Israel’s strike on Doha is no ordinary escalation.
It is a thunderclap that should rattle every palace, every ministry, every street in the Arab world. This was not a strike on Hamas. Not a strike on Gaza. It was a strike on the very idea that any Arab capital is safe.
In mere weeks, Israel has bombed Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran. Last year, it also bombed Iraq. And it struck two ships from the Sumud flotilla in Tunis over the past two days.
Within hours, it sent warplanes to Doha. It continues to occupy the Philadelphi Corridor in defiance of Egypt. Its drones and missiles roam Arab skies as masters over conquered air.
Israel is not at war with one movement or one strip of land. It is at war with the entire region. No sovereignty is recognised. No border is respected.
And still Netanyahu did not pause. He ordered the bombing of a Hamas negotiating team in Doha – even as Qatar mediated ceasefire talks alongside Egypt.
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The attack killed six people, including a Qatari officer, making it the first time Israel has struck Qatari soil. Doha is no ordinary capital: it hosts the largest US military base in the Middle East. It holds the status of “Major Non-Nato Ally” of Washington, and has poured billions into American coffers. None of it mattered.
In a single day, Israel bombed a Gulf state at the heart of the Arabian Peninsula and a North African state across the Mediterranean – two continents, two Arab states, thousands of miles apart. The message is unmistakable, written in fire and shrapnel: no one is immune.
Israel is establishing a new order: every Arab land, water and sky is fair game if it wills it. International law is ashes – the only law is brute force.
Message delivered
Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, made it explicit after the Doha attack: “This is a message to the entire Middle East.” He even posted it in Arabic, ensuring the humiliation was direct.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he feels “very much” committed to the expansionist vision of “Greater Israel”, which includes parts of Palestine and several Arab states.
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And Washington nods along. Just months ago, US President Donald Trump stood in Doha, boasting of a $1.2 trillion deal, pocketing tributes, even a $400m private jet, “a palace in the sky”.
Doha had just mediated the Congo–Rwanda deal under his patronage at the White House. Yet when Netanyahu called in the strike, Trump gave the green light. Afterwards came the perfunctory phone call of apology.
International condemnation followed swiftly. Russia called it a “gross violation” of international law, Turkey accused Israel of adopting terrorism as state policy, and the UN, EU and Arab League denounced the attack as a threat to regional stability.
The deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s maxim stands vindicated: “Those who are covered by America are left naked.”
Trump returned to Washington rich from Gulf rulers’ tributes, but the plunder bought no restraint. The genocide in Gaza only deepened. Starvation is now rampant. In the West Bank, settlers torched villages under army protection. Soldiers stormed Jenin, Nablus and Hebron with impunity.
Israel pockets Arab money with one hand and burns Arab soil with the other. Plunder their wealth, unleash the warplanes – that is the new order.
Negotiators bombed
The irony cuts deeper still. The men bombed in Doha were not fighters but negotiators – delegates present because Washington asked Qatar to host them.
Just as Qatar once hosted the Taliban at America’s request, it hosted Hamas leaders so dialogue could continue. And still, Israel bombed its capital under American cover. If Qatar, with its bases, its tributes, its gifts, is not immune, who is?
And when the assassination attempt failed, America wasted no time in stepping back, washing its hands and leaving Israel to bear the burden alone.
The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations bluntly declared: “Sometimes we inform the American administration and sometimes we do not. But in the end, we alone bear the responsibility for this operation.”
Thus, Washington reaps the benefits when Israel succeeds, and disowns the failures when Israel falters. The wolf and its handler know their roles well.
As US special envoy Tom Barrack once admitted: for Israel, “the Sykes-Picot lines are meaningless. They will go where they want, when they want, and do what they want.”
Blueprint revealed
This doctrine of impunity is not improvised, but follows the blueprint of the 1982 Yinon Plan.
Published by Oded Yinon in the journal Kivunim and translated by late Israeli professor Israel Shahak, the plan called for the fragmentation of Arab states into sectarian enclaves: Iraq splintered into Sunni, Shia and Kurdish entities; Syria divided into Alawite, Druze and Sunni fiefdoms; Egypt weakened to the point where the Sinai could be reoccupied; Palestinians transferred across the Jordan River.
