On 9 September, the Zionist entity in occupation of Palestine conducted an aerial strike at a building in Doha, Qatar’s capital. The strike’s primary targets were the Hamas chief negotiator, Khalil Al-Hayya, and the resistance group’s former Political Bureau Chief, Khaled Meshaal. While both survived the attack, some other Hamas cadres, including Al-Hayya’s son, were killed.
The Zionist entity claimed the strike and, in fact bragged about it. Its genocidal leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, against whom the International Criminal Court has issued warrants of arrest for being a war criminal and who should more aptly be referred to as Satanyahu, compared the Zionist strike to the United States raid in Pakistan to kill Osama bin Laden. He claimed that the Zionist entity’s action was grounded in the same logic as America’s and instead of being condemned should be hailed. He finished his rant by saying that states harbouring “terrorists” should act and if they refuse to do so, “we [Zionist entity] will.”
Netanyahu, who has honed lying, deception and doublespeak into a fine art, conveniently ignored that the US raid had (a) no basis in international law and (b) Hamas was not hiding in Doha but openly operated a political office there. There’s also the somewhat inconvenient fact that the Hamas office in Doha existed on the request of the US. Qatar had also hosted the Afghan Taliban on US request. The Taliban political office in Doha became the venue for talks between the US and the Taliban. If anything, the US didn’t bomb the Taliban office because, unlike the illegal Zionist entity, states do not kill negotiators while they are negotiating. Netanyahu knows this. But he won’t refer to this fact because it interferes with his evil narrative. In fact, the Zionist entity has regularly killed Hamas leaders who offered a truce. We shall return to that.
Western reaction, predictably, has been lackadaisical. Instead of condemning the Zionist entity’s demonstrably illegal act in utter violation of international law and proposing sanctions against it, the US merely said that the strike “does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” The US President, Donald Trump, also told reporters that he was “very unhappy about the way that it went down”. And pray, how does an aerial strike generally go down if not the way it did?
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, herself an ardent supporter of the Zionist entity, has said that Brussels would propose sanctions on some Israeli ministers and the partial suspension of an economic engagement agreement with Israel. (italics added)
Meanwhile, the Arab/Muslim bloc has issued pro forma statements of condemnation, with Qatar saying that it “reserves the right to respond”, which is classic diplomatese for impotence. Qatar has no military capability, despite a $15 billion defence expenditure, to respond to this aggression.
Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. It is a resistance group against the Zionist occupation of Palestine
Ditto for condemnations from the UAE, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan. Mere words meant to hide the fact, known to everyone, that they are overtly and covertly (in the case of KSA) sitting in the US/Zionist lap. The reason: they are far more afraid of Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood and another Arab spring than they are of the Zionist entity. We shall return to that theme, but let’s first cut through the crap.
Hamas is not a terrorist organisation. It is a resistance group against the Zionist occupation of Palestine. Throughout the Zionist entity’s genocidal war on Gaza, international and regional interlocutors have talked to Hamas negotiating teams. This also includes Zionist negotiators who have travelled to Qatar and Egypt multiple times over the past nearly three years to negotiate a deal for a ceasefire and the return of their captives.
The mention of Hamas is important because the Little Goody Two-Shoes bullshit coming from western two-state solutionists begins by talking about a Palestinian state with the caveat that Hamas cannot be part of any negotiations about a future Palestinian state; that Hamas doesn’t want peace. This is hogwash dressed up in a tuxedo. Let me give an example.
On 14 November 2023, Hilary Clinton, the lying witch and former US Secretary of State, wrote an article for The Atlantic. Titled, Hamas Must Go, the subhead read: “The terror group has proved again and again that it will sabotage any efforts to forge a lasting peace.” She begins by referring to November 2012 when the Zionist entity launched Operation Pillar of Defence against Gaza. “Then, like now,” she wrote, “the extreme Islamist terror group Hamas had sparked a crisis by indiscriminately attacking [Zionist] civilians.” A few days after this poppycock by Clinton, Jon Schwarz wrote in The Intercept, “This is close to the opposite of reality.” Schwarz’ article was headlined, Hillary Clinton Is Lying About the History Between Hamas and Israel.
