Egyptian side. The closures have been on the Israeli side from both Hamas and Israel. I think the one exception was on Saturday when it was temporarily closed after an ambulance, I mean the front of the Shifa hospital was hit by Israeli bombing just as the ambulances were preparing to to move people. And there were many, many killed I think 17 killed, but I'm not sure.
00:15:54:05 - 00:16:12:10
Mirette Mabrouk
So at the moment, Egypt is worried about two things like the rest of the region, like everyone else. Egypt is extremely worried about the conflict, about the the possibility of this conflict spilling over the borders.
00:16:12:12 - 00:16:38:01
Mirette Mabrouk
It is also worried, again, this is extremely prevalent Arab countries. It is also worried about public opinion. I do think that for everyone who had thought with all the normalizations and as time went on, that the the issue of the Palestinian people was simply not important to Arab or regional audiences, I do think this has made it very, very clear that this is just not the case.
00:16:38:01 - 00:17:07:20
Mirette Mabrouk
So Egypt is worried about public opinion as well. Now, Egypt has a strong, committed relationship with Israel on military, on security matters, on intelligence, and it has a good relationship with Israel. It has also managed to moderate its relationship with Hamas because the relationship with Hamas was not always as was as productive. Hamas is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood.
00:17:07:22 - 00:17:40:22
Mirette Mabrouk
And if you'll remember, the current Egyptian government has been doing its best to try and eradicate the Muslim Brotherhood after the removal of the former president Mohammed Morsi was part of the Brotherhood in a coup after massive demonstrations against him and against the Brotherhood. Now that the Brotherhood in Egypt has been massively weakened, Hamas has pretty much done its own thing, so to speak.
00:17:40:22 - 00:18:48:19
Mirette Mabrouk
And as a result, the relationship with with Egypt has become more modulated. Egypt recognizes that Hamas was the de facto power in in Gaza. There was remember it, if you remember it, it rescinded a terrorism designation on Hamas back in 2016. And, you know, Egypt is practical minded in these matters. It deals with everyone, but it needs to deal with, it certainly needs to deal with Hamas. Although it has been careful, I mean, since 2015, it has pretty much cleared out the area around, evicted thousands of people from the area around the border. It's also there is a quote unquote, buffer zone, but has a 20 foot high concrete wall around it. And that's to ensure that really what happened in 2008, which is when Gazans during the Israeli bombing burst through the barricades into Egypt.
00:18:48:21 - 00:19:14:03
Mirette Mabrouk
And at the time it was President Mubarak, he handled it quite smartly. He said that they should come in, buy whatever it is they need and go back. And they actually mostly did. But Egypt is worried about that. And it's also worried and this is the important thing. I have had lots of questions on why Egypt does not want to extend a humanitarian corridor and allow refugees into the country.
00:19:14:05 - 00:19:46:14
Mirette Mabrouk
And because this question has come up and, you know, please do ask if you're interested. It's not a matter of refugees. Egypt currently hosts more than 9 million refugees. It just it doesn't have refugee camps. But according to the International Organization on Migration, it already hosts more than 9 million refugees. All right. And it's taken more than, over the last six months, it's absorbed more than 350,000 from Sudan on the southern border, due to the Sudanese conflict. So it's not much of that.
00:19:46:16 - 00:20:12:14
Mirette Mabrouk
But Egypt worries about two things with the Palestinians. One, it absolutely will not be complicit to more mass forced expulsion and displacement of the Palestinians that are two and a half million Palestinians in Lebanon and in Jordan that are descendants of people who were forced out in ‘48 and ’56 and ‘67.
00:20:12:18 - 00:20:55:20
Mirette Mabrouk
They can't go anywhere. And the ones in Gaza were, bear in mind, already refugees. So they would be double refugees. And Egypt is not going to be complicit in that. The other thing is not as altruistic. It is a serious security concern. If the Egypt is concerned that if the line of resistance so to speak moves out of Israel and into Egypt, that any retaliation by any action by Hamas takes place on Egyptian soil and retaliation by the Israelis takes place onto Egyptian soil. You can't have that. So it is a huge security risk and they don't want it.
00:20:55:22 - 00:21:25:12
Mirette Mabrouk
The other thing, of course, is the humanitarian situation. Egypt is quite desperate to to try and to try and get something done on the humanitarian side, simply because, again, public opinion in Egypt is massively high. There have been trucks at the border since the first week of the conflict.
