The diplomatic spat between Doha and Cairo is a diversion, no more

The government of Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi put on quite a diplomatic performance when it accused Qatar of being responsible for the terrorist attack against St Peter’s Church in Cairo. The allegation was made by way of an official statement issued by the Egyptian interior ministry.

The prime suspect was an Egyptian citizen who had been living in Qatar up until a few months before returning to his home country. When the Secretary General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Abdullatif Al-Zayani, responded to the statement, he expressed his concern over the manner in which the Egyptian government chose to address a GCC member state. Al-Zayani also expressed doubts about the rationale that prompted the government of Egypt to react in this manner.

What it means is that as far as Egyptian diplomacy is concerned, any threat to national security is related to Qatar. The foreign ministry in Doha responded by clarifying that the suspect had only been in Qatar on a three-month tourist visa and, after its expiry, had returned to Egypt last February, more than ten months before he carried out the attack. The ministry was very clear when it said that it had not received any request from the Egyptian authorities, the Arab criminal police or Interpol to arrest this man or to prevent him from leaving Qatar and re-entering Egypt.

With this strange incident, the Sisi government has gone beyond traditional diplomatic etiquette. Even with the differences that exist between the two countries, the government in Cairo should have asked its Doha counterpart to speak through official channels and seek cooperation in a joint investigation into the incident. Instead, Cairo opted for the open ridicule of an active GCC member. The Egyptian government should be a leading example of diplomacy instead of giving the media free rein to hit out at Qatar.

It seems that Sisi’s government has yet to be convinced that this is no longer a matter about which others can be indifferent. It’s like the old Arabic saying that when someone tells a lie, they must believe it. The Egyptian government has been re-enforcing the counter-revolution by calling the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organisation and continuing to prosecute and attack the movement and its members for winning the democratic parliamentary and presidential elections. The accusation against Qatar has to be viewed in this context.

In response to Al-Zayani’s statement, Cairo has said that it will announce everything once the investigation into the church attack has been completed. What is expected, naturally, is that justice prevails and those guilty are punished for their crimes, whoever there are.

Meanwhile, Sisi has hinted that he refuses to talk about the possible flaws in Egypt’s security agencies. Nevertheless, I have to ask how 12 kg of explosives could get into the church, given that there have been 130 attacks on Coptic churches since he became president. Why was security not tight at such prime targets?

The foreign ministry’s attempt to drag the name of the State of Qatar into the affair is a diversion from the fact that sectarian attacks in Egypt are well recorded, including: Khanka (1972), Al-Zawiyya Al-Hamra (1981), Khoseh (1999), Matraniyya Nagi Hammadi, Atfih (2011) and Church of the Saints (2011). This particular subject is tainted with bitterness, grief and sorrow, but was Doha involved in any of those mentioned above? Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi has some explaining to do.

This article was published in Arabic on December 18, 2016 on alaraby.com

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.