Look around: Syria reduced to shards, Iraq carved up, Yemen shattered, Gaza besieged, Lebanon bleeding. The Yinon map has become our present
The same vision resurfaces in today’s Israeli discourse.
In one interview, Israeli politician Avi Lipkin, founder of the Judeo-Christian Bible Bloc party, predicts that Israel’s borders will extend “from Lebanon to Saudi Arabia”, which he called the “Great Desert”, and “from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates”.
He adds: “And who’s on the other side of the Euphrates? The Kurds, and the Kurds are friends. So, we have the Mediterranean behind us and the Kurds in front of us…Lebanon, which really needs the umbrella of protection of Israel, and then we’re going to take, I believe, we’re going to take Mecca, Medina and Mount Sinai, and purify those places.”
Zionist writers openly fantasise about Israel’s borders stretching to Mecca and Medina, and books like Return to Mecca lay out biblical blueprints for conquest.
The ultimate goal was always clear: to dissolve Arab power into fragments so Israel could reign supreme. Look around: Syria reduced to shards, Iraq carved up, Yemen shattered, Gaza besieged, Lebanon bleeding. The Yinon map has become our present.
Arab complicity
Arab regimes bear heavy responsibility for enabling this expansionist, supremacist project.
Decade after decade, they signed away dignity under the illusion that appeasement would bring security: Camp David, Oslo Accords, Wadi Araba, and the Abraham Accords.
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Each time, they thought they could buy protection by becoming Washington’s favourite, or Israel’s “partner”. Each time, Israel pocketed the concessions and came back for more.
Egypt is the clearest example: while its officials issue rhetorical condemnations of genocide in Gaza, its trade with Israel soars. Egyptian exports to Israel doubled in 2024, rising another 50 percent in the first half of 2025, and Cairo is negotiating a $35bn gas deal with Israel – the largest in its history – even as Norway’s sovereign wealth fund divests from Israeli companies over war crimes.
Worse still, Netanyahu now uses these deals as leverage against Egypt, halting them to extract political concessions. And beyond trade, Arab regimes enable Israel with their skies.
When war broke out in Ukraine, the Europeans closed their airspace to every Russian plane – civilian, commercial, private. The Americans did the same. Russia retaliated in kind. No one cut off diplomatic relations, but the skies were sealed.
Yet Arab and Muslim rulers have not dared to take even this minimal step. Israeli commercial flights still cross Saudi, Omani and Jordanian airspace, shortening their routes to Asia, even as Israeli warplanes bomb Gaza and now Doha. Turkey, too, keeps its skies open. The message is one of complicity.
The result is paralysis and betrayal.
No one expects Arab states to declare war on Israel, but they could at least impose sanctions, boycotts, airspace closures and trade freezes. Instead, they jail protesters, ban demonstrations and silence solidarity.
Paralysis is enforced at home, while abroad, Israel roams free. This is not a recipe for stability, but for collapse.
Unless Arab states recognise Israel – not Iran or anyone else – as the principal threat to their survival, they will remain exposed and humiliated
Yet silence will not last forever. The Arab people are watching. They see Palestinians enduring bombs and famine, and global solidarity rising from London to Cape Town, Jakarta to New York. They ask why their rulers do nothing.
Such inspiration will break into the streets, seas and skies. Regimes still have time to choose – to abandon the illusion that normalisation with a fascist, expansionist Israel will save them, and instead build collective defence with allies.
Unless Arab states recognise Israel – not Iran or anyone else – as the principal threat to their survival, they will remain exposed and humiliated.
The promise of American protection lies in ruins. For decades, Gulf rulers believed oil, bases and investments could buy security. Trump and Netanyahu have shattered that illusion. In today’s Middle East, the US and Israel are one – the patron and the executioner.
And together, they have delivered the only message that matters: no one is safe – not Gaza, not Doha or Tunis.
And unless the region wakes up, not even Mecca or Medina will be spared.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
