The Israeli raid on Qatar cannot be considered a marginal event in relation to Hamas\u2019s October 7 attack on Israel, because since the defeat of Hezbollah and then Iran, the October 7 attack has become an \u201cIsraeli thesis\u201d in regional relations. It is an \u201cexperimental thesis,\u201d meaning that it does not follow previous rules that might help predict or set limits on Israeli action. And although an attack on Iran has been on Israel\u2019s declared agenda for years, the raid on Qatar belongs to the realm of the \u201cpolitically inconceivable\u201d according to the diplomatic and security rules of the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Although an offensive against Iran has long been on Israel\u2019s declared agenda, the strike on Qatar falls within what can be described as “political irrationality” by the standards of traditional diplomatic and security norms in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Following the airstrike that targeted a Hamas leadership meeting in Doha, Israeli Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter stated bluntly, \u201cIf Israel doesn\u2019t succeed in killing Hamas leaders this time, it will next time.\u201d With Israel\u2019s new doctrine now firmly grounded in the October 7 paradigm, such a statement\u2014direct and uncompromising\u2014goes beyond traditional deterrence. It reflects the logic of an \u201call or nothing\u201d strategy that currently defines Israel\u2019s conduct in the ongoing war. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu echoed the same sentiment immediately after the Doha strike: \u201cIt\u2019s all or nothing.\u201d In Israel\u2019s view, \u201call\u201d means resolving the conflict decisively\u2014securing the release of all hostages at once, and avoiding any entanglement in drawn-out negotiations.<\/p>\n
The <\/strong>\u201c<\/strong>All or Nothing\u201d Strategy Faces Three Tests:<\/strong><\/p>\n – FIRST, \u00a0Diplomatic Timing: Israel\u2019s ability to endure waves of international pressure until bureaucratic systems lose momentum, as implied by Leiter<\/p>\n – SECOND, \u00a0Operational Scope: Maintaining the intensity and pace of strikes without exposing itself to security setbacks or surprise retaliation on multiple fronts.<\/p>\n – THIRD- Political Translation: Converting military achievements into a sustainable post-conflict framework without Hamas, while managing the costs of administration, legitimacy, and containment.<\/p>\n A Regional Superpower?<\/strong><\/p>\n Can Israel assert itself as a dominant regional power without triggering a counter-axis made up of influential Arab capitals and affected partners? The “all or nothing” policy represents a shift from a survival-focused strategy to one of full regional dominance, positioning Israel as an emerging regional superpower.<\/p>\n Israel may currently appear to be in a phase of strategic overreach, yet the vacuum created by pushing Iran back into its \u201csmaller Iran\u201d confines is significant. If left unaddressed, this vacuum could become the very kind of \u201cempty space\u201d that Henry Kissinger warned about in 2013\u2014territories devoid of governance, becoming hotbeds of instability. Thus, Israel\u2019s current trajectory can be viewed as a war over regional vacuum\u2014over who gets to fill the power void.<\/p>\n Ambassador Leiter firmly rejected any suggestion that Israel should apologize or walk back its actions, asserting that \u201ccritics will get over it in time, and Israel is changing for the better.\u201d With this rhetoric, Tel Aviv places itself in the position of pursuing total resolution, not partial settlements\u2014even at the expense of long-standing diplomatic balances that was surrounding its military movment.<\/p>\n Expanding the Battlefield<\/strong><\/p>\n Netanyahu has broadened the scope of conflict beyond Gaza, targeting what he and his officials call the “seven fronts working to destroy the State of Israel.” This included the targeted killing of most of the Houthi leadership. Israel\u2019s message has been clear since it moved beyond Gaza into southern Lebanon and launched Operation \u201cBeiger,\u201d and beyond.<\/p>\n Few believed Tel Aviv would actually venture into such “irrational” territory. Now, free from the traditional limitations of the \u201cRing States\u201d (Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon), Israel is acting across the Arab sphere as an assertive, rising power\u2014redefining the rules of engagement, including with Turkey. Should Turkey retreat from key agreements such as the \u00d6calan\u2013Bah\u00e7eli pact, it could find itself the weakest party in a broader regional confrontation.<\/p>\n Netanyahu insists on a negotiation framework that demands: either the simultaneous release of all hostages and Hamas’s unconditional surrender, or no deal at all. This uncompromising formula is the diplomatic face of the “all or nothing” doctrine\u2014one that leaves no room for compromise or phased solutions. From Israel’s perspective, it’s an attempt to eliminate the threat at its roots, not to manage or contain it as was done in past decades. Historically, it\u2019s also viewed as an effort to rectify what some in Israel consider David Ben-Gurion’s \u201chistorical mistake\u201d in allowing some Arabs to remain in what they define as Israel\u2019s \u201chistorical land\u201d\u2014a phrase borrowed from Lebanese writer Rabih Jameel.<\/p>\n The Doctrine of Total Resolution<\/strong><\/p>\n In private meetings, Netanyahu has compared himself to a leader haunted by the \u201cpossible disappearance of Israel\u201d since October 7. Thus, he has adopted a doctrine that rules out any return to the pre-war status quo: no negotiations from a position of weakness, no temporary truces\u2014only decisive outcomes that open the door to a new phase in Israel\u2019s history.<\/p>\n What\u2019s most striking in the regional discourse is the failure of Middle Eastern commentators to read Israel\u2019s new thesis outside the usual activist narratives\u2014focusing solely on violations of international law and ethics. This is despite the fact that the region\u2019s conflicts are themselves devoid of moral clarity. At the height of the previous decade\u2019s chaos, for example, no major religious institution condemned the abduction and enslavement of women and children during ISIS’s attack on Sinjar.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s “all or nothing” doctrine shifts it from a state fighting for survival to a power imposing its will. While this transformation comes with serious risks\u2014from international isolation to the emergence of a hostile regional axis\u2014Israeli decision-makers view this moment as a \u201chistoric opportunity\u201d that may not come again.<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s current behavior reflects a deep confidence in \u201cchange by force\u201d as a tool to reshape the region: assassinating leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis; striking Iran; then hitting Qatar\u2014and the campaign may not end there. This is not about tactical deterrence, but about dismantling the \u201cstructures of threat production\u201d wherever they exist\u2014now and in the future\u2014under the paradigm of the October 7 thesis.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Israeli raid on Qatar cannot be considered a marginal event in relation to Hamas\u2019s October 7 attack on Israel, because since the defeat of Hezbollah and then Iran, the October 7 attack has become an \u201cIsraeli thesis\u201d in regional relations. It is an \u201cexperimental thesis,\u201d meaning that it does not follow previous rules that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":6406,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"jnews_post_split":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,61],"tags":[963,723,724,974,1024],"ppma_author":[151],"class_list":["post-6405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-analysis","category-slider","tag-7-october","tag-hamas","tag-israel","tag-netanyahu","tag-qatar"],"authors":[{"term_id":151,"user_id":13,"is_guest":0,"slug":"hussain-jummo","display_name":"Hussain Jummo","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Jummo-3.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/Jummo-3.jpg"},"0":null,"1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":""}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6405"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6405\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6407,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6405\/revisions\/6407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6405"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nlka.net\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=6405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}