Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani (C) posing for a group picture with leaders, heads of state and other officials during the 2025 Arab-Islamic emergency summit in Doha. AFP
The criminal strike that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered against Doha on 9 September in a failed attempt to assassinate leaders of Hamas who were meeting to discuss a US proposal to reach a ceasefire was not only an act of war and an outrageous violation of international law and the United Nations Charter. It was also the straw that broke the camel’s back after two years of endless war crimes the Israeli enemy carried out in Gaza, killing 65,000 people, mostly women and children, and injuring over 165,000. Using food and medicine as a weapon, intentionally starving the Palestinians and destroying their living spaces while leaving nowhere safe in Gaza are now facts daily on display on live television.
Because Netanyahu lies as he breathes, he alleged that the strike was a legitimate act in the context of pursuing Hamas leaders who ordered the 7 October, 2023 attack against Israel, ignoring the fact that it took place in Qatar where endless rounds of indirect talks were held between Israel and Hamas, attended by top Egyptian and American officials. Moreover, unless Netanyahu is suffering from amnesia as he ages, it was his own government that asked Qatar for years to be the channel of communication with Hamas in Gaza, hoping that maintaining the status quo of division between them and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah would kill any hope for the creation of a Palestinian state in all the territories Israel has been occupying since 5 June, 1967.
Allegations that Israel targeted a “secret” meeting of Hamas leaders, or that Qatar harbours and hosts “terrorists”, are lies even Israel’s most extremist backers would not buy. Hamas leaders were holding a meeting the whole world knew about, and that the Trump administration had requested in order to consider American proposals to reach a so-called “comprehensive deal” that would lead to the release of all Israeli prisoners held by Hamas over the past two years. Yet Trump and Netanyahu wanted to conclude that deal with no guarantee of a permanent end to the war, or the full withdrawal of Israeli occupation forces from Gaza.
The truth is that Netanyahu ordered this attack against Doha for two key reasons: First, to terminate any attempts to end the war in Gaza, since the whole world knows by now that the Israeli premier’s own political survival depends on endless wars, not just in Gaza, but also in the Occupied West Bank and Jerusalem, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran. Secondly, to impose a new order in the Middle East whereby Israel is the dominant thug that maintains the freedom to strike wherever it wants, regardless of any international laws or the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states. That is how Netanyahu envisions redrawing the map of the Middle East and creating new realities.
Recognising those two obvious goals, the Arab and Muslim leaders who met in Doha on Monday were determined to send a clear counter message to the present, fanatic Israeli government that has brazenly crossed every red line. The core of this message is that they will never submit to this new, illegitimate order Netanyahu dreams of imposing. In one speech after another, participants in the Arab-Islamic Summit made it clear that the Israeli attack against Qatar renders any previous hope of integrating Israel into the region or normalising ties with it a matter of the past, and that they would not shy away from taking escalatory measures if Israel, backed by the current US administration, insists on maintaining this policy of hegemony and racist occupation of Palestinian, Lebanese and Syrian territories.
Instead, the final statement issued by the Doha summit called on all Arab and Muslim countries to reconsider any ties they might have had with Israel. It also asked members of the International Criminal Court in the Hague to carry out the arrest orders it issued against Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. When the war in Gaza ends, there will certainly be dozens if not hundreds of arrest warrants issued against Israeli political and military leaders who proudly bragged of the need to kill Palestinians, including children, as part of a systematic plan to destroy Gaza and force its population to leave, preferably towards Egypt, but if not then to any other distant nation that might accept them. The consensus at the Doha summit was that it is necessary to punish Israel for its war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Attendees also stressed that the lack of accountability and sense of impunity are the key reasons why Israel has been acting recklessly over the past decades with the peak being the latest attack against Qatar. These were not only the views of Israel’s traditional rivals but of everyone.
What should be worrying to Israel is that key Arab countries that were among the first to sign peace treaties with it, topped with Egypt and Jordan, were also among the most critical of its ongoing crimes in Gaza and plans to forcibly deport its population. It was certainly not the norm that President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi should refer to Israel as an “enemy” during his speech, while asking Arab leaders to adopt “positions that must change the enemy’s perception of us, so it can see that the geography of any Arab country extends from the Ocean to the Gulf and its umbrella is wide enough for all Islamic and peace-loving countries.” He added, “in order for this perception to change, it requires adopting strong decisions and recommendations, and working to implement them with sincerity and honest intentions, so that every transgressor is deterred and every adventurer takes heed.” He also stressed that “the unchecked Israeli recklessness and its increasingly inflated arrogance require us, as leaders of the Arab and Islamic worlds, to act collectively to establish foundations and principles that genuinely reflect our shared vision and interests.”
Will Israel heed these warnings? That’s unlikely as long as the current extremist government led by Netanyahu remains in office. Yet, Egypt and other key Arab nations that maintain historically close and strategic ties with the United States continue to maintain a minimal level of hope that US President Trump will restrain his country’s closest ally, whose survival depends on endless supply of US weapons and diplomatic protection. That would be the only way to save the entire Middle East from going back to eras of endless wars and confrontations that none of its governments and peoples want. Yet such a nightmare scenario cannot be excluded if Israel insists on being the region’s bully, granting itself the freedom to break all rules and agreements, with the strike against Qatar as the entrée.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 18 September, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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