00:21:25:14 - 00:22:07:03
Mirette Mabrouk
But at the moment, the Egyptians say that the Israelis are holding up aid aid efforts, as actually does the UN and other international organizations, because, for example, the trucks, instead of being inspected near the Rafah border, they're expected they're inspected to the Madonna border 100 kilometers away. And then having to be brought back. So the amount of aid trickling into Gaza is pitifully small, much less than is needed. Although I did hear that this morning Prime Minister Netanyahu said that they would allow for small pauses.
00:22:07:05 - 00:22:30:07
Mirette Mabrouk
The other thing is, while Egypt does not want this to be a long drawn conflict, and I'm sure nobody wants it to be a long drawn conflict, I think Egypt has pointed out that Israel's desire to completely eradicate Hamas in Gaza is frankly unrealistic.
00:22:30:09 - 00:23:14:07
Mirette Mabrouk
And if Israel wants to control Hamas, then it's going to need Egypt. It's not going to be able to do it without Egypt. And the other thing is that finally, again, because this has come up, is there has been much talk of, you know, post-conflict Gaza, who's going to, you know, take care of security in Gaza. It's not going to be the Arabs, because, again, they're not going to be complicit in essentially policing an occupied nation. It's going to have to be Israel. I don't want to go on longer than this. I want to allow room for questions. And I'm happy to take any questions.
00:23:14:07 - 00:23:43:17
Rachel Dooley
Thank you, Mirette. All right. At this point, like she said, we will welcome questions from our participants. So please go ahead and use the raise hand function on your screen. And when I call in, we’ll unmute you and then you can go ahead, introduce yourself, your organization in the direct your question to one of our panelists. But I'll get started with one question of my own, which is how did Qatar and Egypt get into these positions of leverage? And maybe we could start with you, Mirette, on that one.
00:23:43:19 - 00:24:41:03
Mirette Mabrouk
Okay. They're on the border. All right. Egypt, it's mostly a geographic. It's mostly a geographic issue. They share borders and everything goes through Egypt. But also, you want to bear in mind that the Gaza file is military file in Egypt. It's a military intelligence file. It's security file. It is not a diplomatic file. All right. So it doesn't matter what the administrations are. The treatment of that is consistent. And therefore, the development of those relationships has been consistent over the years. So they know the lay of the land, so to speak. And as far as negotiation is concerned. They're the go to credible partners along with Qatar, who have become increasingly important. But Egypt, of course, does have credibility with both sides, and it has that geographical issue.
00:24:41:05 - 00:25:12:10
Brian Katulis
Yeah, I'll just add, with Qatar, it's not geographically contiguous, but for the last 30 plus years it has used its wealth and its resources to punch far above its weight diplomatically and across the region. Clearly, when it backed the establishment of Al-Jazeera and a number of media outlets, it was seeking to play a much more dominant role. I think that came into sharp focus in the 2011 Arab uprisings when the media component of that was was particularly important.
00:25:12:12 - 00:25:52:24
Brian Katulis
That media infrastructure actually also has linkages with key parts of the Palestinian factions and voice some of the views there. Clearly, last year, one of their correspondents from Al-Jazeera was killed in the West Bank, and that was one of the more recent moments where they they play this role. And then throughout sort of little escapades of the 2010’s, when you look back on it, where there is this intense competition for regional influence and power, the Qataris sought to deploy all of its resources, including its wealth and in advancing their own sort of interest in world view.
00:25:52:24 - 00:26:24:16
Brian Katulis
When it was blockaded in 2017 till 2020 by a number of countries, a number of its neighbors, it quite assertively reached out in the United States to everyone across the spectrum and tried to reinforce the thing that it does with political leaders and in Congress and in administrations to have a sway. But I think the key thing, its unique role is that it's maintained a network of relationships not only with Hamas, but a number of different terrorist and extremist groups.
00:26:24:18 - 00:27:05:15
Brian Katulis
Hamas has a political office, which I believe was established about a decade or so ago. If you ask the Qataris, it was at the request of some in the United States to, you know, create a channel of the sort for discussions. So that's that's the role it plays. And again, as I said in my opening remarks, I think it's already facing increasing scrutiny and questions from multiple angles inside the administration, I think from in our political debates and depending on how this all plays out, especially whether it has greater success in it, it hasn't seen yet. On releasing the hostages. I think that that scrutiny will remain.
