Sometimes you stand in front of them and marvel. Arab leaders, who only yesterday felt hatred for others and wished him the worst of all, embrace as if they were brothers who came out of the same womb. A week ago in Cairo this was not just an embrace, but an important political event. One of the most interesting developments in the region recently.
The breadth of the canvas that the Israeli media agreed to allocate to Egypt last weekend was captured by the murder in the distant city of Mansura. A 21-year-old student stabbed his lover with a knife and killed her for refusing to marry him. After such madness, who has the power for a political occurrence from the same arena. But the visit of Tamim Ben Hemed, the Emir of Qatar, to Sisi in Cairo was no longer a political event. He was everything that was vibrant in international relations: the will, the forgiveness, the poker face, the cynical use, the truth and the lie. For seven years Egypt boycotted Qatar and severed ties with it. It nurtured its image as a knife in the back of the nation, all because the cheeky little princess supported the Muslim Brotherhood, the regime’s bitter enemies. In one day everything faded away. seemingly.
The emir landed in Cairo, in his private plane they brought from a summit in Rwanda. On the route, Sisi waited for him, hugged him, and accompanied him to the banquet hall. The dictionary of clichés threatened to explode. The pictures showed the end of an era and the beginning of a wonderful friendship. President Sadat called her and her neighbors back in the 1970s “gelatin-made countries,” that is, melting in an instant, because unlike Egypt, its current institutions and historical past, they were established by tribes on nomadic sands.
But as the years passed, the old wolves weakened, and as they sank into heaviness and sabotage, the gelatin states discovered a well-developed mountain-climbing ability. Today these principalities serve as a backbone and financial support for Jordan, Egypt and their sisters. In at least one case, a few years ago, Sisi even thanked Saudi Arabia for behaving in Cairo in a fraternity reminiscent of ’73. Sisi was then 19, a trainee at the Air Force Academy, and he remembers well how Saudi Arabia used, in a rare moment, oil weapons. It has significantly reduced production and caused a global energy crisis. Oil prices have quadrupled and created a sharp recession that has hit the U.S. market. The Saudi mobilization began even before the war, and it was intended to make the Americans think again when they came to help Israel. And they did think again.
Qatar annoys everyone, but Egypt in particular. Al-Jazeera, the successful media arm of the Emir’s Palace, has been conducting hunting campaigns against the Egyptian regime for years. In the service of his opponents, most of whom come from among the Muslim Brotherhood. The fall of Mubarak, that evening in February 2011, was celebrated by the channel as if it were the Emir’s wedding. His walk shook the street and left a crack for the brothers to penetrate to the top of the government. For two and a half years they posed a real threat to the officers’ regime. Even after being given a president on their behalf, they did not stop doing what everyone in their place would have done, striving to seize more and more centers of power. The officers decided that enough, dismissed Morsi and sent him to jail. Thus ended their moments of glory, but a bloody battle began. The regime against the brothers and vice versa.
The brothers did not just fund it with their own money. The Qatari government came to their aid. She captured the deportees, funded the activity and whipped the regime mercilessly through her television station.
The proverb on the dog’s tail
But 2022 is not 2013, and a few things have happened recently that have pushed Sheikh Tamim Ben Hemed into the hands of Egyptian President. Erdogan’s Turkey, Qatar’s friend and partner in stealing many horses, turned its back on it. Ankara, desperately in need of investment and cash flow, even distanced itself from Iran, and instead began flirting with the countries of the Abrahamic Accords. Even before the Qataris, Turkey began to keep in touch with the Muslim Brotherhood and even distanced itself from Hamas. The young emir made a quick calculation and realized that if he moved to a camp across the road, he might pay a low price but record handsome profits.
But not just Erdogan. Yoram Arbel in the audience? The World Cup will open in five months in Doha. Tourists, even if they are football fans, are fleeing conflict zones, so Doha embarked on a generation-alignment journey with all its neighbors. Where instability prevailed, she acted to calm it down. If anyone is wondering how Hamas restrained itself around the events of Ramadan, let it turn to Qatar. They pressured their friends in the Gaza Strip not to escalate, lest al-Aqsa flare up again and ignite regional tensions on the eve of the World Cup.
Doha initiated the appeal to Sisi a year ago. The Egyptian president said yes, but first asked them to stop supporting his enemies. Indeed, in recent months the Qatari regime has ceased to fund the channel most identified with the Muslim Brotherhood, Makhmlin (“Continuing”), which operated from Istanbul. He then instructed al-Jazeera’s leaders to reduce the intensity of criticism of the Egyptian president. The Qataris have even quietly asked senior figures in the Muslim Brotherhood to relocate from Doha to an alternative country of refuge. Only after verifying that the Qataris had indeed fulfilled their promise did Sisi invite the Emir to Cairo. Tamim Ben Hemed was not confused. He congratulated his guest on the impending national holiday, the “July Revolution.” What is that revolution? The overthrow of President Muhammad Morsi and the removal of the Muslim Brotherhood from power.
In return for this rapprochement, the Qataris promised investments in Egypt and the strengthening of trade ties, or in one word – money. Thus the deal became lucrative for both parties. Doha gets quiet, and Cairo – capital. Approaching Sisi after years of a burning cold may add to the Qataris points of moderation in Biden as well. On the eve of his visit to the area in two weeks, and in general. See this is a miracle, while the emir is doing in Cairo, the EU has announced that nuclear talks between Iran and the powers have migrated to the Gulf, and will no longer take place in Vienna, Austria. It later turned out that Doha was the one who received the prestigious right.
From capital to capital, this story teaches a thing or two about relations between countries in this part of the world. Everyone knows that a friend may turn his back on his friend almost overnight. We saw how the Shah betrayed the Kurds in 1975 in exchange for reconciliation with Baghdad. How did Yasser Arafat stab a dagger in the back of the Arabs in 1991 and hurry to hug Saddam after he invaded Kuwait. The Qatari story comes and proves that the opposite is also true. Sworn opponents may even reconcile.
And despite all of the above, reconciliation is only in its infancy. The smile phase requires practical steps that will indicate seriousness over time. We should not be surprised if the hugs in Cairo were true for now, and at the end of the World Cup games, in the winter of December, relations between them will return to cold. Qatar’s support for the Muslim Brotherhood is deep and ideological, and although the emir treated them as an instrument during his visit to Sisi, it is possible that once the conditions are ripe, he will embrace them again as he and his father have been doing for decades. To the cup of its own rules, said the one who said, and adds and raises the well-known Egyptian proverb: The dog’s tail never straightens.
The author is the commentator on Arab affairs of Gali Tzahal