Scott Lucas, Professor of International Politics, Clinton Institute, University College Dublin
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 does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
