By Scott Lucas
Israel launched an unprecedented airstrike on the Qatari capital of Doha on September 9, the first time it has directly attacked a Gulf state. The “precision strike”, as Israel has called it, targeted a building in which Hamas officials were reportedly discussing a peace proposal brokered by the US.
Al Jazeera has reported that it had been told by a Hamas official that none of its leadership weree killed in the strike.
The Qatari government said it “strongly condemns the cowardly Israeli attack”, which it described as “a blatant violation of international law”. Other Middle East states including Saudi Arabia condemned the Israeli strike, as did the secretary general of the United Nations, António Guterres, who said it was a “flagrant violation” of Qatari sovereignty.
It has also been reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, informed the White House of Israel’s intentions before carrying out the attack. An Israeli official told local media that the US president, Donald Trump, had given the strike the “green light” but this has not been confirmed.
A statement released by Netanyahu’s office appeared to suggest the strike was at least partly in retaliation for the killing of six Israeli civilians at a bus stop in Jerusalem, for which Hamas has claimed responsibility.
Scott Lucas, a Middle East expert at Dublin City University, spoke to Jonathan Este, The Conversation’s senior international affairs editor, shortly after the attack. He addressed several key questions.
What’s the thinking behind Israel’s strike on Qatar? Why now?
The Israeli government is going for the kill with Hamas. Having staked his political and legal future on the “absolute destruction” of the organisation, Netanyahu cannot agree to a settlement in which it retains any place in Gaza, let alone power.
So he and some of his ministers have not engaged in negotiations for a ceasefire since the start of March. At that point, they pulled out of any discussion of a phase two, resumed the military assault on Gaza, and cut off humanitarian aid. They have only turned it back on in dribs and drabs. Aid distribution has been sporadic and all too often deadly for the people who queue for food. And it’s not enough to prevent widespread famine in Gaza.
But the problem for Netanyahu and his allies is that others continued to push for a resolution – both inside Israel, where citizens are beginning to get sick of endless war, and among Israel’s international allies, who are sickened by the images emerging from the Strip and under pressure from their own populations.
On more than one occasion, Hamas agreed – or at least came close to agreeing – terms put to them by mediators. In August, the Palestinian organisation did so again. At that point, the Israel government had a choice: accept the settlement, get the hostages back and pull back on the plan for a long-term occupation of Gaza. Or try to push aside the settlement while blaming Hamas, then expand its military operations to take over Gaza City.
Netanyahu’s commanders, including the head of the Israel Defense Forces, Eyal Zamir, warned against the assault on Gaza City. Other advisers noted the risk of further international condemnation and the isolation of Israel.
But Netanyahu and hard-right ministers in his government have persisted, urging the prime minister to go for broke. Within minutes of the strike on Doha, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich was on social media praising the attack, writing: “Terrorists have no immunity and will never have immunity from Israel’s long arm anywhere in the world.”
So how to accomplish “absolute” victory? For Israeli hardliners, this means levelling parts of Gaza City while taking out Hamas’s leadership – both to break up the organisation and to ensure that there is no more talk of ceasefire, only capitulation.
What does this mean for the normalisation of relations between Israel and the Gulf States?
There is no normalisation. There probably was none before this attack. The Netanyahu government has decided on a course in Gaza that involves the mass killing of at least 65,000 people, most of them civilians, to displace up to 90% of the population of 2.2 million and to threaten all of them with starvation.
Not even the most cynical Arab government could risk the domestic backlash of continuing with “normalisation” in those circumstances.
So the Netanyahu government is not losing any possibilities with the brazen bombing in a sovereign Arab state. It is trying to set the terms for the future, perhaps a distant one: we’ll come back to normalisation from the position of imposing our will on Gaza, even if you might not have liked it.
Israel said the US president gave the attack the ‘green light’. Where does this leave Washington?
It leaves the Trump administration where it has always been: supporting Israeli actions that have led to the mass killing of people in Gaza. The US president was reportedly briefed on Israel’s intention to strike at Doha – a US ally – before the attack went ahead. Trump’s ally, the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Johnson, is now talking about Israel having to contend with “enemies encamped around them and they’re trying to bring peace”.
