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Hamas leaders prefer Turkish exile to Gaza hardships

Following Qatar's ousting of Hamas' political bureau from the emirate, the group is in search of a new home.
Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal waves upon arrival at Rafah crossing in the southern Gaza Strip December 7, 2012. Meshaal arrived in the Gaza Strip on Friday, ending 45 years of exile from Palestinian land with a visit that underscored the Islamist group's growing confidence following a recent conflict with Israel. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem (GAZA - Tags: POLITICS) - RTR3BB5G

The honeymoon is over. Having lost the protection and pampering of the emir of Qatar, political bureau head Khaled Meshaal and other senior Hamas members are now hunting for a new home. Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani grew weary of them, even though he seemed for many months to be following in the footsteps of his father Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and was poised to take Hamas under his wing. After clearly careful consideration, the emir resolved to reconcile with Egypt and its leader, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. In keeping with the demand of his new ally, he sacrificed his former allies Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. Overnight, Meshaal became the first casualty of the new relationship between the largest state in the Arab world and the rich and influential Gulf emirate.

Professor Uzi Rabi, the director of Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center and a world-renowned expert on the Gulf states, explained in a 2014 conversation with Al-Monitor what prompts Qatar to forge and break alliances with neighboring countries and political movements in the Arab world. According to him, although Qatar is a wealthy emirate, it does not have the military capability to defend itself against external threats. The huge quantities of money its leaders and residents are raking in from the oil industry could tempt various forces in the turbulent Middle East to act against it, thus compelling it to forge alliances with ethnic groups, movements and states that will come to its defense when the need arises. When Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani saw the Muslim Brotherhood as a rising power in the Middle East and the Arab world, the right step from his standpoint was to make a pact with it, thus protecting his emirate from a situation in which the regime might be toppled or undergo a revolution, which is what the Muslim Brotherhood did in Egypt.

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