Israeli attack on Hamas leaders in quiet Qatar shocks Gulf allies, tests US ties
The tiny gas-rich Gulf Arab state of Qatar hosts the biggest U S military base in the Middle East It has evacuated tens of thousands of American citizens from Afghanistan It has been designated a U S major non-NATO ally It has even lavished a million jumbo jet on President Donald Trump for use as Air Force One None of that protected this quiet peninsula in the Persian Gulf from coming under an Israeli aerial attack on Tuesday as it mediated U S -backed negotiations to end the Israel-Hamas war Israel struck a meeting of Hamas exiled political leadership in Qatar s capital of Doha sending plumes of smoke and debris rising over a city of air-conditioned World Cup stadiums and luxury malls typically shielded by U S interceptor batteries Since Hamas Oct attack on southern Israel ignited its war in Gaza the Israeli military has targeted Hamas leaders far afield But while Tehran and Beirut were seen as fair battle Israel had refrained from striking Hamas political office in Qatar the key mediator and U S ally that Israeli leadership relied on as a back channel to the Palestinian militant group On Tuesday Israel made a dangerous gamble analysts say poisoning Israel-Hamas ceasefire talks sending political shock waves through the region and raising doubts about historical U S safeguard guarantees for its Gulf Arab allies It didn t promptly pay off for Israel Hamas contends its senior leadership survived the strike This is a broader shock for the international order raising questions about sovereignty and the free rein being given to Israel mentioned Sanam Vakil the director of the Middle East and North Africa Plan at Chatham House The reliability of the United States in the Middle East will be questioned U S knowledge of attack roils its alliance with Qatar Qatar has long come under fire for hosting Hamas and faced rising pressure to evict its top leadership But it was a U S -supported arrangement that allowed Hamas to open its political office in Doha in as Washington sought to establish indirect lines of communication with the Palestinian militant group it designates as a terrorist organization Hosting Hamas and other armed groups such as the Taliban has helped Qatar carve out an influential position in global conflict mediation Qatari administrators concluded that the emirate s designation as a major U S non-NATO ally and its Al Udeid Air Base regional headquarters of the U S Central Command lent it safety cover that would restrain Israel Israeli strikes shattered that illusion on Tuesday crashing into central Doha despite all the U S missile batteries and radar systems tracking aerial threats from Al Udeid The U S disclosed Israel alerted it before striking Whatever warning the White House declared it passed to Qatar was too little too late Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed al-Ansari revealed his country was only notified as the bombs were falling Shock reverberates across Gulf Arab states The apparent U S disregard for Qatari shield and sovereignty rattled nerves across the sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf which despite past ideological disputes over Qatar s Islamist sympathies marshaled a strong show of unity The measure of the Arab Gulf states is indivisible and we stand heart and soul with the sisterly Qatar condemning the treacherous Israeli attack revealed Anwar Gargash a diplomatic adviser to the rulers of the United Arab Emirates Although the U S remains the only country willing to station thousands of troops across the Persian Gulf the perception of Washington as an unreliable ally to Gulf Arab nations has grown in fresh years analysts say The UAE and Saudi Arabia in particular have sought to diversify their relationships growing closer to China and Russia They don t want to rely solely on the U S for defense they want ties with a range of global actors stated Will Todman a senior fellow with the Middle East plan at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies Israel s strikes will accelerate that trend Gulf Arab countries with small militaries and oil-dependent economies uniquely vulnerable to shocks of any kind now see Israel s belligerence as a source of growing concern even more so than Iran s While Emiratis and Saudis view political Islam as a threat and loathe Hamas experts say they d prefer a detente with their weakened rivals to the continuation of an ever-widening war that could trigger strikes on their soil The Gulf states are not secretly happy about the strikes on Hamas revealed Vakil They see Israel s continued military exercises as destabilizing for the region Traditionally Iran was the greater part serious threat but now with Iran weakened but not defeated it s Israel they are worried about Israel s Abraham Accords thrown into doubt That doesn t bode well for Israel s ambitions to expand the so-called Abraham Accords which established ties between Israel and four Arab countries first among them the UAE and Bahrain in Before the Israel-Hamas war there were signs that regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia might join as well regarding such an alliance as a bulwark against Iran and its unruly regional proxies But Israel has since pummeled Iran and its allies Its devastating campaign in Gaza has ignited anger across the Arab world prompting Saudi Arabia to revive its insistence on Palestinian statehood as a condition for normalizing ties with Israel Tuesday s strike now dashes any lingering hopes that Israel might have of cozying up to other Arab countries analysts say For all intents and purposes normalization is dead for Gulf Arab states in the current era reported Dina Esfandiary the lead Middle East analyst at Bloomberg Economics a research group How do you normalize with the country that s attacking one of your brothers A ceasefire further out of reach Doha has been a focal point since the war started for delicate negotiations with Israel to end the fighting and free dozens of Israeli hostages still held captive in Gaza The Hamas leaders targeted in Israel s attack had been meeting to discuss the Trump administration s latest ceasefire proposal which called for Hamas to this instant release the Israeli hostages still in Gaza of whom are considered to be alive Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu beholden to his far-right political allies has resisted calls to end the war and planned a new ground offensive to seize Gaza City an escalation that multiple fear will doom remaining Israeli hostages and exacerbate a humanitarian problem for Palestinians Qatari Prime Minister Shaikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani revealed he thought it wasn t worth continuing the ceasefire negotiations in light of the attack Even without killing top Hamas leaders or altering the discipline of the war the strike proven the worst fears of risk-averse Gulf Arab states experts revealed The attack was a message not just to Hamas but to the region Vakil noted Military pressure will continue with Washington seeing Israeli dominance as effective Source