Yes, Trump has pursued the chimera of a deal which would win him the Nobel peace prize. But when Israel effectively ended the deal at the start of March, the US president provided not only an excuse – Hamas was to blame – but also a rationale. Palestinians could be moved out of Gaza to allow Trump to create his “riviera of the Middle East” – a detailed prospectus for which was obtained and published last week by the Washington Post.
Each time the Netanyahu government has walked away from a peace proposal, Trump and his senior officials have provided them with cover. So, as the Israelis approach their long-term occupation, we are at the same point as we were in March – Trump officials talking about the removal of the civilians.
I doubt this attack will shake that position.
What does this tell us about negotiations over Gaza?
There are no negotiations over Gaza. There is a demand by the Netanyahu government for Hamas’s capitulation. If it does not capitulate, Hamas will be destroyed – no matter how many civilians pay the cost.
This is not just about the approach to Gaza. The Netanyahu government has now decided that its regional objectives will be pursued through “decapitation”.
It has not only tried to destroy the leadership of Hamas, with attacks in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and now Qatar. It has killed most of the leadership of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It laid waste to Iran’s political and military commanders in its 12-day war in June. On August 24, it assassinated Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi, recognised by the Houthi people as their prime minister, and other senior Houthi officials in Yemen.
The deadly message of the Netanyahu government is clear: no one whom they consider an “enemy” is immune, wherever they are. Negotiations are peripheral, perhaps even irrelevant, to that commitment.
Scott Lucas is Professor of International Politics at the Clinton Institute, University College Dublin.
JC says
“Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu is not interested in negotiations.” Guess who also not into negotiations? The other side as well. Hamas been hiding in Qatar for years, it’s no secret. Here’s a perfect youtube video that makes fun of the whole situation that aged quite well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUMl58i4m0w
Bo Peep says
Way to go IDF
Pogo says
@Scott says (Scott has said quite a lot during his long life — from everywhere except downrange)
https://londonspeakerbureau.com/speaker-profile/scott-lucas/
“…It has not only tried to destroy the leadership of Hamas, with attacks in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and now Qatar. It has killed most of the leadership of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. It laid waste to Iran’s political and military commanders in its 12-day war in June. On August 24, it assassinated Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi, recognised by the Houthi people as their prime minister, and other senior Houthi officials in Yemen…”
Thanks for the praise mate, but I reckon on the whole, you’re a right tosser you are. Now I will see if only Scott gets a say.
Deborah Coffey says
Trump, Putin, Netanyahu…3 peas in a pod. Will anyone squish that pod? The world needs a real leader and it needs to hurry.
Pogo says
@Mr. Tristam
The final victory of evil, IMO, will come when a sense of humor dies with everything else. You have restored a ray of hope for our species; you speak bravely, and behave honestly and honorably.
More simply — thank you.
Michael Cocchiola says
Trump has greenlighted Netanyahu’s murderous attacks, which makes him a war criminal, too. I can agree that Hamas’s violence against Israelis must be stopped, but bombing sovereign nations and committing genocide in the Gaza Strip cannot be the policy. Unless, of course, Netanyahu is partnering with Trump in the mad scheme to wipe out Hamas and Gazans and build the “Riviera on the Red Sea”.
Ron says
Israel did not start this war! Stop defending terrorist. I agree they should and will finally finished them off. They are the ones who were the aggressors.
Finally these monsters will pay for all there crimes including Saudi Arabia for funding the 911 attacks.
Pierre Tristam says
@Ron, First, Israel did not start this particular round of the war. But it had Gaza’s 2 million people imprisoned and treated like animals for decades, bombing them at will and routinely massacring them by the score. Second, even if we conceded that it did not start this round, it certainly started the genocide, and hasn’t stopped. Just because a murderer kills people in the P Section doesn’t justify the massacre of the entirety of Palm Coast from Bird of Paradise south. In essence, that’s exactly what’s taking place. As for terrorism: Hamas terrorism pales in comparison to Israel’s, which gets to benefit from your taxdollars and mine, and a lethality in weaponry unrivaled anywhere on the planet, Putin’s terrorism included.
Sherry says
At this point it is Netanyahu who is the international “TERRORIST”! He should be convicted and jailed for war crimes!
