Israel’s Qatar Bombing Presages a New Normal, Not a Finale

You can read Tuesday’s Israeli air strike against Hamas leaders in Qatar as an allegory for this war. In principle, both sides were examining a last-ditch US proposal to strike a deal that would see all remaining hostages released and the war brought to an end. In practice, Hamas on Monday carried out a terrorist attack on a Jerusalem bus stop that killed six innocent civilians and injured more. In practice, Israel forged ahead with its campaign to finally erase Hamas in Gaza City and then tried to kill the group’s negotiators in Qatar.

It seems doubtful that any player in this drama acted in good faith in their professed attempts at finding a negotiated solution. Even the US appeared to be going through the motions. Its proposed peace deal depended entirely on Hamas’s leaders trusting the Trump administration’s word, when it said it would prevent Israel from resuming the war. Why would they?

The lack of any serious US commitment to achieving a deal seems especially true as the White House continues to trumpet its plans — once dismissed as fantastical — to clear and redevelop the strip. And although Israeli leaders were quick to stress that their strike on Qatar, which hosts a major US air base, was an independent operation, the Trump administration was apparently notified right before it happened. A White House official declined to elaborate when asked if the US played a role in coordinating the strike or signed off on the plan, but no Arab nation will be comforted by the US willingness to see Qatar hit.

The path to coexistence is increasingly unclear. And yet the concern of every Israeli, Palestinian and regional leader should be that what they are seeing is not the final crescendo of conflict, but rather the start of a new normal: a future in which Israel is under constant threat of terrorist attack, and the region is in perpetual anticipation of its retaliation. The casualties would, as always, be primarily civilian on both sides, and the risk of a wider state-on-state war ever present.

Since the weekend, Israel’s air force has hit targets in three countries — Lebanon, Qatar and Syria — in addition to knocking down apartment blocks in Gaza City. The extent of the cumulative death toll from these attacks is likely to be significant. All three countries targeted have decried what they called violations of their sovereignty. Hamas, meanwhile, reached into the West Bank to find willing volunteers to carry out a terrorist attack that could only further doom peace talks.