On September 9, Israeli fighter jets fired several missiles into a residential neighborhood in Doha targeting a meeting of senior Hamas officials discussing the latest American proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza. Although six people were killed, including a Qatari security official, none were the primary targets. The global backlash to the airstrike has been intense, and Qatar has vowed to respond, while U.S. President Donald Trump has claimed he was unaware of the planned attack and attempted to warn Qatar, albeit too late. On September 11, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the attack and expressed solidarity with Qatar.
In this Council Views, Middle East Council experts react to the unprecedented Israeli move and its implications for the Gulf, its relationship with the U.S., for the region and for diplomacy at large.
The Death of Diplomacy? Israel’s Attack on Qatar and the Future of Mediation – Dalia Ghanem
From Deterrence Seeker to Domination Seeker, Israel Must Be Stopped – Omar H. Rahman
Gulf States Must Reshape Their Regional Threat Perception and Act Accordingly – Rashid Al Mohannadi
Israel’s Airstrike on Doha May Have Far-reaching Consequences – Ranj Alaaldin
Israel’s Moral Disintegration and the Decent into Madness – Nader Kabbani
Two Trillion Ways to Pressure the Trump Administration? – Adel Abdel Ghafar
The Death of Diplomacy? Israel’s Attack on Qatar and the Future of Mediation
Dalia Ghanem
The Israeli attack on Doha has delivered a profound shock to the global practice of diplomacy, casting the future of international mediation into serious doubt. By striking a sovereign state that was actively hosting talks at the request of the United States, Israel’s action goes beyond a military operation; it is a direct assault on the fundamental principle of neutrality that underpins all peaceful conflict resolution.
The attack, which killed a Qatari security officer and members of a Hamas delegation, has been condemned by Qatar’s Prime Minister Al-Thani as “state terror,” which rightly frames the strike not as a defensive act but as a deliberate effort to sabotage a negotiated settlement. The brazen Israeli move, undertaken with an apparent disregard for its affected security allies, will likely force Qatar to reassess its mediation role. If this reassessment leads to Qatar stepping back from the table, it could effectively halt ceasefire negotiations and force Hamas’s leadership to less-accessible locations, making any future talks far more difficult.
The repercussions, however, extend far beyond this specific conflict if it goes unpunished. Israel’s readiness to target a mediator’s home soil sends a chilling message to any country considering a role in a difficult peace process: A commitment to diplomacy can now make a nation a target. This new and dangerous precedent undermines the very framework of peaceful resolution, signaling a shift to a more volatile world where diplomacy is no longer a shield, but a target. A world where diplomacy is increasingly undermined by unilateral military action conducted by rogue states like Israel, leaves mediators to confront an alarming question: Is the price of peace now the risk of war?
From Deterrence Seeker to Domination Seeker, Israel Must Be Stopped
Omar H. Rahman
Israel’s attack on Qatar’s sovereign territory just underscores—if it wasn’t clear already after nearly two years of genocide in Gaza—that the country is the foremost threat to regional and global security. Israel is indeed a rogue state operating completely outside the bounds of international law and norms, and its flagrant impunity imperils the entire international system.
Regionally, Israel has gone from deterrence-seeking to domination-seeking, attacking anyone, anywhere it wants at any time with the misguided notion that, underpinned by U.S. protection, it can become the hegemon of the Middle East. This has generated growing alarm across the region, as Israel obliterates every red line imaginable in attacking seven countries and counting since October 7, with its latest assault on the nation that is mediating a ceasefire agreement simply the most brazen.
But an attack on a member of the GCC now puts Washington in an exceedingly uncomfortable position, failing to uphold its security guarantees for the Gulf against an Israel that it enables but cannot seem to control. While Trump continues to put distance between himself and the Israeli operation in Doha, questions still abound about how much his administration knew and why it was not stopped. But the most important question America’s partners in the region are asking now is: What will the Trump administration do to put an end to Israeli impunity and bring the rogue nation to heel? In the meantime, they should all be assessing the collective action they can take before Israel’s impunity-fueled hegemonic ambitions grow even stronger and its perception of who constitutes a threat even broader.
Gulf States Must Reshape Their Regional Threat Perception and Act Accordingly
Rashid Al Mohannadi
The Gulf states’ strategic environment is quickly becoming more perilous. The recent Iranian and Israeli attacks on Qatar have punctured the Gulf’s prevailing sense of safety and exposed deep security vulnerabilities. Indeed, these attacks should not be taken as anomalies. They follow a broader trend of deterrence failure starting with the assault on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil facilities in 2019 and the drone and missile strikes on the UAE in 2022—both linked to Iran and its proxies. Nor is this week’s attack on Doha is also not the first time Israel has violated the sovereignty of a Gulf state. In 2010, Israeli operatives entered the UAE using fake and stole passports to assassinate Hamas official Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in a Dubai hotel.
