Animosity continues to define Egyptian-Qatari relations, as demonstrated when officials in Doha recently condemned a Cairo court for sentencing two Al Jazeera employees to death on charges of passing Egyptian secret security documents to Qatar during Mohammed Morsi’s presidency. In response, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry accused the court of lacking a “proper sense of justice,” denounced the “unfounded” verdict and called the espionage charges “surprising and unacceptable.” Egyptian officials fired back, blaming the gas-rich Persian Gulf emirate for having “devoted resources and efforts over the past years to mobilize its media mouthpieces to be hostile to the people of Egypt and its state and institutions.”
This diplomatic spat highlights Egypt's and Qatar’s positions on opposing poles of a divided Sunni Arab world. Qatar largely sided with the “Arab Spring” movements of 2011, which led to the loss of power for long-standing rulers in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Yemen, creating political vacuums and opportunities for Islamist movements to gain greater visibility and clout across the region. Doha’s critics have argued that the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wings performed well in elections in Egypt and Tunisia (and to a lesser extent in Libya) due to Qatari support.