Tensions between Bahrain and Qatar have reached an enormously high level. Last month, Bahrain’s Shura Council condemned Doha’s alleged “coordination and cooperation” with the Arabian archipelago country’s Shiite opposition and Iran “to spark chaos” amid the unrest of 2011. According to Bahrain News Agency, Qatar was behind the creation of social media accounts and “hostile Bahraini opposition websites” to “ignite the flames of sectarianism” and topple the Al-Khalifa regime.

The cited evidence was a phone call between former Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani and Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of Al-Wefaq, Bahrain’s dominant and, since then, dissolved Shiite opposition society. Both Qatari officials and Al-Wefaq representatives officially responded, maintaining that Doha’s then top diplomat made that call during a state-sponsored visit to the island kingdom when Qatari mediators were pursuing initiatives to resolve Bahrain’s crisis. Doha and Bahrain’s main Shiite opposition faction pointed out that Hamad bin Jassim came to Bahrain from Saudi Arabia and that he did so with King Hamad’s approval.

Indeed, there is a rich history of friction between Bahrain and Qatar that far predates the ongoing Gulf crisis. Sovereign disputes over the Hawar Islands, Zubarah and other territories, which arose early on in these two states’ post-independence period, remained unresolved throughout the second half of the 20th century. In 1996, Doha accused Manama of supporting a counter-coup against Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani’s father, who ascended to the throne in a bloodless palace coup the previous year. Yet Bahraini-Qatari relations improved markedly by 1997, when Manama and Doha agreed to establish full diplomatic relations and take their territorial disputes to the International Court of Justice, which led to a settlement in 2001. In June 2006, the two governments signed an agreement to build a 25-mile causeway, the “friendship bridge,” linking Bahrain and Qatar.

In fact, six years ago, a number of analysts accused Qatar of using Al Jazeera to promote democratic revolutions in Egypt, Libya and Syria while paying substantially less attention to unrest in Bahrain. According to many critics of Qatar, Doha applied a double standard to the Arab Spring uprisings, using Al Jazeera to support revolutionary Arab movements outside of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) while opposing those that challenged the legitimacy of the Al Thani rulers’ fellow Arabian monarchs such as King Hamad. Hamad bin Jassim’s remarks in an Al Jazeera interview one day after the GCC deployed 1,500 Shield Peninsula forces to Bahrain added to this perception of a “double standard” in Doha’s foreign policy. He said, “Common responsibilities and obligations within the GCC countries” required Qatar and all Council members to “fully cooperate” and adhere to past agreements.