DOHA - Doha's Fish Market Restaurant bears little resemblance to an outdoor market. Its appetite-inducing fish and seafood buffet, wonderful salads, excellent service and high prices make it a luxury establishment. But the real bonus begins at around 11 P.M., when Hala takes the tiny stage, causing the men in their jalabiyas and keffiyas to stare, open-mouthed. The singer is wearing a red dress that makes Britney Spears at her sleaziest look like a nun. Hala dances to the sound of songs made famous by a popular Lebanese singer. Beads of sweat appear on the foreheads of the Qatari men, who have already downed a considerable amount of alcohol. One approaches, showering Hala and her keyboardist with notes of the local currency, the Qatari riyal. Sitting in front of the singer is a man who looks like Central Casting's idea of an Arab sheikh, dining alone. He smiles at Hala and points at a waiter with his martini glass to request a refill. He is wearing a huge diamond ring, and never takes his eyes off the singer. Occasionally he claps enthusiastically.

The restaurant is nearly empty, but Hala nevertheless moves her head from side to side and flips her long hair back. Then she leaves the stage, leaving the audience disappointed. The "sheikh," it turns out, is a local, the head of a large Qatari diamond company. There are few Qataris in Qatar: Three-quarters of the population is foreign. There are laborers from the Far East, waiters from the Near East, high-tech workers from Europe and the U.S. and, now, a few Israeli reporters in the press pool of Vice Premier Shimon Peres, covering his visit to Qatar.

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There are few places of entertainment like the Fish Market. Most of the restaurants are in the large hotels, there are no real clubs and, as A., who has lived in Qatar for three years says, "It's a pretty boring city." The most popular place in the city is the City Center mall, the biggest mall ever seen by this writer. It contains a mix of stores selling familiar Western brands and local luxury goods. The bottom level offers an ice rink used mainly by foreigners, while the top has a multiplex that swarms with local teens in the afternoons. The boys wear jalabiyas, keffiyas and trendy, expensive sunglasses. The girls wear dresses. Many cover their faces and hair with the hijab, leaving only a slit for their eyes, and also wear sunglasses.

For this visitor, the mall is "Little Qatar": a rare meeting-place between local followers of the strict Wahhabi school of Islam, a la Saudi Arabia, and full-tilt Western consumer culture: Starbucks, Victoria's Secret, Applebee's and more are all here. The mix seems even more improbable in light of the large number of Americans and Europeans working in the city who frequent the mall, dressed quite differently from the locals.

Not far from the city center is Doha's university complex, containing several branches of U.S. universities. The 60 students at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service met yesterday with the man who is likely to be Israel's next president. "In the U.S. we wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet Israel's vice premier," said Lua, who came from Texas to study at the Qatari branch of the Washington, D.C.-based institution. Both Lua and her friend Britney, also a Texan, are 19, blonde and blue-eyed. "This is the best place to study," they said. "True, we can't drink and party all weekend but if you want to be in politics the curriculum is fascinating. The school has 60 students from 22 countries."

A fellow student, Lubna, left the meeting with Peres angry. "My parents are Syrians from Halb [Aleppo], but my grandmother was born in Jaffa. Most of my friends are Palestinians who live in Qatar, and [Peres] didn't give us a convincing argument for why people in Palestine cannot enjoy freedom."

Later, Peres was the guest of "The Doha Debates," in which he answered questions posed by a student audience. Presenter Tim Sebastian grilled Peres on the West Bank settlements, eventually wearing out while the vice premier charged on, talking about peace.

At the end of the day, Peres toured Doha's Iranian market. It was already dark outside, but he marched into a store and greeted the shopkeeper with what could have been a line of dialogue from the Israeli satirical program "It's a Wonderful Country": "Sabaah al-Khair" [good morning]. A reporter corrected him: "It's 'Masaa al-Khair'" [good evening]. Maybe it wasn't a slip of the tongue: While the rest of his entourage appeared to be exhausted, Peres, in a cheerful mood, looked as if he had just begun his day.