That latest round of anger among Saudi Arabia and its allies over the Qatari state media has continued to grow, and over the weekend Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt all announced they are totally cutting ties with the Qatari government over the latest row.
The Saudi-dominated GCC gets furious at Qatar once in awhile over their state media, which often takes positions contrary to the rest of the alliance, and the Saudis in particular. This tends historically to center on Qatar not being as hostile to the Muslim Brotherhood as the Saudi royal family and Egypt’s military junta are.
This last time also centers on the Qatari Emir being quoted in the state media as opposing military confrontation with Iran, with officials across the GCC suggesting this applies some untoward relationship with the Iranian government.
This new severing of ties is a much bigger deal that previous ones, however, with Saudi Arabia announcing that they are closing all Qatar’s border crossings, and all three nations barring air and sea travel to and from Qatar. While it probably will ultimately be resolved by closing a few media offices, the tensions are likely to linger far beyond that.
Any port in a storm…… One down, free to GO…..!!!!!!!
This move may be instigated or supported by the Trump administration to strike at Hamas. Qatar has supported Hamas. The Qatari Emir is the only Arab head of state to visit Gaza under Hamas rule. The Times of Israel and Haaretz reported that Qatar is expelling Hamas operatives who have been hosted by Qatar since they left Syria six years ago. The rupture comes two weeks after Trump branded Hamas as a terrorist organization in his speech in Saudi Arabia and after hackers revealed that the UAE ambassador to Washington has been working with a Zionist Think Tank and Bill Gates to isolate Qatar. The Saudis and Egyptians also want Qatar to shut down the Qatari based al-Jazeera news service which has reported on human rights abuses by the Sisi regime in Egypt.