00:27:05:17 - 00:27:15:17
Rachel Dooley
Thanks, Brian. All right. I'm going to go ahead and call on Sean Mathews. I see you have your hand raised.
00:27:15:19 - 00:27:58:14
Sean Mathews
Thanks for having us on, guys. It's really nice to talk. I have two questions. The first is for Mirette and I know we've discussed this in the past kind of how Egypt would view its own potential security role. You mentioned that Arab states would take that up. Yesterday, Bibi Netanyahu said that he made it clear his remarks that Israel, for all intents and purposes, seems to be considering a de facto ground occupation of Gaza longer term. I wonder how that would impact bilateral relations between Israel and Egypt, kind of having a long running Israeli ground occupation of Gaza. And how would Egypt manage that?
00:27:58:16 - 00:28:27:16
Mirette Mabrouk
That is an excellent question. None of the options on the table are particularly attractive, but that would be one. I mean, the most attractive one would would be to have, let's say, the Palestinian Authority do this. That's you know, that's really to have the Palestinians do it. That would be the best one. So having the Israelis reoccupy, I mean, essentially, they never left.
00:28:27:17 - 00:28:49:14
Mirette Mabrouk
They've just been on the outside. It's it's exactly like owning someone's house and saying they think they can have it. But then you control the water, the gas, the electricity, who goes in and who goes out where they work, everything else. But the the one that nobody wants to touch is to have Arabs be involved in that relationship.
00:28:49:14 - 00:29:21:17
Mirette Mabrouk
You just I mean, you don't you don't want to be complicit. So it would simply require a great deal more of the kind of relationships that you have seen, the balancing act that you have seen, the the very delicate diplomatic work, the the strenuous, the strenuous intelligence work. I mean, because you want to bear in mind that a couple of you know, recently the you know, the Israelis thanked the Egyptians for the release of two of the hostages.
00:29:21:19 - 00:30:06:19
Mirette Mabrouk
Qatar was involved in the other two. But that’s just four hostages out of about 240. Things are not going to move until we get some sort of cease fire or secession or whatever anybody wants to call it. Okay. But the Israelis being there is not going to be on the top of everyone's favorites list. But it is better than the alternative, but not as good as the one that should be, which is the Palestinians being there. Does that answer your question?
00:30:06:21 - 00:30:53:01
Sean Mathews
Yes, that does. Thanks Mirette. And then, Brian, a question for you on the other side. You alluded to it a little bit. I wonder how you see I mean, you talked a lot about kind of Qater-US relations and how, you know, the US might put more scrutiny on Qatar’s ties to Hamas. I'm curious, though, within the Arab world, you know, what we've seen like within the Gulf states is this kind of battle for competition with the Palestinian cause. So you have the UAE backing that line. You have Qatar, you know, giving refuge to Hamas. How do you believe the war has impacted that competition? And who's in the ascendancy now in the Gulf for the mantle of kind of the the most powerful Palestinian resistance bloc?
00:30:53:03 - 00:31:25:06
Brian Katulis
That's a great question, Sean, and I think it's a dynamic situation. I think quite obviously the answer to that is Qatar, in terms of if you're talking about resistance. All right. That was your question. All of the other groups before all of this, before sort of the seismic events of October 7th, there were increased stepped up efforts by the Saudis in the context of the Israeli Saudi normalization deal that obviously I think is back burner.
00:31:25:08 - 00:31:50:01
Brian Katulis
But there were efforts and increased discussions and the Saudis really hadn't engaged in recent years. They had in the past to try to mediate between Hamas and Fatah and the different factions. But clearly, no one, I think it's hard to find a rival to the role that Qatar plays. I mean, perhaps Turkey, because I know there's a question in the chat about Turkey for ideological reasons.
00:31:50:03 - 00:32:17:14
Brian Katulis
I think you know, the the UAE has been really distanced from all of this. Yes. Mohammed Dahlan is there and has been there for years. The fact that he's been there for years, I think demonstrates also he lacks some sort of legitimacy on the ground. And I would agree with the thrust of what Mirette said is that for all of this talk about Arab forces and others coming in there into Gaza, it just seems horribly unrealistic.
