Yesterday’s air strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar was a rarity – the first time in recent years that one of Israel’s dramatic attacks on its regional enemies has failed to achieve its planned result.
Think back to September 2024 when exploding pagers killed and wounded thousands of Hezbollah militants in Lebanon, an operation of astounding ingenuity and success.
Then in June this year, Israel took out dozens of Iran’s military leaders and nuclear scientists in another audacious attack.
But yesterday, it bombed Hamas chiefs in America’s Gulf ally, Qatar – and missed.
The ceasefire and hostage-release talks with Hamas (hosted by Qatar), meanwhile, have been reduced to rubble, which might be what beleaguered Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu had actually intended.
And the bombing has probably killed any chance of saving the remaining hostages held in Gaza.
Now, the Middle East itself is on the brink of conflagration with potentially deadly consequences for Israel – although, paradoxically, a fresh crisis might help the PM’s prospects of political survival.
Israel bombed a residential building in Doha, targeting a Hamas delegation in Qatar – and missed
For years, Netanyahu had tried to outflank Israel’s irreconcilable enemies – including Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran – by reaching out to moderate Arab states.
Friendship with oil-rich monarchies in the Persian Gulf offered huge economic benefits plus the possibility of cutting the supply of funds to Hamas (which has been kept alive by donations from wealthy individuals in the Arab world).
But such friendships are at an end now that Israel has sent rockets crashing into a neutral – and influential – Middle Eastern power.
The one great diplomatic achievement of Donald Trump’s first term in the White House had been persuading Israel and Gulf states such as the UAE and Bahrain – plus Arab states as far away as Morocco – to sign what he called the Abraham Accords, a concordat playing on the idea that Jews and Muslims share the Old Testament prophet.
But Netanyahu has trampled that into the ground and, instead, chose to unite America’s Gulf allies in furious condemnation.
Now, the Middle East itself is on the brink of conflagration with potentially deadly consequences for Israel – although, paradoxically, a fresh crisis might help Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s (left) prospects of political survival
Why take the risk? One answer is that he is running out of options and needs quick wins. While Israel has air supremacy across the Middle East, it is fighting a bitter war of attrition on the ground in Gaza.
Yesterday, the Israel Defence Forces admitted four soldiers had been killed by Hamas. The steady drip of Israeli blood, without any clear defeat of the gunmen in prospect, seems to have driven Netanyahu to lash out.
Had he destroyed the Hamas leadership in Qatar, Netanyahu might have claimed he had ‘decapitated’ the group, a welcome offering to the bellicose Right-wing coalition partners who keep him in power.
Nothing else is working, after all.
Battered and bruised as it might be, Hezbollah has managed to survive the exploding pagers and the subsequent armed assault by the IDF. Iran still has nuclear technology despite Israel’s surprise air attack in June and the bunker-busting US bombs dropped on its underground sites.
Lashing out has not shut down Israel’s hardline enemies. Rather, they are learning lessons about how to survive and hit back. And it all comes at a huge financial cost.
The one great diplomatic achievement of Donald Trump’s first term had been persuading Israel and Gulf and Arab states as to sign what he called the Abraham Accords. But Netanyahu has trampled that into the ground and, instead, chose to unite America’s Gulf allies in furious condemnation
The Pentagon has admitted that it gave a quarter of its anti-aircraft missile stock to Israel to combat the drones and missiles fired in retaliation by Iran. How long can that rate of destruction be sustained?
Netanyahu’s belligerence across the Middle East is not making Israel more secure. Rather, it risks leaving it as isolated in its own region as it was for 30 years before the peace process with Egypt began in 1979.
He might have missed the Hamas leaders with yesterday’s strike on Qatar, but Netanyahu has certainly assassinated normal relations with Israel’s Arab neighbours. He has dismissed the idea that friendly states such as Britain could see terrorist reprisals thanks to his recklessness. But it is unlikely that our security services are quite so blase.
In Tehran, meanwhile, the Ayatollah must be rubbing his hands with glee as the Israelis achieve the seemingly impossible and unite Shiite Iran with its traditional Sunni Arab enemies across the Persian Gulf.
Netanyahu risks a regional backlash against Israel, a nation surrounded by antagonists yet increasingly detached from any sense of its true vulnerability.
If the big money in the Gulf turns against Israel, tottering economies like Britain and France will face tough decisions about how to support a longstanding, important ally.
But Israel, isolated and alone, must start to think about a battle for survival.
- Mark Almond is the director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford
