Strike On Qatar?

Israel bombed Qatar. 

Actually they bombed a residential building in the capital city Doha, purported to house the headquarters of the internationally-recognized terrorist organization Hamas, with whom they are at war, and who holds their non-combatant citizens as hostages.

The international community is almost unanimously wringing its hands or outright condemning the attack. The Prime Minister of Canada called the attack 'an intolerable expansion of violence'. Trump said he was 'very unhappy' with the attack, impotent as usual.  

Netanyahu said that the decision was made to attack the day Hamas gunmen attacked a bus stop outside Jerusalem killing six people.

So let's think about this.

What we see happening in real time is the unravelling of the international order. The power vacuum left by the weakness of the United States is being filled, by new alliances - China, Russia, North Korea, and India in Asia, and in the Middle East, Israel asserting itself as the preeminent military power in that region. In Europe, the power vacuum issue is being fought out in Ukraine. 

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres condemned the attack, saying “I condemn this flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.” He is saying this because the Israeli action is also endemic of the abject failure of the UN to deal with terrorism. 

At the heart of Israel's action is a question: Do we live in a world where terrorism is acceptable or not? Will we accept countries (member states of the UN) providing safe haven and funding for terrorism?    

On the respected podcast The Rest Is Politics, Alastair Campbell said that if Israel was planning this attack all along it means they were negotiating for the release of their hostages in bad faith. An astonishingly naive comment. So, the government of Israel is in bad faith doing whatever it can to get its citizens released from captivity? Is there no distinction between the government of a nation-state acting on behalf of its citizens and a terrorist organization? Terrorists holding hostages is the very definition of bad faith.   

After strongly condemning the attack, which of course they had to do, the Qatari PM said that it would not deter them from acting as mediators for further negotiation. I read this as a wink and a nod. They either knew or at least expected the attack was coming and tacitly consented.  

I am in favour of attacking terrorists. Even if it means attacking them in sovereign countries who give them safe-haven. And especially if the terrorists hold your hostages. This was not an attack on Qatar, and the Qataris know it. It was not an attack on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar, as the UN SecGen said. It was Israel acting in defence of the international order against terrorists who want to undermine it. 

Because Israel realizes that if they they aren't going to do it, no one will.