With the recent strike in Doha and Netanyahu bragging about it, that nicety is gone. The Zionist entity has declared that it will strike at will anywhere, anytime
The fact is that Hamas acted after the Zionists assassinated Ahmed Jabari, the head of Hamas’ military wing on 14 November 2012, while Jabari was in talks on a truce. Nir Hasson, a Zionist journalist who writes for Haaretz, reported on 15 November that Gershon Baskin, a peace activist who had also negotiated the release of the captured Zionist soldier, Gilad Shalit, had told him (Hasson) that Jabari had received the draft of a permanent truce agreement with the Zionist entity from Baskin, “which included mechanisms for maintaining the ceasefire in the case of a flare-up between Israel and the factions in the Gaza Strip.”
Reuven Pedatzur, a military analyst who also wrote for Haaretz, reported that “Our decision makers…knew about Jabari’s role in advancing a permanent ceasefire agreement. … the decision to kill Jabari shows that [they] decided a ceasefire would be undesirable for [the Zionist entity] at this time, and that attacking Hamas would be preferable.” Pedatzur went on to write:
“[Zionist] leaders killed three birds with one stone. They assassinated the man who had the power to make a deal with [the Zionist entity]; they took revenge on someone who had caused more than a few [Zionist] casualties; and they signalled to Hamas that communications with it will be conducted only through military force.”
Jabari was/is not the only one. In January 2004, two top Hamas leaders in Gaza, Shaykh Ahmed Yasin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi, independently offered [the Zionist entity] a 10-year hudna (truce). On 8 January, Yasin said, “Hamas is prepared to accept a temporary peace with [the Zionist entity] if a Palestinian state is established in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The rest of the territories [of the Zionist entity] will be left to history.”
Despite opposing the ceasefire in 2003, on 24 January 2004, Rantissi made a similar offer based on the fact that Hamas found it “difficult to liberate all our land at this stage, so we accept a phased liberation. Notwithstanding these unusual offers, the Zionist entity assassinated both leaders within a month of each other in March and April 2004. [Hamas after Shaykh Yasin and Rantisi by Khaled Hroub in the Journal of Palestine Studies at Columbia University.]
The Zionist entity did the same with Ismail Haniyeh, assassinating him in Tehran on 31 July last year while he was the chief negotiator dealing with a US ceasefire plan. The strike had two purposes: derail negotiations and continue the genocidal war and pull Iran directly into another round of confrontation to make space for Zionist aggression against Tehran. But, and this is important to flag: the Zionist entity did not assassinate Haniyeh in Doha. It waited for him to travel to Tehran. With the recent strike in Doha and Netanyahu bragging about it, that nicety is gone. The Zionist entity has declared that it will strike at will anywhere, anytime.
This should not be lost on the states that have “normalised” with the Zionists and thrown the Palestinians to the wolves. Will they reevaluate or wait to be picked off one by one?
Let me answer this question by first listing what they can do and then list why they won’t do it and where this is headed.
- Derecognition/delegitimisation of the Zionist entity
- Trade/investment cut-off and embargo
- Closure of all ports for Zionist-destined shipping
- Closure of airspace for Zionist carriers
- Closure of US bases in the region (the OIC should have an extraordinary session, which should address the concerns of states)
- Clear declaration of support for Palestine, including right of return and ditching the stupid two-state solution
- Financial support for building frontline states’ military capabilities
Much else can be done but this should provide the baseline.
But this will not happen because the ruling monarchies/dictators want to perpetuate their rule and in that the US and the Zionists are their allies. So there’s no enabling environment for the actions listed above. Three factors could help change this environment, one of which is happening:
- Extermination and expulsion of Palestinians from Ghazzah and OPTs. In other words complete occupation and annexation of Palestine. This will lead to a big exodus of Palestinians into Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria.
- Continued attacks by the Zionists into neighbouring states, forcing them to rethink their options.
- Emergence of internal groups (Amal/Hezbollah in Lebanon against Zionist occupation of the 80s/90s are an example) that could either force the rulers to change course or help new dispensations to emerge.
The situation will also be impacted directly and indirectly by internal developments in the US, pathways to US–China peer competition, China’s approach to the Middle East, Europe’s disappearance in its present configuration and the West’s approach to the Zionist entity. As Robert Kaplan said in The Return of Marco Polo’s World…, “There’s one singular battle space.”