When Israeli forces struck Hamas leaders in Doha, they did not merely eliminate a few operatives; they violated the territory of a US-aligned ally, upended Qatar’s delicate role as mediator, and signaled that even the most carefully maintained diplomatic spaces in the Gulf are now battlefields.
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When Israeli forces struck Hamas leaders in Doha, they did not merely eliminate a few operatives; they violated the territory of a US-aligned ally, upended Qatar’s delicate role as mediator, and signaled that even the most carefully maintained diplomatic spaces in the Gulf are now battlefields.
The outrage over Israel’s airstrike has been immense, and not without reason. It was not merely a tactical operation but a profound challenge to the established norms of international diplomacy and, to a lesser extent, sovereignty. Qatar, a controversial yet pivotal mediator in Middle Eastern conflicts and an ally to both the US and key European states, has long navigated a delicate balance between its alliances and its role as a broker.
The strike, which resulted in casualties, including a Qatari security officer and the son of Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, underscores a significant shift in regional dynamics, eliciting strong condemnations from global leaders. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer labeled the attack a violation of Qatar’s sovereignty, while French President Emmanuel Macron deemed it “unacceptable regardless of motive.” Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — both far from being close allies — have expressed their disapproval, with the UAE calling the strike “an irresponsible escalation that threatens regional and international security.”
For nearly two years, Qatar had embodied a paradox: criticized by some in the Arab world and the West for hosting Islamist movements — the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas above all — and yet valued precisely for doing so. Its leverage rested on a simple bargain: provide a safe haven for political interlocutors and gain influence over actors that others cannot reach. Since the October 7 atrocities, Qatar has attempted to leverage this position to facilitate hostage negotiations, back-channel communications, and temporary truces. The results have been mixed at best. However, while some limited humanitarian arrangements and prisoner exchanges were achieved, many hostages remain captive, and Gaza remains under relentless bombardment.
For Israel, Qatar’s neutrality was always a grudgingly tolerated convenience; for the United States and European partners, it was a pragmatic but imperfect tool, enabling diplomacy where direct channels were blocked. That bargain has now been broken, possibly irreversibly. Israel has converted a fragile and already limited space for negotiation into a battlefield, forcing Hamas leaders to scatter, further complicating the slim prospects for mediated relief.
Israel has converted a fragile and already limited space for negotiation into a battlefield, forcing Hamas leaders to scatter, further complicating the slim prospects for mediated relief
The practical consequences are immediate and sobering. Dispersed leadership networks weaken the already tenuous incentives for negotiation: hostages remain largely unreachable, communications are fragmented, and fleeting truces are undermined before they can take hold. Qatar’s declaration that the strike was a “flagrant violation” of international norms will echo across the region, but its own capacity to influence outcomes is now compromised. What was once an imperfect mediator has been thrust to the center of a regional crisis. Its credibility and leverage are now sharply diminished. In this context, even the modest gains Qatar achieved since October 7 risk being undone, and the architecture of temporary conflict management may collapse entirely.
But it’s not just Qatar that has taken a reputational hit. America’s realizability — under Donald Trump’s leadership — has become more questionable than ever and will be assessed by friends and foes alike. Here’s what is known: The White House acknowledged that Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff warned Qatar that an Israeli operation was imminent. That disclosure is important for two reasons. First, it means the US was not taken entirely by surprise — Washington had at least partial foreknowledge. Second, it means the US relationship with Israel is now being judged not only by what America does, but by what it allows. If one ally is prepared to strike another ally, and the superpower that binds them either acquiesces or offers only tepid condemnation, smaller states will recalibrate their security assumptions accordingly.
Publicly, President Trump’s team tried to thread this needle, neither as an accessory nor as ignorant or weak. White House spokespersons said the US warned Qatar, and that the president described the strike as “unfortunate,” while stopping short of sanctioning Israel or threatening to withdraw military cooperation. Trump himself posted on his social media platform that it was Netanyahu’s decision alone to launch the attack.
But public statements and private calculations often diverge. The key political judgment Gulf capitals will make — quietly and with the gravity that suits monarchs and ministers — is whether Washington will tolerate the erosion of their sovereignty when Israeli tactical objectives so demand it. The initial answer, as Doha and Abu Dhabi have already signaled with unusually harsh rhetoric, is to suspect that American protection is situational, not absolute. This suspicion, once lodged, is hard to dislodge.
