Qatar has said it now considers Israel, rather than Iran, to be the biggest threat in the Middle East after a strike on Hamas leaders in Doha.
Majed al-Ansari, the Qatari foreign ministry spokesman, said that the attack had shaken Gulf countries that had long viewed the US as a guardian.
He said that the Qatari prime minister would go to Washington on Friday for a “tough” conversation about the US backing for Israel, which has meant that Israel has been supplied with advanced weopans that have outstripped the defences of other American allies in the region, including Qatar.
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Ansari accused Binyamin Netanyahu’s government of having become a “pariah rogue state” that believed it could bomb capitals with impunity, and suggested that the Israeli prime minister was a “madman”.
Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, the Qatari prime minister, who also acts as foreign minister, is due to meet Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, and possibly President Trump after condemning Tuesday’s attack by the Israeli air force on the Qatari capital as a violation of international law.
Ansari said the issue was “existential” for Qatar, adding that there were “tough discussions to be had” with the US over the main threat posed to Qatar’s security.
“The common wisdom was that this threat would be Iran, and obviously now that perception is 180 degrees on the other side where the main threat is going to be Israel,” he said. “Now we have to have a very clear discussion with the US over this new threat perception and what to do with it — what does Israeli military supremacy mean for all of us when Israel can basically at will, without consulting the US, bomb capitals in the region?”
In addition to its attacks on Gaza, Israel has carried out air strikes against targets in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen, targeting Hamas, Hezbollah and state forces it sees as threats. But Tuesday’s airstrike was its first against a Gulf Arab state. Qatar is a close ally of the US, hosting the largest American airbase in the region.
President Trump attended a baseball game in New York on September 11. He has warned Israel not to attack Qatar again
MANDEL NGAN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Qatari officials said they viewed the attack as treachery after their country had acted as a mediator for talks between Israel and Hamas during the war in the Gaza Strip. The Hamas leaders had met that day to discuss an American proposal for a temporary ceasefire in Gaza.
Israel has threatened to bomb Hamas’s senior leaders again after they apparently survived the attack, which killed a Qatari police guard and five other Hamas members. Another Qatari policeman was critically injured in the attack, Ansari said.
The White House has warned Israel not to strike Qatari territory again.
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Both Washington and Doha have expressed frustration at the lack of any warning before the bombs landed. Ansari noted that Trump had said “there was no way for the US to warn us before that, that the moment they got the news they relayed it to Doha”.
For decades, the US has adopted a policy of giving Israel a “qualitative” military advantage over other American allies in the region, supplying to it the most advanced weapons and technology. That allowed Israel to evade Qatar’s radar defences in the attack on Tuesday.
“The radar system in Qatar is the most advanced in the region,” Anzari said. “It has a 5,000km radius, and it was used actually by some of our neighbours to protect against Iranian missiles in the past escalations.
“We trust our radar systems … however, again it’s with the supremacy that the Israeli military enjoys over all of us in the region that has been put in the hands of a madman.”
He said Qatar had been encouraged by Trump’s pledge to expedite a defence agreement. But Gulf states, which have expressed dissatisfaction in the past with American support against Iran and its Houthi allies in Yemen, have few other options. Both China and Russia have sought to expand their influence in the region, but neither has the capabilities to match the military support given by the US. Gulf countries’ defences are built around US defence systems, and American assistance.
“The whole security arrangement in our region as a whole — not only for Qatar — was based on the ability of the United States to act as a security guarantor and deterrent to any force that wanted to destabilise the GCC [Gulf Co-operation Council] countries,” Ansari said.
Thani, right, and Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, centre, met Trump during his regional tour in May
BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
He spoke before a regional summit on Sunday at which Gulf and Arab leaders will consider their political response to the strike. The United Arab Emirates, which established diplomatic relations with Israel during Trump’s first term as president, summoned the Israeli ambassador on Friday to protest against the strike.
Ansari said that Qatar would pursue legal channels against Israel at the United Nations and other international forums. “We will continue pushing until Netanyahu is held accountable,” he said. “The Israelis have to understand that Netanyahu is driving Israel to become a pariah rogue state.”