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In this episode, Dr. Yaron Friedman joins the show to discuss the Israeli airstrike in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which targeted senior Hamas officials. The conversation, recorded shortly after the strike, deals with the reactions in the Arab world, the diplomatic implications of the operation, and Qatar’s role as a host and financier of the terrorist organization.
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Reactions in the Arab world
According to Dr. Yaron Friedman, the entire Arab world condemned the strike, but there is a fundamental difference in the content of the condemnations. Most Arab states, led by the Gulf states, condemned Israel for violating Qatar’s airspace and international law, but refrained from mentioning the harm to Hamas members. The only ones that also explicitly condemned the harm to Hamas were Qatar and Turkey, the organization’s patrons.
Dr. Friedman notes that on the Qatari channel Al Jazeera, the Israeli operation was described as an act of ingratitude, given Qatar’s mediation efforts in the negotiations for the release of the hostages.
Conspiracies and Saudi criticism
Various conspiracy theories have surfaced around the strike. For example, the question arose whether the United States knew about the strike in advance, and whether Qatar’s air defense systems were deliberately not activated. Dr. Friedman adds that other signs, such as the Qatari demand in July that senior Hamas officials surrender their personal weapons, could be interpreted as part of an advance preparation.
In the Saudi press, by contrast, sharp criticism of Hamas is also heard. The Saudi commentator Mashari Al-Zaydi, who writes for the newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, described Israel’s policy as a policy of madness (junun) with no red lines, but also pointed an accusing finger at Hamas. He claims that Hamas, in its decision to commit suicide, is dragging the entire region into conflict and giving Israel an excuse to attack throughout the Middle East. According to Saudi commentators, the Arab world should fight Israel in the diplomatic and media arenas, where it is losing, and not in the military arena.
Qatar as an enemy state
Dr. Friedman presents his personal opinion that Qatar is not a complex state but a clear enemy state. He bases his claim on the fact that Qatar hosts the Hamas leadership, funnels billions of dollars to the organization, operates a propaganda machine against Israel through its media, and has previously supported jihadist organizations in Syria and perhaps even al-Qaeda. He adds that Qatar also funds anti-Israel academic activity in universities in the United States.
He mentions an article he wrote a week after the October 7 massacre, in which he wondered why the United States, which maintains a huge military base in Qatar, does not act against the senior Hamas officials located a short drive away from it. He compares the situation to the assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, which was an ally of the United States, and argues that there is a precedent for military action on the soil of a “friendly” state that hosts terrorists.
The strike’s impact on the Abraham Accords
The strike in Doha, Dr. Friedman explains, also damaged relations within the framework of the Abraham Accords. All the signatory countries of the accords condemned Israel, and for the first time, an explicit threat was even heard from the United Arab Emirates to withdraw from the agreements. According to him, Saudi Arabia is the driving force behind the scenes of the Abraham Accords, and it uses the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain as a kind of “test balloon” to examine relations with Israel.
The logic behind the assassinations
The conversation also addresses the question of whether assassinations are an act of revenge or a strategic move. Dr. Friedman quotes an article by the commentator Hamid Korman, who argues that assassinations usually have a strategic purpose. Korman provides historical examples: the assassination of Hassan al-Banna, founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, led to the rise of a more extreme figure, Sayyid Qutb. On the other hand, the assassination of senior PLO officials around the time of the Oslo Accords paved the way for a new generation of leaders who were willing to sign the agreement. However, Dr. Friedman believes that in Israel’s case after October 7, there is also a strong motive of revenge.
Korman even raises a cynical thesis, according to which Israel might leave part of the Hamas leadership alive to preserve the internal Palestinian division and to maintain an excuse to continue attacking Gaza. Dr. Friedman finds logic in this claim.
The unknown outcome of the strike
At the time the episode was recorded, the results of the strike in Doha were not yet known. Dr. Friedman emphasizes that if the senior Hamas officials were not eliminated, it would be a serious failure, especially given an American promise to Qatar that such an attack would not be repeated. Such a failure would stand in contrast to successes like assassinations in Iran, and would be more reminiscent of the failed assassination attempt on Khaled Mashal in Jordan in 1997.
The original episode, in Hebrew: נסיון החיסול בקטר