Why Gulf countries are feuding with Qatar

“AT FIRST EVERYBODY thought it was a sort of joke. But after four or five days we got a call saying we had to go back to Bahrain or our passports would be withdrawn. We would have to leave our mother. We would lose everything.” Alanoud Aljalahma, a 22-year-old premedical student, recounts how the rift between the Gulf’s royal clans threatened to sunder her own family. Her mother, a Qatari doctor, is divorced from her father, a Bahraini general. Under the Gulf’s patriarchal rules, she and her two siblings have their father’s nationality. But they live with their mother in Doha, the capital of Qatar, and consider themselves to be Qataris.

None of this mattered much when Gulf citizens could travel freely within the Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC). “Physical borders did not exist for us; our countries shared a lot of tribes in common,” explains Ms Aljalahma. But in June 2017 four countries—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt—suddenly ostracised Qatar. They cut all land, air and sea links, and some told their nationals to return home. The dispute is the most serious rift in the GCC since its creation in 1981. America is worried that the enmity among its allies is damaging its effort to increase economic and political pressure on Iran.

The feud is being waged through social media, television channels, newspapers and lobbyists in the West. The Qatari emir is “the reckless prince”; Qataris in turn call the Saudi crown prince “the boy”. The UAE has threatened anyone expressing sympathy for Qatar with up to 15 years in jail. As the Gulf’s cold war spreads, conflicts from Libya to the Horn of Africa often feature Qatar and the UAE backing rival groups. At home, the dispute has stirred ostentatious nationalism. In Doha bumper-stickers on cars and posters, even on skyscrapers, display the emir in heroic pose over the words: “Tamim the Glorious”. In the UAE the ubiquitous image is of Sheikh Zayed, the late founder of the federation, to commemorate the 100th year of his birth.

Qatar has been contrarian since the 1990s. With perhaps 300,000 nationals—the smallest indigenous population in the GCC—it is the richest emirate per head because of its vast gasfields. In its quixotic foreign policy it hosts both America’s largest air base in the region and many Islamists. Its dynastic politics have been poisonous. In 1972 the founding emir was deposed by his cousin, who was then toppled in 1995 by his own son, Hamad bin Khalifa. The deposed emir mounted a failed counter-coup in 1996, amid suspicions of Emirati and Saudi help. Sheikh Hamad abdicated in 2013 in favour of his son, Tamim bin Hamad.

The Saudis and Emiratis say Sheikh Hamad still calls the shots and has never forgiven them for trying to unseat him. In a leaked recording of a supposed telephone conversation around 2008 with Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator later killed during the Arab spring, Sheikh Hamad is heard to predict that the “corrupt” Saudi leadership would be swept away, and to boast about supporting Saudi opposition groups. Saudi officials talk of Qataris giving suitcases of cash to clients ranging from Saudi dissidents to Syrian jihadists.

Over the years, Qatar has sought influence by promoting Islamist groups. The UAE has tried to magnify its role by binding itself closely to Saudi Arabia; this month the two allies signed 20 economic and military accords, vowing to create an “exceptional” partnership that may well supplant the GCC.

Sheikhly politics require gentle manners. A similar row was patched up in 2014. Why the bust-up now? One reason is the rise of Muhammad bin Salman in Saudi Arabia. Another may be the election of Donald Trump. The Emiratis and the Saudis have close ties with Jared Kushner, Mr Trump’s son-in-law. Perhaps, think some, Mr Trump gave the anti-Qatar “quartet” the nod at a summit in Riyadh a fortnight before the crisis. Mr Trump later tweeted: “During my recent trip to the Middle East I stated that there can no longer be funding of Radical Ideology. Leaders pointed to Qatar—look!”

Since then Mr Trump has demanded that Gulf leaders settle their dispute quickly. Iran has gleefully stepped in to help relieve the blockade of Qatar. With all sides lobbying the Trump administration, American officials have been working with Qatar to halt the flow of money to terrorist groups, and say it complies more fully than some Gulf states. Anwar Gargash, the UAE’s deputy foreign minister, retorts: “It is not enough for Qatar to discuss concerns with America and Europe. It has to discuss them with us. It cannot be part of a club when it undermines the club.”

The quartet has issued 13 demands, which include cutting ties with Iran and the “terrorist” Muslim Brotherhood. The most prominent is that Qatar should close Al Jazeera, whose gritty reporting broke the conventions of supine, regime-directed Arab journalism. When Hosni Mubarak visited the network in 1999, barely two years after it was launched, he exclaimed. “All this noise is coming out of this matchbox?” Twelve years later the matchbox would help light the revolution that consumed him.

Over the years Al Jazeera has been seen as both a force for free speech and a mouthpiece for terrorism. American officials hated its reporting of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq; Arab autocrats detested the voice it gave to their opponents. Mostefa Souag, its acting director-general, dismisses claims that it was responsible for the Arab spring: “That is disrespectful to the Arab people. People were fed up with the situation in their countries.”

Critics think Al Jazeera, especially its Arabic-language channel, has become the mouthpiece of the Qatari government. It was fawning in its coverage of Syrian jihadist groups linked to al-Qaeda, and largely ignored the humanitarian cost of the war in Yemen until the intra-Gulf bust-up. It fails to subject Qatar to the same hard reporting it applies to other countries. That may explain why the annual Arab Youth Survey, issued by ASDA’A Burson-Marsteller, a public-relations firm, finds that Al Jazeera has become one of the least trusted news sources.

There is much hypocrisy in the charges against Qatar. Too close to Iran? Kuwait and Oman have good relations with the mullahs. Supports the Muslim Brotherhood? Islamists are prominent in the Kuwaiti and Bahraini parliaments. Interferes in other countries? The UAE is close to separatists in Yemen and Somalia. But Qatar is hardly consistent. It struts as the patron of Arab democracy, but does not allow it at home. The feud could go on indefinitely, if only because the main protagonists are rich enough to take the hits. Qatar has suffered some economic pain, but is developing new industries and is undergoing an infrastructure boom ahead of the football World Cup it will host in 2022.

Other Gulf states are worried. The GCC, created to counterbalance larger neighbours and promote economic integration, is split, perhaps irreparably. “If they can do this to Qatar, why not to Kuwait and Oman?” asks Shafeeq Ghabra of Kuwait University. He points to the danger of countries run as “one-man shows”. The late Saddam Hussein was fascinated by technology and education, yet invaded both Iran and Kuwait, he notes, “and nobody could tell him he was leading Iraq to disaster.”