Netanyahu, you crossed the Rubicon
History is littered with men who mistook hubris for destiny. They stand tall over the destruction they have created, still unbowed, still convinced that one more act of brutality will vindicate them. Benjamin Netanyahu has now added his name to their list.
The failed assassination attempt in Doha was more than a simple strategic blunder. It was a battle cry against reason, against decency, against the thin strands of diplomacy remaining. In attacking Qatar, one of the few Arab states brave enough to risk its own reputation by intervening on Israel’s behalf, was to tear down the very fabric of thankfulness, to bite the only outstretched hand still open to Israel from the Arab world.
For nearly two years, Qatar toiled to secure the release of hostages. It endured the slings and arrows of its neighbors. It swallowed the rage of the Arab street. It hosted the representatives of your government, Benjamin Netanyahu, while Gaza was burning in the embers. And what did you do to repay them? You bombed their capital.
What you have done was not only irresponsible. It was suicidal. You should have listened to your own Mossad, which declined to dirty its hands with this folly. They recognised what you did not: that the attack would fail, that the fallout would be catastrophic, that it would further isolate Israel.
However, you no longer give warnings. You are in the echo chamber of desperation. You promised to strike again, wherever Hamas leaders reside, Lebanon, Turkey, Qatar. Do you believe Turkey will lie down for such an atrocity? Do you think Turkey, capable of paralysing Tel Aviv with a few rockets, would do nothing? The abyss you invite won’t stop in Gaza.
The punishment is already written on the streets of the world’s cities. Israel, which was once flag-draped in European capitals, now marches through them as an outcast. Your troops are hexed. Your photograph smeared with swastikas. The slogans echo weekly in London, Berlin, Paris, and New York. In America, the stronghold you believed sacrosanct, the ground has shifted. Students chant as one. Jewish Americans weep, “Not in our name.” Your weary bludgeon, the accusation of antisemitism, used to silence dissent, has grown blunt and fatigued. Too many have seen enough of the rubble of Gaza. The mask has slipped.
Your boasts of redrawing the Middle East are ghastly fantasies. The only maps you’ve drawn are maps of destruction, Gaza flattened, more of the West Bank consumed, Syrian and Lebanese land bombed and scarred. And you speak of Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia as if the area were putty in your hands. The fantasising is stunning.
What you have drawn again, Netanyahu, is not the Middle East but Israel’s tombstone. Once veiled in the illusion of democracy, of human rights, of moral exceptionalism, Israel is now reviled as an apartheid state, a rogue state, an army of occupation and shame.
The Arab and Muslim leaders who gather in Doha will heap condemnation, as always. But louder this time, perhaps. Boycotts. Sanctions. Painful consequences. Because your attack on Qatar did more than violate sovereignty, it dispelled the last illusion that Israel seeks peace. Qatar was the sole state that dared to establish a trade mission with Israel, suffering immense criticism on its behalf. You repaid them in betrayal.
You have crossed the Rubicon, Netanyahu. You cannot turn back. The bridges are torched. You squandered the last vestige of goodwill. You discarded the fig leaf of democracy. You have put your people in the world’s face, naked.
History will not forgive you. It will not forget that you were Israel’s protector, but in its destruction, as the one who mixed up terror with strategy, who clung to power by dragging his nation to moral mud, who crossed all the lines until there were no lines anymore.
Netanyahu, you will not re-map the Middle East. You will rewrite only Israel’s obituary. History will not remember you, Netanyahu. Not as a great statesman, not as the guardian of Israel, but as the person who turned it into a pariah.
Rome crossed the Rubicon once, and the Republic was lost. You crossed it in Doha. And the Israel you call on to protect may not make it across.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.