00:32:17:14 - 00:32:40:13
Brian Katulis
I used to live in Ramallah, in the Gaza Strip in the 1990s for several years. Stay in touch with a lot of my friends there and it's not like Palestinians view these outside actors as pivotal to fixing their politics. Right. A big problem both in Gaza, but in the West Bank is you've got this crisis of legitimacy of the leadership that essentially has been around for decades.
00:32:40:15 - 00:33:01:04
Brian Katulis
And I don't think anyone from the region is going to swoop in on all of this and fix that. A sustainable sort of solution if we when we get to sort of an end to the to the war, has got to come from the Palestinian people themselves. They've been far too ignored in sidelines by various diplomatic approaches from recent US administrations and international frameworks.
00:33:01:04 - 00:33:22:22
Brian Katulis
And last thing I'd say, Sean, I hope this answers your question is I have a piece out today in The Liberal Patriot titled “America Can't Go It Alone in the Middle East.” I basically argue there that as challenging as it is to have these different partners in the region who have different views and are often at odds with each other and sometimes even in proxy wars with each other.
00:33:22:24 - 00:33:46:00
Brian Katulis
I think the United States needs to work with those partners to try to craft not only answers to some of the immediate questions and hostages and whether a cease fire or a pause is possible. But but also sort of more importantly, the longer range questions that were never fully addressed, and that links up with a number of different arguments about where where does this all drive to?
00:33:46:00 - 00:34:19:18
Brian Katulis
What is the end state look like? And for years, I'd argue there really wasn't that U.S. regional diplomatic approach. There was a quartet that was international in nature. It's sort of like--and it's no longer, it's moribund--a framework for trying to address Israeli, Palestinian-Israeli Arab issues. What I think is missing, and I think the U.S. has the unique role it could play in this, is more of a diplomatic role of doubling down on the sort of diplomacy we saw Secretary Blinken attempt to do, but then not really get many results from.
00:34:19:20 - 00:34:45:00
Brian Katulis
So, you know, there's different views from different countries according to their own interest. But I think the U.S. can play a unique role after the conflict is over and coordinating with these group of Arab partners. We've done it in other instances like the anti-ISIL coalition, which was much easier, were way back when when we built the coalition, regional and international, to get Saddam Hussein and Iraq out of Kuwait.
00:34:45:02 - 00:35:02:05
Brian Katulis
This is a much different, thornier exercise. But my view, all those who've argued for years of U.S. restraint and pull back from the region, you know, it's it's a valid argument, but I don't think it actually leaves the region all the more stable. So I hope that answers your question.
00:35:02:07 - 00:35:17:13
Rachel Dooley
Thanks, Brian. I'm going to touch on a question that you mentioned that's in the chat from Lou Hughes, an MEI board member, which is, how should the U.S. government deal with Erdogan's support of Hamas?
00:35:17:15 - 00:35:50:06
Brian Katulis
I think it needs to what I understand, to be having tough and candid conversations with Erdogan, as Secretary Blinken just did. Right. And then there are questions about how much leverage and how much sort of our policy tools to shape and incentivize what they do. And it's not only what they do privately, but importantly, I think some of the statements that are made by many voices in the region sometimes, you know, I think are aimed at voicing some deep concern about innocent Palestinians being killed.
00:35:50:06 - 00:36:22:09
Brian Katulis
And it's just a vicious war. But I wonder if it creates pathways for actually this sort of thing that I think most people agree needs to happen, which is eliminate threats that exist and also help people who are innocents who are caught in the crosshairs of all of this. So it's not a great answer, Lou. I think Turkey we're challenged by Turkey on multiple fronts, not just this Israel-Palestine front, but also their actions in Syria and a number of other files.
00:36:22:11 - 00:36:56:14
Brian Katulis
And like I feel like in the Middle East, where I hear the arguments of people, we should just downgrade ties, cut ties with some of these countries. And Turkey's in a category in all of itself, right? It's a NATO partner. It plays multiple roles also in the Ukraine war and Russia. So we can't but deal with them. And I think tough, candid, direct talk, thinking about the tools of leverage that we can have to shape their actions on on multiple fronts is is the key thing rather than disengaging or downgrading those ties.