The key political judgment Gulf capitals will make — quietly and with the gravity that suits monarchs and ministers — is whether Washington will tolerate the erosion of their sovereignty when Israeli tactical objectives so demand it
However, the situation is not merely a diplomatic problem. Qatar is also a buyer of American weaponry. In May 2025, the White House announced substantial deals and investments worth $1 billion, tied to US defense sales and pledges to modernize Al Udeid Air Base. Those economic and military ties mattered — until they did not.
Analysts noted that the strike revealed the limits of existing deterrence. Despite its US-supplied missile defense systems, Qatar could not prevent the attack. This outcome undermines regional security assumptions and suggests gaps in coordination or new Israeli capabilities. Each of these considerations carries its own policy signal: an evolving Israeli reach; vulnerabilities in allied air-defense integration; or a tacit realpolitik acceptance of the tactical gain versus strategic fallout.
Either way, the fact that a state bolstered by American-supplied air defenses could still be struck has a chilling effect on the deterrence calculus in the Gulf. Allies can no longer assume that their American-provided systems, in themselves, are an ironclad protection against the actions of another US partner. In a world of overlapping alliances and transactional politics, deterrence becomes ambiguous; ambiguity breeds hedging, and hedging prompts states to diversify their security relationships in unpredictable ways.
Predictability was one aspect of The Abraham Accords of 2020, which were promoted as a geopolitical tectonic shift: Arab states would normalize with Israel not because of the Palestinian question but because of the broader strategic and economic interests that made such ties mutually desirable. Trade, energy cooperation, technology transfers, intelligence-sharing arrangements, and a shared concern over Iranian influence created a pragmatic foundation for engagement. These agreements were never about resolving the underlying conflict but about creating stable transactional relationships that could withstand, in theory, the turbulence in the Middle East.
Those interests remain real, but the Doha strike reveals a limit-case scenario: normalization can unravel in a single act when Israel’s security calculus directly impinges upon the sovereignty and political calculations of its new partners. Israel has exposed the fragility of the Accords’ underpinning assumption that economic and strategic incentives are sufficient to outweigh political and national sensitivities. The implicit social contract of normalization, whereby Arab publics might tolerate engagement with Israel as long as their capitals were respected, has now been strained.
The Doha strike reveals a limit-case scenario: normalization can unravel in a single act when Israel’s security calculus directly impinges upon the sovereignty and political calculations of its new partners
Within hours of the attack, Bahrain — a cornerstone Accords signatory — issued a statement of solidarity with Qatar, condemning the strike as a dangerous escalation. Saudi Arabia, often viewed as the ultimate prize of normalization efforts, telephoned Doha’s emir to express support and to denounce the operation.
In Gulf politics, where public expressions of solidarity are often calibrated to domestic sentiment, such reactions signal that state leaders perceive a genuine threat to their sovereignty, legitimacy, and strategic patience. Public opinion remains a critical variable: citizens and elites alike expect that violations of national territory will not be tolerated quietly.
The Doha strike undermines the principle of predictability that the Abraham Accords sought to establish. Diplomatic and security cooperation relies on a degree of trust that breaches of sovereignty are exceptional, not routine. When that trust erodes, Gulf states are likely to hedge their bets; they may slow the pace of intelligence-sharing, recalibrate military cooperation, and reassess participation in joint initiatives with Israel. Second, the strike injects ambiguity into the calculus of risk for normalization itself. If Israeli operational priorities can override the territorial integrity of allied states, leaders in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Manama will weigh the domestic political costs more heavily, potentially delaying or conditioning cooperation on concrete security guarantees.
Finally, the Accords were never solely transactional; they were also aspirational, signaling that Israel could be a legitimate partner in the Arab world despite the Palestinian conflict. Israeli actions yesterday could transform that narrative, raising questions among the Arab public and elites about whether normalization benefits their states more than it exposes them to risk.
Meanwhile, for Hamas, operations have been further complicated. Israel has yet again exposed the fragility of an organization that has always depended on external sanctuaries. Hamas is not a state but a militant organization that entrenched itself in Gaza by subordinating governance to perpetual conflict. Its “political bureau” in Doha was never a parliament in exile, but a safe house for men directing terror from afar.
By targeting that bureau, Israel may have forced Hamas back into Gaza’s ruins. Leaders who once dictated strategy from comfortable offices abroad must now leave decisions to commanders under bombardment. Cut off from external coordination, local cells may act with greater autonomy, less discipline, and even less regard for civilian life. It could lead to an even messier, less predictable, and more brutal war, precisely because its terrorist character will be laid bare.
