Matt Bevan

Hamad basically bought the FIFA World Cup only 50 years after football was first seen in his country.

Then he spent more money on it than every other World Cup in history combined.

But hosting the World Cup wasn't just about football.

Qatar wanted to be the place where the world gathered, where people with nothing in common could come together.

During the tournament, Iran played against its greatest enemy, the United States.

We talked in last week's episode about how important it is to build trust and credibility when you're trying to negotiate with your enemies.

Qatar decided to try and be the place where that trust was brokered, which meant that everyone was welcome.

Qatar welcomed not only the US military to its territory,

But the Taliban... We are prepared to engage the Taliban through a negotiations office in Doha.

With implicit Western backing, Qatar hosted officers of the Taliban, financiers of al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood and rebel factions from all over Africa.

All of this just a few kilometres from the regional headquarters of US Central Command.

It is a very small country, after all.

Now, not everyone was a fan of this.

It's small world style politics.

And Qatar was publicly criticized for trying to bring these groups together, particularly by Israel and its supporters.

It is quite strange that the Emir of Qatar should take sides with Hamas.

I blame Qatar, that very rich emirate that's been pouring money into the hands of Hamas.

Despite publicly disagreeing with what Qatar was doing, behind the scenes, the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu was supportive of it.

Netanyahu allowed Qatar to give massive amounts of cash to Hamas in Gaza.

Qatar electronically transfers cash to Israel that cash is then physically carried over the border by UN officials and by Israeli officials into Gaza.