00:36:56:16 - 00:37:26:08
Rachel Dooley
Thanks, Brian. Take another question from the chat from Alia Moubayed and this is for you, Mirette. To what extent is the current Egyptian position tenable? Given Egypt's economic vulnerabilities, are regional and international players keen on supporting Egypt financially so that it can help manage the Gaza crisis unconditionally? Or could economic aid from the Gulf or international players be tied to shifting Egypt's position on the displacement of Palestinians?
00:37:26:10 - 00:37:52:23
Mirette Mabrouk
Okay, that's a question that has come up a lot. Egypt's position is not going to shift on this because you have to remember it's a matter of priorities. Egypt is currently undergoing its worst economic crisis in the last 50, 60 years. All right. So if it was an issue that could have been solved with increased funds, it probably would have.
00:37:53:00 - 00:38:19:03
Mirette Mabrouk
But the issue is you cannot take the funds and then open up another front that is going to create more problems for you down the road. Problems will be almost immediate. So it's it is very much a red line for Egypt. It's going to need support. It's going to need financial support to be able to deal with with this anyway because of the logistics and everything else.
00:38:19:03 - 00:39:10:11
Mirette Mabrouk
But it is not going to be taking in a million Palestinians. Is just it's a red line for Egypt. It's not going to happen. There's already been pressure brought to bear on Egypt. A lot of it. And it just it is it is not going to shift on this. It just isn't basically because basically because it can't. I would be astonished if it shifted on this. I feel I mean, nobody has a crystal ball and it's always very easy to look foolish to make the prediction that doesn't happen. But this is one of those predictions that I think I'm fairly comfortable making. It's just it's it's not going to shift. It's not going to happen.
00:39:10:13 - 00:39:23:20
Rachel Dooley
Thanks for it. And then another question from our chat, also from Lou Hughes on board, which is, what do you think is the probability that Mossad will assassinate the political Hamas leadership living in Qatar?
00:39:23:22 - 00:39:52:09
Brian Katulis
That's a great question, Lou. I think if you look back on the history of this and Israel's response to the the massacre in Munich in 1972 and then it launched Operation Wrath of God which was a two decades long, I think, assassination campaign to to to get those who were responsible for those who murdered Israelis at the Olympics. So there's a there's a track record there.
00:39:52:09 - 00:40:18:21
Brian Katulis
There's a more recent history in 2010, I believe, when a team from the Mossad went to Dubai and assassinated the head of Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, the military wing of Hamas. So there's a record there, like all of these actions in the Middle East. And I recall what I said about Israeli Qatari ties, the fact that there's a longstanding sort of Israeli agreement to work with Qatar on multiple fronts.
00:40:18:21 - 00:40:49:17
Brian Katulis
And again, that that may shift, I think certainly how this war and the hostage release plays out will will shift the tenor of this. And then also just key discussions about what should be done about the so-called political leadership of Hamas, because if it's it's part of a group that helped fund and provide sort of ideological support to the sorts of atrocities we saw on October 7th, I would imagine that's going to lead to a shift of approach in policy.
00:40:49:17 - 00:41:16:00
Brian Katulis
So I at this point in today's Middle East, I don't discount anything happening. I think the one big restraint on that is, is the fact that Israel has a presence in some some of our military bases inside of Qatar doing that sort of action probably would destabilize relations between Israel and Qatar and make things complicated. So but it's an interesting question.
00:41:16:00 - 00:41:33:01
Brian Katulis
And I think any scenario at this point, because we're we're in uncharted territory in the Middle East, and I think we should be aware of the fact that things like this have happened before. And these are seen as tools by Israeli policymakers when when faced with terror groups.
00:41:33:03 - 00:41:48:03
Rachel Dooley
Thanks, Brian. A question that I have as well that some journalists have asked me, which is, do you see pressure being put on Qatar to expel the Hamas political leaders or otherwise punish them for this attack?
00:41:48:05 - 00:42:29:08
Brian Katulis
Yeah, it could happen. I mean, your proposals from people running for president here in the United States, some voices in Congress who have longstanding concerns about Qatar’s role and the way that not just the United States, but Israel has cooperated with Qatar. So, again, this is less of a, it may be an immediate question. I was going to say it's less of an immediate question, but it's actually an open question, and especially when you see some of Hamas leaders on major media outlets expressing their views as if, you know, they weren't somehow connected to to the massacre in some sort of way that led to this big war.
