Four Arab nations, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Egypt, met on Wednesday to consider the response of Qatar to their ultimatum and the 13 conditions they gave the country for resumption of normal relations with it.  Apparently dissatisfied with Qatar’s official responses, they resolved that the various sanctions they had imposed on it must continue.  They also hinted that more sanctions might be imposed to get Qatar to adjust its behaviour.

Precisely one month after the quartet cut off all relations – diplomatic, economic, and social – with Qatar and imposed land, sea and air blockade on the tiny country, the crisis does not seem to be reaching any amicable resolution despite the valiant efforts of intermediaries from Kuwait, Germany and France.  The two sides are at odds over many issues.  The quartet accuses Qatar of supporting and funding terrorism and terrorist organisations.  Qatar denies doing any such thing.  The quartet has asked Qatar to close down Al-Jazeera Media Network.  Qatar thinks that is an impossible and ridiculous demand.  The quartet wants Qatar to reduce its interaction with the Islamic Republic of Iran.  Qatar asserts its sovereignty and independence and the freedom to be able to choose its friends.

Other issues, including the closure of the Turkish military base in Qatar, at a time Turkey is one of the two nations supporting Qatar, appear impossible for Qatar to do.  The other supporting country is Iran which serves as the only window to the world, the only route for Qatar’s airlines, its only access and source of supply for food, water and other supplies.

The accusation that Qatar supports terrorism, if true, makes the country deserving of the severest sanctions possible, given the havoc terrorists have wrought in the world in recent years.  The trouble with the quartet’s accusation is that no proof has been provided.  It has only been a matter of innuendo, circumstantial evidence, speculation and conjectures.  For instance, Qatar admits facilitating meetings between the Taliban and the Afghan government in an effort toward a peace settlement.  It does not deny its toleration of the Muslim Brotherhood.  But it argues that, actually, Bahrain has Muslim Brotherhood as a legitimate government-recognised political organisation.  Qatar disavows any relationship with the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL) and Al Qaeda. It admits supporting Palestinian peoples and implies that it did not regard Hamas as a terrorist organisation.

The Gulf crisis is, perhaps, the most recent example of powerful states manifestly trying to impose their will on a small and weak one.  The combined population of the quartet is about 131 million people.  Qatar is a tiny nation of 2.7 million people inhabiting 11,000 square kilometers, which is like a speck compared to the vast expanse of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Bahrain. 

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There is no doubt that the ideological differences are deep since Qatar does not exactly support hereditary rule which is prevalent in feudal societies of the Arab world of which Saudi Arabia is the most prominent.  In 2011, Qatar supported the Arab Springs whereas the quartet was against it.  Indeed, Bahrain very narrowly survived the Arab Springs.  In Egypt, the Saudis supported President Hosni Mubarak, but Qatar sided with the revolutionaries.  When the Muslim Brotherhood won the election and Mohammed Morsi became the President of Egypt, Qatar supported Morsi, the Saudis wanted his overthrow. When Morsi was overthrown with the support of the Saudis and General El-Sisi assumed office, the two sides were on opposite sides of the political divide.  Again, Qatar must not be used as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of the sectarian divide between the Shi’ites and the Sunnis which has marked the struggle for supremacy between Iran and Saudi Arabia.

The humanitarian aspect of the crisis seems to be getting little or no international attention.  But, international agencies are alarmed about thousands of families that have been split asunder by the expulsions.  The quartet gave only two weeks’ notice for Qataris to leave their countries while ordering their nationals in Qatar to return home. 

The demand of the quartet concerning Al-Jazeera is astonishing, backward and condemnable, to say the least.  The quartet confessed it does not care for freedom of expression of its citizens.  The world must therefore not let them extinguish the freedom of Qataris and the hundreds of millions of people all over the world who have come to view Al-Jazeera as a credible source of information.  Indeed, the quartet represents the most backward of the world’s regimes which thrive in darkness, who are scared of the press, whose totalitarian tendencies are a threat to freedom everywhere.  Worse, the quartet is armed to the teeth and endowed with trillions of dollars with which to impose their will on the people.

The United Nations must rise to the occasion and stop the quartet.  We note with dismay the division of the American government on the issue.  But the world and American public opinion must assert the fundamental principles that the strong must not be permitted to ride roughshod over the weak and that light must be permitted to shine forth in the affairs of men through credible journalism which Al-Jazeera represents.