By Sharon Zhang
Copyright truthout
The speaker of Israel’s parliament has suggested that the country is ready to attack its neighbors across the entire region following Israel’s unprovoked strike on Qatar on Tuesday.
“This is a message for the entire Middle East,” Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana said in Arabic in a post on X.
Accompanying the text was a video of the strike, showing a large explosion which resulted in a plume of smoke.
Israel struck Doha on Tuesday, seeking to assassinate key leaders of Hamas’s negotiation team as they gathered in the country’s capital for talks on the U.S.’s latest ceasefire proposal. Officials said that the strike was on a residential area, and killed a Qatari security officer as well as five members of Hamas. However, none of Hamas’s negotiating team was killed, the group said.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the bombing is a “flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.”
Hamas said that the strike, targeting Hamas negotiators in a key mediator country for ceasefire talks, is further proof that Israel has no interest in agreeing to a ceasefire deal.
The strike represents a major escalation even amid Israel’s rampant aggression across the region in recent years. Ohana’s post is seemingly a threat stating that Israel will bomb any country in the Middle East.
Israel has already attacked at least five other countries in the region over the past two years, enjoying relative impunity as it lashes out against all of its neighbors. Israel has struck Yemen, Syria, and Lebanon for years; stoked a war in Iran this summer while carrying out isolated strikes in recent years; and is waging a fierce assault on Gaza and the occupied West Bank, as it’s done for decades.
Activists have also said that Israel is behind attacks on ships carrying humanitarian aid bound for Gaza off the coast of Malta this spring and Tunisia on Monday. Some explosions in Iraq have also been credited to Israel, but never confirmed.
Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in an interview that he is “very much” attached to the extremist vision of “Greater Israel.” This ideology, embraced by ultra-nationalists, entails Israel conquering not just Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, but also parts of Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. Other, more ambitious versions include Israel taking over parts of Lebanon and parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia.
The U.S. distanced itself from the Doha strike on Tuesday, with the White House saying that it was not informed of the strike until just before it happened. The administration also claimed that it sought to inform Qatar of the strike ahead of time. However, Qatari officials disputed this, saying that the U.S. only called as the strikes were happening.
But the stunning attack on Doha may help even further cement Israel’s impunity, depending on how Qatar and other countries react. This could help advance the U.S.’s agenda of reshaping the Middle East; Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, a key actor pushing this goal, has held several meetings recently with top Israeli and U.S. officials in recent weeks.