00:42:29:09 - 00:42:59:02
Brian Katulis
So I think anything's possible. I mean, we have an. Qatar was designated a non-NATO ally. The US military and the Pentagon benefits from those relationships, as I mentioned earlier. But it really is a question of how much leverage and how much we want to use these tools and not just the United States, but some of our partners in Israel who at this moment, I think are still trying to rely on different channels based in Doha to to secure the release of some of these hostages.
00:42:59:04 - 00:43:11:09
Rachel Dooley
Right. Thank you. And on the question of hostages, I want to go to you, Mirette Can you touch on Egypt's position in that? Any key questions, concerns and considerations they have on hostages?
00:43:11:11 - 00:43:57:21
Mirette Mabrouk
So I think Egypt is going to be central to any hostage negotiation. Again, along with Qatar. I do think that those are the the two lodestones here. But honestly, I mean, I could be wrong, but I honestly don't see very much appetite for a hostage negotiation at the moment. I think at the moment while Israel obviously wants its hostages back and while Hamas obviously would like to use the hostages or whatever to to extract some benefit to possibly support the fighting ceasefire, whatever, I don't see it happening in the immediate future.
00:43:57:23 - 00:44:33:19
Mirette Mabrouk
I think Israel will go ahead and attempt to press its military advantage and I don't see it happening in the future. My understanding from various people that I've been speaking to is that they're just it is not not a priority, but it is I don't think anyone is expecting to see big things happening soon. Now they're going to have to because it's I mean, it's impossible to overstate the importance of of these hostages in any negotiations going forward.
00:44:33:21 - 00:44:47:14
Mirette Mabrouk
But I think in the immediate future, the the attention is not being paid to those negotiations. The attention is being paid to the military aspect.
00:44:47:16 - 00:45:05:17
Rachel Dooley
Great. Thank you. And we'll do one more question and then probably wrap from here. And that question comes from talking with Jay Solomon at Semafor, which is, is Qatar offering financial incentives to Hamas in exchange for hostage releases? And what can you say to that, Brian?
00:45:05:19 - 00:45:26:20
Brian Katulis
It's a really important question, Jay. And like I said, on the hostage negotiation portion of my opening briefing, it's really hard to tell how to separate fact from fiction. Right. And my operating assumption here is that those who are part of these discussions really aren't talking to others about this. And they're trying to keep a close hold because it's so sensitive.
00:45:26:22 - 00:45:51:22
Brian Katulis
But I wouldn't discount the possibility. Right. As I mentioned before, Qatar has used financial incentives in many ways around the region to to operate with different actors. And there's a there's a track record there. There's a track record, as I mentioned, with Hamas in, Gaza, the support that Qatar provided, again, at the behest of US policymakers and Israeli policymakers.
00:45:51:24 - 00:46:25:14
Brian Katulis
But I think the the most correct answer from my vantage point, Jay, is I simply don't know. I mean, I've heard rumors and gossip, and I actually have a high degree of trust in your your reporting skills to help all of us find out whether that that thread might be true. It doesn't seem unlikely to me, but I just don't you know, I think these are one of these things when it comes to hostage negotiations, quite understandably, it's hard for outsiders, especially those the think tanks, to really be in the know about all of this.
00:46:25:16 - 00:47:09:08
Rachel Dooley
Thanks, Brian. And actually, we have one more question that I'll take from Nadia Bilbassy at Al-Arabiya. Go ahead, Nadia. ... Nadia, I'm not sure we can hear you on our end. ... All right, Nadia, I'll go ahead and send you an email and we can connect you with Brian and Mirette for later on if that works for you.
00:47:09:10 - 00:47:23:05
Rachel Dooley
And I'll go ahead and wrap it up here since we're about at the end of our time. And like I said, if you do not get your question answered, you can go ahead and email me at communications@mei.edu, and I'll go ahead and connect you with the right person and then go from there.
00:47:23:07 - 00:47:40:10
Rachel Dooley
But thank you all for joining us today for this on the record briefing. And if you want to take a look at any of our additional resources, you can find them on our website, mei.edu. I want to thank both of our distinguished panelists, Brian Katulis and Mirette Mabrouk. Thank you both for your insight. And thank you all for spending part of your day with us.