The events of the past three months—when considered in the context of the past decade—should fundamentally reshape Gulf threat perceptions of both Iran and Israel. As these two regional powers continue to form an arc of instability around the region, Gulf states need to review their security, defense and political policies accordingly. This is especially critical given the continued failures of Western security guarantees, which have now reached a level of complicity. When faced with a choice between supporting Gulf states or Israel, Western partners have clearly chosen the latter, despite it being a rogue, genocidal state positioning itself for regional hegemony.
The Gulf states have no other option to achieve their defense and security objectives but to establish a collective, GCC-centric defense and security architecture. They must also diversify security partnerships away from obsolete arrangements that have failed to make the Gulf more secure. On the contrary, these arrangements have fostered a dangerous level of dependency—one that will require significant effort, resources, time and, most importantly, political will to correct.
Tuesday’s attack should not go unanswered by the GCC and the Arab world. If no counter is made, similar incidents will only become more frequent and risk becoming the new normal in this changing world.
Israeli Attack on Doha May Have Far-reaching Consequences
Ranj Alaaldin
Israel’s airstrikes on Doha has sent shockwaves throughout the Gulf region. The attack has implications on several levels. For starters, it casts a shadow over Qatar’s alliance with the United States, given it is unlikely, if not impossible, that the U.S. did not have prior knowledge of the attack—which would make the U.S. complicit. There could be implications for U.S. security interests since Qatar is a long-standing U.S. ally, hosting the largest U.S. base in the region, while playing a crucial counter-terrorism role. There may be attempts to create equivalences between the Israeli attack and America’s history of targeted strikes in Afghanistan or Pakistan but this is an implausible argument. Qatar is not an enabler of Hamas and its attacks on Israel: Pakistan and Afghanistan hosted and oversaw vast sections of Al Qaeda’s infrastructure, providing the group with substantial intelligence support, weapons and financing. Qatar has hosted the Hamas political office at the request of Washington––its mediation and access to the group has been drawn upon by both the Trump and Biden administrations. The presence of Hamas’ political office in Doha can be scrutinized but an airstrike deep within the territory of a major U.S. ally shifts the pendulum in favor of America’s enemies in the region. The Iranian regime will be emboldened by the Israeli airstrike, as will its proxies and other fundamentalist groups that have derided Qatar’s long-standing ties to the West––they will be vindicated by the Israeli airstrike. The reverberations could be far-reaching: An attack on a U.S. ally raises doubts and unease among other U.S. allies––in the GCC and elsewhere––over the Trump administration’s commitments and obligations, which could not be more ill-timed as the region braces for a renewal of the Israel-Iran war, uncertainty in Syria and the potential revival of the Islamic State.
Israel’s Moral Disintegration and the Decent into Madness
Nader Kabbani
The government of Israel is engaged in systematic and widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. So say leading international organizations and scholars. But you do not have to be a legal expert to understand what is happening in Gaza. You just have to bear witness to the human tragedy unfolding there: the death over 65,000 people over 80% of whom were civilian; the destruction of over 70% Gaza’s buildings including schools and hospitals; the displacement of 90% of the population, many facing famine conditions.
So, what does a country do when it has crossed the red line of genocide? Anything it wants. Israel has repeatedly hit military and civilian targets in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen. It has invaded and appropriated territory in Syria, accelerated land grabs in Palestine’s West Bank, and vilified anyone who dares to criticize its actions on September 9, 2025, when it attacked a gathering of Hamas leaders discussing a piece proposal in Qatar, killing six people, including a Qatari security official. It also targeted boats in Tunisia carrying aid for the people of Gaza.
With every act of violence, with every diplomatic norm undermined, with every red line crossed, Israel continues to claim its actions are justified. Israel is suffering from a toxic mix of paranoia, righteousness and invincibility as it lashes out against friend and foe. The international community needs to act quickly and forcefully to end the madness. The upcoming United Nations General Assembly is a chance to send a clear signal. Gulf states must rally behind Qatar and take a united stance against Israeli aggression, including freezing the Abraham Accords, until Israel ends its hostilities. The attack against Qatar should be a wake up call everyone—above all the United States.
Two Trillion Ways to Pressure the Trump Administration?
Adel Abdel Ghafar
While the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) may not possess significant military power on a global scale, they have increasingly asserted themselves as influential regional and international actors. Over the past few decades, GCC countries have developed complex and multifaceted foreign policy toolkits, with economic statecraft playing a central role. This strategy includes leveraging investments, trade deals and humanitarian aid to strengthen diplomatic ties and enhance their global influence.
During his visit to the GCC in May, President Trump boasted about more than $2 trillion in combined deals secured from Qatar, the UAE and Saudi Arabia. These investments, along with the GCC states’ growing influence in U.S. policy circles, provide them with considerable leverage. If GCC leaders choose to act collectively, they could suspend or delay these investments as leverage to pressure Trump into restraining Netanyahu and Israel from attacking Qatar again—as he has threatened—firm up U.S. security guarantees, and push for an end to the ongoing conflict in Gaza that continues to destabilize the whole region.