Can Saudis ease Egypt-Qatar tension after Al Jazeera death sentences?

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.

Egyptian officials' distrust of the Qataris dates back to at least the 1990s. The Hosni Mubarak regime perceived Qatar’s ownership of Al Jazeera, Doha’s relationship with the pro-Muslim Brotherhood regime in Sudan and the emirate’s permission for prominent Muslim Brotherhood figures such as Yusuf al-Qaradawi to freely blast Egypt’s government from Qatari soil as a threat to the stability of Egypt and the greater region. Officials in Cairo said that as a result of a “Qatari vendetta” against Mubarak, Doha sponsored Egypt’s 2011 uprising. The officials also complained about Doha’s meddling in Egypt’s internal affairs years before the “Arab Spring” erupted.

Morsi’s ouster in July 2013 marked a grave geostrategic and ideological setback for Qatar, which had gambled on the Sunni Arab world riding a pro-Muslim Brotherhood current following Morsi’s rise to power. Doha’s resentment of Egypt’s military for overthrowing a leader whose political capital received much Qatari investment and Cairo’s view of Qatar as being supportive of “terrorist” networks (including some in the restive Sinai Peninsula) have defined the poor state of Cairo-Doha relations for the past three years.