R.S. says
The pattern repeats itself: Trump announces negotiations with Iran; Israel attacks Iran, and the US follows suit. Trump announces negotiations with Hamas in Quat’r; Israel attacks the negotiators. This sounds about as coordinated as the attack on Pear Harbor so long ago. Trump is setting them up; Netanyahu-Mileikowsky takes them out. And the genocide continues unabated. Ron, you’re dead wrong. As Finkelstein pointed out: if someone were to come to your house with a bible and a gun, claimed that 2,000 years ago, his ancestors lived there, would you have moved out? Deir Yassin was the first massacre of Palestinians by a Jewish paramilitary force in 1948. Martin Buber sent a letter to David BenGurion criticizing that violence; so even some Zionists were turned off by the violence. Theodor Herzl had predicted a non-religious, secular Israel that would harmonize with the Palestinians already there. I’m sure he’d turn in his grave if he were to see what became of his idea of tolerance and mutual respect.
JC says
If there was a dislike feature on FlaglerLive, it would be certainly for Pierre’s comment.
Pierre Tristam says
@JC not nearly as dislikable as my having to make the comment. But this is the willfully self-delusional, Israel-enslaved America we live in, as your dislike tellingly suggests.
Ron says
Pierre,
The war that I was referring to started on 107/2023. When Hamas and Palestinian militant groups launch a surprise attack on Israel. I which 1,195 Israelis and foreign nationals including 815 civilians, were killed, and 251 taken hostage with the stated goal of forcing Israel to release Palestinian prisoners.
Ray W. says
If a person defines right and wrong by what he likes or wants, what is right and wrong to his mind can change by the minute or by the day.
DaleL says
@Pierre – Hamas came to power in Gaza, by democratic means, in 2007. In a similar way, the National Socialist Party became the largest party in the Reichstag in 1932. Hitler became the chancellor of Germany the following year. History may not repeat itself, but the fate of the people of Gaza certainly mirrors that of Germany.
It does not matter “who” started “it”. What should matter is when will the world hold murderous leaders accountable? When will the “civilized” world intervene forcefully and impose peace? Just as the world removed, at a horrendous cost, the National Socialists by defeating Germany, the world needs to remove both Hamas and Israel from Gaza.
The attack by Israel on another nation is an act of war. No pretext, that it was necessary or in some way just, changes the fact that the attack was illegal under international law.
Israel, under Netanyahu, has practically condoned Jewish settler attacks on Muslim Palestinians in the West Bank. If Israelis want peace, they must get rid of Netanyahu.
Ray W. says
Of the four nations that participated with Israel in the Abraham Accords, which are pacts intended to strengthen diplomatic relations, and not peace treaties, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) is now warning Israel that further annexations within the West Bank will “severely undermine” its participation in its Accord, complete with a threat to withdraw from its Accord.
Bahrain has withdrawn its ambassador from Israel after events that followed the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas.
Morocco has maintained the status quo.
Sudan has failed to follow up on normalizing relations with Israel. The Accord attending to Sudan always anticipated the forming of a recognized civil government in Sudan prior to Sudan signing its According, something that has yet to take place.
For most of the four nations, economic ties related to the Accords with Israel remain intact, with some increasing economic activity.
Make of this what you will.
Me?
From what I can find, none of the individual accords were intended to bring peace to the Middle East, as none of the four countries were in conflict with Israel in 2020.
Neither the UAE, nor Bahrain, nor Morocco have ever declared war on Israel. Morocco did send troops to Syria during the 1973 war, but they were more of a symbol of support, not direct fighting units.
Sudan, however, did send military forces to the Middle East as direct fighting units in both 1948 and 1967, siding with Arab forces in the military attacks on Israel.
R.S. says
DaleL, were you there in Germany? What is your evidence for any of what you accuse Hitler of doing? I’m always faintly amused by all this expertise on Hitler by citizens of a country that just emerged from a holocaust of 60 million to 100 million indigenous people spouting morality on another country that murdered 6 million. Being such an expert on that period of history, you simply seem to have missed the parallel between the Warsaw ghetto and Gaza, huh? Or would you have blamed the inmates in Warsaw in the same way as you are blaming the inmates of Gaza?