The Arabic-language daily Al-Hayat reported today that the government of Qatar threatened Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal with deportation if Hamas accepted the Egyptian ceasefire proposal.
Arabic daily Al-Hayat reported Wednesday that Doha warned it would deport Mashaal if he approved the agreement in its current form, without insisting that Hamas’s demands — which include the construction of a seaport and airport in the Gaza Strip — be met.
Citing a member of the Palestinian delegation to Cairo, the newspaper said Qatar demands that Egypt give it a role in ending the Gaza crisis. Egypt, however, reportedly rejected the demand, conditioning its agreement to it on Qatar formally apologizing for its policy toward Egypt since the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi’s in June 2013.
Meshaal had been living in exile in Syria until 2012, when Hamas chose to back the rebels seeking to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. After he was expelled from Syria, he was welcomed by Qatar.
The Al-Hayat report has not been independently confirmed.
Qatar, along with Turkey, has been seen, even by the Palestinian Authority, as an impediment to achieving an agreement between Israel and Hamas.
Jonathan Spyer observed in Qatar’s Rise and America’s Tortured Middle East Policy, which was published in the August 2014 issue of The Tower Magazine, that “Qatar’s massive funding of terrorists and support of Islamic radicals seeking to destabilize neighboring Arab governments has sharpened tensions in the region.”
[Photo: CBS This Morning / YouTube ]