By targeting that bureau, Israel may have forced Hamas back into Gaza’s ruins. Leaders who once dictated strategy from comfortable offices abroad must now leave decisions to commanders under bombardment
The consequences for Gaza itself are equally severe. It is already a humanitarian catastrophe. However, the situation could deteriorate even further. For years, Qatari money functioned as a pressure valve, paying salaries and subsidizing fuel, while Hamas skimmed off resources for rockets and tunnels. If those funds are now disrupted, the civilian population will suffer immediate deprivation. But in such a case, too, Hamas will make the same choice it has always made: weapons first, people second. The result will be intensified humanitarian collapse and a far more effective recruitment narrative for those still willing to believe that endless “resistance” is worth the price.
This is not a contest with simple winners. Israel may believe it has sent a stern message: political sanctuary does not equal immunity. That message, however, comes at a cost. Any short-term severing of Hamas’s external coordination could be offset by a long-term loss of diplomatic partners, fewer opportunities for negotiated relief, and increasing hostility among states whose cooperation Israel had sought. Qatar’s domestic legitimacy has been tested; citizens and elites alike will demand an explanation and redress.
The US loses credibility among regional partners by appearing to have permitted, or at least to have insufficiently opposed, a strike on a close ally. Gulf monarchies stand to lose the transactional certainty that allowed decades of quiet security cooperation; in their stead, they may accelerate diversification — military procurement from non-US suppliers, clandestine security partnerships, and even the pursuit of closer ties with Tehran in the narrow interest of shared sovereignty.
International law has always rested on a fragile bargain: states respect each other’s sovereignty not because they are virtuous but because the alternative is chaos.
The recognized exceptions in international law do not apply to Israel’s strike in Doha. Claiming otherwise implies that hosting a terrorist group erodes the protective shield of sovereignty itself. Such a claim may be compelling to those who see Hamas as uniquely illegitimate. Yet once admitted, it risks becoming universal.
If Israel can redefine sovereignty around the presence of non-state actors, why not Turkey against Kurdish exiles in Europe, or China against Uyghur activists in North America? The more elastic the doctrine, the more license it provides to bad-faith actors. The precedent is not a legal doctrine at all, but the practice of power: norms can be bent whenever strategic necessity is invoked.
It is here that comparisons with Vladimir Putin inevitably arise. Russia’s extraterritorial assassinations — from London to Berlin — have been condemned as the acts of a rogue state. Critics will now argue that Israel, too, is engaging in killings abroad, in defiance of international law.
This equivalence is false. Putin’s targets were dissidents, journalists, defectors: civilians whose “crime” was opposing his dictatorship. Hamas’s external bureau, by contrast, is not a debating society but the command structure of a terrorist organization that has murdered civilians, taken hostages, and launched cross-border attacks. To conflate the two is to confuse repression with counterterrorism.
Yet, the danger lies less in the legal brief than in perception. International politics operates as much on images as on facts. Should Israel continue to strike targets in allied or neutral states with apparent impunity, the distinction between its actions and Russia’s may blur in the public mind. It will not matter that Hamas is designated a terrorist group; what will matter is the spectacle of a state reaching across borders, claiming exceptional rights for itself. Israel, once aligned with liberal democracies defending rules against authoritarians, may find itself grouped — rhetorically, if not substantively — with the very regimes it has long opposed.
Benjamin Netanyahu may calculate that tactical necessity outweighs these risks. But the broader consequence is the erosion of the very norms that distinguish democracies from dictatorships. Once the language of law collapses into the logic of might, every state becomes more vulnerable — including Israel itself.
The coming days will test whether the Gulf states can convert outrage into effective leverage. Qatar may cut back on cooperation, or seek new security guarantees from Washington or others. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh may recalibrate their public posture toward Israel, slowing or conditioning any further integration. Washington must decide whether to accept the alteration of the regional rules of engagement or to reassert a role as arbiter that defends the sanctity of allied capitals as a core interest.
A plausible, and worrying, scenario is one in which Gulf states accelerate hedging: increased purchases of missile defense systems, deeper intelligence ties with non-US partners, including China, a worst-case scenario, and a cautious stance toward military cooperation with Israel.
Another scenario is that cooler heads prevail — behind closed doors — if the US offers substantive reassurances, compensation, or a concrete diplomatic framework that prevents recurrence. But such reassurances must be credible: mere expressions of regret will not suffice for states that calculate in decades and dynasties rather than campaign cycles.
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