The outpouring of support for Qatar after Israel’s attack on a Hamas compound in Doha was notable, given that many of the same countries had embargoed it only a few years ago.
While relations were restored in 2021, it wasn’t a warm reconciliation, and in London this week, fallout from the embargo is still being adjudicated: A tribunal heard a case against Luxembourg-based Banque Havilland, which stands accused of pitching a plan to UAE officials to destabilize the Qatari riyal in 2017. It’s unclear if the plan was carried out, though spoofed trades briefly pushed the riyal off its peg.
Watching Gulf leaders embrace while their advisers face the consequences of the embargo is something a Qatari official predicted in a 2017 interview, when relations were at a nadir. He said he advised commentators to tame their vitriol against other Gulf countries because the day would come when the kings and sheikhs made up, and commoners would be called to account for their actions.