Gulf Powers Question U.S. Protection After Israeli Attack on Qatari Soil
The brazen attempt to kill the political leaders of Hamas in Doha could upend the foundations of an American-led order in the Middle East.
Reporting from Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Qatar hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East, has bought billions of dollars worth of defense systems from the United States and recently gifted a luxury Boeing jet to President Trump.
Yet on Tuesday, none of that stopped Israel, a key U.S. ally, from launching a brazen military attack on Qatari soil. It was an attempt to assassinate senior Hamas officials who had gathered to discuss a cease-fire proposal to pause the war in Gaza — a deal that was backed by Mr. Trump.
“Qatar being unable to protect its own citizens with literally the U.S. Central Command on its territory has prompted locals to question the value of the American partnership,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a research group. “It’s a real problem for Gulf leaders. And it should worry the United States as well.”
The Israeli attack sent shock waves through Gulf capitals that have been courted by Israel as potential allies in recent years and have long regarded the U.S. as their main security guarantor.
The strike hit a residential neighborhood in the Qatari capital of Doha, sending black smoke into the sky and killing a member of Qatar’s internal security forces, Bader Saad al-Humaidi al-Dosari, according to Qatari officials. He became the first Gulf Arab to be killed by Israel in decades.
Qatar had agreed to host the political leadership of Hamas at the behest of the United States, positioning the country as a critical mediator in talks to end the war in Gaza. In a statement, the Palestinian armed group confirmed that the son of Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s chief negotiator, and four other people affiliated with Hamas were killed in the attack.
It not yet clear how the Israeli strike will affect cease-fire negotiations, which were already stalled. Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister, said on Tuesday that “nothing will deter” his country from playing its role as mediator, even as he accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel of trying “to sabotage every attempt to create opportunities for peace.”
Israel’s attack will reverberate far beyond Qatar, analysts say.
The country’s willingness to launch an attack in a Gulf state marks a potential turning point for the region, which has long been dominated by American alliances and interests.
“This is a litmus test,” said Bader Al-Saif, an assistant professor of history at Kuwait University. If Gulf rulers “don’t do anything forceful now, they will only be part of an Israeli orbit of power and an Israel-led regional order.”
The fossil-fuel rich Gulf countries — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait and Bahrain — have become increasingly ambitious in recent years, using their vast wealth to garner influence around the world. Combined, the countries control roughly $4 trillion of assets in their sovereign wealth funds, and several of them have substantial sway over global energy markets.
Their domestic agendas hinge on their reputations as safe havens for trade, investment and tourism in a volatile Middle East — a reputation that Israel’s attack struck at directly.
“Netanyahu himself declared that he will reshape the Middle East,” Sheikh Mohammed said on Tuesday. “Is this a message that he also intends to reshape the Gulf?”
A military response by Gulf countries is out of the question because further escalation would harm the domestic agendas of the Gulf’s rulers. And despite frustration with U.S. policy in the region, they remain dependent on American military support.
But “they have a lot of tools at their disposal,” Mr. Al-Saif said, including diplomacy and economic leverage. If Gulf sovereign funds decided to take action through “divestment that hurts Israeli-affiliated or American-affiliated interests,” that could have an impact, he argued.
How Gulf countries will respond is not yet clear. What is clear, though, is that they are — once again — questioning the utility of American security guarantees, this time just months after Mr. Trump toured the region, singing its rulers’ praises and signing a flurry of business deals.
The United States called Qatar to warn about the attack — ten minutes after it had already happened, Sheikh Mohammed said.
“It’s difficult for the U.S. to deliver to us at this stage,” Mr. Al-Saif said, referring collectively to the Gulf countries. “We need to come up with another alternative or we need to come together with Mr. Trump again and talk security, purely, and not just have a commercial blitz.”
The attack is also likely to undermine Mr. Trump’s hopes to expand the Abraham Accords, a series of U.S.-brokered deals in 2020 that saw the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain establish diplomatic ties with Israel — agreements that the president viewed as one of the crowning foreign policy achievements of his first term.
Qatar was not part of the accords, and has had tensions with some of its Gulf neighbors.
But the attack on Tuesday united the Gulf countries in condemnation of Israel, and stirred mutual fears about their vulnerability. Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Emirati ruler, traveled to Qatar for a state visit on Wednesday with his powerful national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed.
“U.S. partners and U.S. policymakers themselves are coming to the late realization that Israel’s militant mindset is a threat to the entire region,” said Joseph Farsakh, a former U.S. State Department official focused on the Arabian Peninsula.
In the long term, Mr. Farsakh said, the Gulf will “realize that working with Israel is simply bad for business.”