Rubio Visits Jerusalem

The United States set out a revealing, if thoroughly predictable, stance this week after Israel’s strikes on an American-requested negotiation with Hamas at Qatar. American Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Jerusalem and reaffirmed his support for the Israeli regime and commitment to the removal of the same Hamas with whom Doha had been facilitating talks. It is unclear what reception Rubio will get as Qatar meets with other Gulf states to discuss its response to the Israeli attacks.

Pattern of Israeli Attacks on Negotiators

Yahya Sinwar (right) and Ismail Haniyeh (left) attending the funeral of Hamas official Mazen Foqaha in Gaza City on March 25, 2017.

The Israeli attack on Doha marked another case where Israel struck at negotiators under American protection. In summer 2024, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who led negotiations, was assassinated in Tehran after having already lost much of his family as an Israeli pressure tactic.

A year later, Israel interrupted American negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program by wiping out the Iranian military command—almost including chief negotiator Ali Shamkhani, who was initially reported to have been killed but survived—and then inciting the United States into an ill-conceived assault on Iran.

What makes this attack different is that it took place in a Gulf state that is nominally an ally of the United States, even as Israel has repeatedly flared at its diplomacy with Hamas.

Qatar’s Mediation History

Though Israel, and such sympathetic regimes as the United Arab Emirates, have often accused Qatar of backing “radical Islam” – a buzzword for any remotely independent form of Muslim politics -, in fact, Qatar’s mediation has often been done at American insistence.

In 2012, for instance, Barack Obama’s government requested that Doha take in Hamas’ civilian leadership, which was then distinguished from its military command, in an effort to break up the group between its exterior and interior leadership. A year later, Qatar was used as the venue for a Taliban diplomatic office as the United States attempted to wedge between the Taliban’s “interior” and “exterior” leadership as well as draw the group away from Pakistan.

It was Doha that ended up mediating a ceasefire between the United States and Taliban in 2020, which only collapsed after prevarication from Washington and a Taliban assault that captured Afghanistan a year later.

A Trap for Hamas Negotiators

Indeed, the Hamas negotiating team led by Khalil Hayya was essentially lured into a trap: having been promised negotiations, they and their Qatari hosts were instead subjected to an Israeli attack of which the United States could not have plausibly been unaware. Such niceties as diplomacy are, of course, irrelevant to an Israel that treats not only Hamas but Palestinians at large as a virus to be expunged in its ongoing genocide, but it is also clear that the United States is quite content to let Tel Aviv run amok even at the cost to its reputation.

Rubio, an especially ardent Zionist who cut his teeth by arguing that Obama was insufficiently committed to an Israel that actually thrived on his protection, has unsurprisingly been an enthusiastic cheerleader of whatever Tel Aviv does and is more committed to censoring criticism of Israel among his populace.

Qatar’s Ambiguous Role in American Power

Qatar and the American military base.

Qatar has played an ambiguous but important role in the American balance of power. On the one hand, unlike “more-loyal-than-the-king” regimes such as Abu Dhabi, it hosts political leaders from various Islamist groups and occasionally flirts with anti-autocratic Islamists such as the Muslim Brethren; on the other, it hosts the largest American base in the region, Udaid.

It has long been argued that this would protect Doha against a backlash of precisely the sort that the United States has just permitted from Israel. This theory now stands exposed, and it was with unsurprising indignation that Qatari foreign minister Mohammad bin Abdul-Rahman announced Doha’s right to respond however they see fit.

Related:

– The Witkoff Massacre: Slaughter Of Starving Palestinians Undercuts Trump Pretensions