Qatar’s compilation of a terror list, which includes 19 individuals and eight entities, has, paradoxically, validated the position of the Arab Quartet boycotting the state. For long, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt have complained of Qatar’s support for extremist ideology and terrorism, even as the regime in Doha continued to deny what was plain to see.

The list reportedly includes 11 Qataris, four Egyptians, two Saudis and two Jordanians as well as six entities from Qatar, Daesh’s Sinai branch in Egypt and Al Ihsan Charitable Society in Yemen.

To be sure, the move by Qatar is to be welcomed, but what took so long? Why the procrastination? Why was Doha in denial?

Surely, the Qatari government is not doing this from the goodness of its heart; the move has to do with the isolation that is beginning to bite; the international focus on Qatar’s duplicity that can no longer be brushed aside; and, above all, pressure from the Trump administration to resolve the crisis in the Gulf. As UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Gargash noted, Qatar has only confirmed the evidence against it that it supports extremism and terrorism.

In Geneva recently, jurists from the Arab Federation for Human Rights expressed their opposition to Qatar’s continuing backing of extremist organisations. They warned that silence on Qatar’s practices sends a wrong message to victims of terrorism. The federation’s words have to be seen in the context of what we have witnessed in our region for the past two decades. The spread of extremist ideology, and the terrorist actions it spawns, represents an existential threat to nations. It flies in the face of that most basic of rights: the right to life. Mindless acts of terror in our region have torn communities and families apart, left thousands dead, altered the fabric of society, and threatened the very idea of the nation state. Not a day seems to go by without a bomb going off somewhere in the Middle East taking more innocent lives, causing more death and destruction. In the face of all this, most countries in the region have come together to combat this threat. Unfortunately, Qatar has consistently chosen not to be part of the solution and has, instead, tried to fan the flames of extremism. But there is a price to pay for this type of intransigence.

While some sort of realisation seems to have dawned in Doha, the government’s move has come a bit too late.