Smoke rises after Israeli strikes target Hamas leaders in Doha, Qatar, on 9 September 2025 (Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters)
The strike on Doha shows that Arab regimes' silence and passivity in the face of Israeli violence will only invite further aggression.
Originally published in Middle East Eye.
If any state should have felt safe from an Israeli attack, it would have been Qatar.
It is a small country that poses no real threat to Israel. It is an ally of the United States and hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East.
In May, Qatar pledged to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in the US economy.
Qatar has also cultivated a reputation as a peacemaker, mediating in numerous conflicts. Just last month, the Israeli Mossad director was in Doha, hosted by the Qatari government, as part of longstanding ceasefire negotiations over Gaza.
Yet this characterisation may be too simplistic.
The reality is that Qatar should never have felt safe, and nor should any other country in the region.
Israel is not constrained by the rules that govern relations between states. It flouts international law and claims a divine mandate to expand, seeing anyone in its way as an obstacle to be removed.
Israeli belligerence
Israel is not merely a rogue state that disregards the rule of law. It is a state that openly rejects all norms and conventions, whose leaders have long promoted the vision of a "Greater Israel" stretching from the Euphrates in Iraq to the Nile in Egypt.
This is no hidden conspiracy, and no fancy Middle East studies degrees are required for understanding it. All one has to do is casually follow Israeli politics. In August, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his commitment to this project on Israeli television.
Israel is not constrained by the rules that govern relations between states
For decades, Israel has illegally occupied multiple Arab lands and pursued a campaign of eliminationism against the Palestinian people. No country has been the subject of more United Nations resolutions.
For the past two years, Israel has decimated Gaza. More than 64,000 Palestinians have been killed, the majority women and children. Journalists and aid workers have been killed in record numbers, setting grim world records. Even Israeli rights groups have recently begun to acknowledge the obvious: that Israel's actions in Gaza constitute genocide.
In Gaza, Israel has employed its so-called "Dahiya Doctrine", which calls for the maximum punishment of civilians and civilian areas. It does not try to avoid civilian casualties; it deliberately seeks them out.
According to Israeli media, its forces have operated on the basis of a 100:1 ratio, giving themselves the licence to kill more than 100 civilians in order to target a single commander. One programme, known as "Where's Daddy?" directs strikes not at fighters on the battlefield but at their homes late at night, killing them together with their families as they sleep.
The same pattern is visible in the West Bank. Since October 2023, Israel has confiscated land and carried out killings on an unprecedented scale, with more than 1,000 Palestinians murdered and over 1,100 structures demolished this year alone. It is moving towards formal annexation with the full blessing of the Trump administration.
Widening war
Beyond Palestine, Israel has extended its war machine to Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. In Lebanon, it detonated explosive pagers in crowded neighbourhoods as schools were letting out. The attack, designed to maximise civilian suffering, was described by former CIA director Leon Panetta as "terrorism".
Now, in Qatar, Israel has crossed another threshold. The strike on Doha killed family members of Hamas officials and a Qatari officer, though Hamas said its senior leaders survived.
Qatar condemned the attack as a "cowardly, criminal assault" and "100 percent treacherous", calling it a blatant violation of its sovereignty, while UN secretary general Antonio Guterres and Pope Leo warned of a dangerous escalation.
There are many lessons to draw from Tuesday's attack on Qatar. The first is that Arab passivity does not work against a state as out-of-control as Israel.
This much should be clear: Israel's strike on Doha was the product of two years of Arab and Muslim weakness in the face of unprecedented, wanton Israeli aggression.
These governments have done almost nothing in response to Israel's crimes in Gaza, the West Bank, and across the Middle East. For decades, Israel has learned that it can do whatever it wants, whenever it wants, however it wants, without so much as a peep from Arab leaders.
In fact, some of the most powerful Arab countries continue to deepen their business ties with Israel. Just three weeks ago, Egypt, the largest Arab country with the strongest military, signed a massive gas deal with Israel, agreeing to send it $35bn over the next 15 years.
The attack also raises questions about Qatar and the US. What is the purpose of a vast central command base if it cannot prevent a US ally from striking the very country that hosts it?
Another question concerns the US. According to reports, the Trump administration itself "blessed" the attack. The question now is to what extent Arab countries should finally look beyond Washington, perhaps to Russia, China or elsewhere.
Certainly, the US cannot be trusted, in either its Democratic or Republican form. The Biden administration gave Israel full diplomatic and military support over 15 months of genocide in Gaza, never pushing it to end the war. Trump's team, meanwhile, is filled with Zionists more committed to Greater Israel than many Israelis themselves.
A decisive moment
The broader Arab region must now confront difficult questions.
Will there be a collective response by countries waking up to the reality that they lie directly in the path of Greater Israel? Might Arab states consider severing ties with Israel and using their leverage with Washington to force change?
Is it even conceivable that Arab states could form an alliance capable of challenging Israel militarily? Or will they respond with the same passivity that has long defined their approach?
Some states may even openly or privately welcome the strike, imagining it buys them security. The United Arab Emirates, often described as a "suburb of Israel", may believe it is safe - a grave miscalculation.
Tuesday's attack shows that no previous alliances, diplomacy or American protection can shield an Arab country from Israel's violence. If Israel is not confronted, every capital in the region must know it is a potential target.
For now, there are more questions than answers. But one truth is clear: Israel will not stop until it is stopped.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
Mohamad Elmasry is Professor of Media Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.
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