The Doha attack: Exposing the collapse of international order

On 9 September 2025, Israel conducted its first-ever direct military strike on Qatar, targeting Hamas negotiators in Doha’s diplomatic quarter while they were reviewing a US-brokered ceasefire proposal (Al Jazeera, 2025; CNN, 2025). The attack, which killed six people including a Qatari security officer and several Hamas members, represents far more than another tactical military operation (NBC News, 2025). It marks a watershed moment that exposes the fundamental collapse of the international order established after World War II and demands urgent reconsideration of how global diplomacy and security function in the 21st century.

The violation of diplomatic principles

What makes the Doha attack particularly egregious is not just its breach of sovereignty, but its assault on the very foundations of international mediation. Qatar has hosted Hamas diplomats at the explicit request of the United States, serving as a crucial mediator between Israel and Hamas throughout the Gaza conflict (CBS News, 2025; Wikipedia, 2025). The targeted compound housed negotiators who were, at the moment of attack, discussing an active ceasefire proposal presented by the United States (Al Jazeera, 2025).

This represents an unprecedented violation of diplomatic immunity and neutrality. Throughout history, even in the most bitter conflicts, mediating parties have maintained sanctity. The Geneva Conventions, the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and centuries of international custom have established clear principles: you do not attack the messenger, especially when that messenger is working toward peace at your own ally’s request.

Trump himself expressed rare public criticism of Israel, telling reporters he was “very unhappy” about the attack, acknowledging that it threatened to “imperil efforts to secure a ceasefire and free hostages held in Gaza” (NBC News, 2025). Even Israel’s closest ally recognized the destructive nature of attacking one’s own mediators.

Yet despite this recognition, the United States took no concrete action to hold Israel accountable or prevent future attacks. No sanctions were imposed, no military aid was suspended, and no diplomatic consequences followed. This inaction exposes the hollow nature of American claims to be an honest broker for peace in the region. 

The imperial logic of Western hegemony

The Doha attack must be understood within the broader context of Western imperial logic that has defined international relations since the colonial era. Despite the post-WWII establishment of institutions like the United Nations, International Labour Organization, and various regional bodies, these frameworks have consistently served to legitimize rather than constrain Western hegemonic power.

The creation of Israel as what many scholars characterize as the last major settler colonial project in the Middle East represents a continuation of imperial strategies that Europe and later the United States have employed for centuries: the establishment of client states that serve metropolitan interests while claiming moral legitimacy through appeals to religious or historical narratives (Pappé, 2006; Veracini, 2013).

What makes this particularly insidious is how Zionism as a nationalist movement conflates religious identity with territorial claims, receiving a “free pass” from Western liberal democracies that otherwise pride themselves on secular governance and separation of church and state. The same Western nations that critique religious fundamentalism elsewhere provide unwavering support for a state that explicitly bases its legitimacy on biblical prophecy and ethnic exclusivity.

READ: Axios: White House had prior knowledge of Israeli strike on Qatar despite denials

The betrayal of Gulf security guarantees

The failure of US forces stationed at Qatar’s Al Udeid Air Base, the Middle East’s largest American military installation—to protect their host nation from Israeli attack represents more than technological failure; it constitutes a fundamental betrayal (CBS News, 2025). Qatari radar systems did not detect Israeli airplanes or missiles, and Israeli forces did not encounter any resistance from American defences stationed inside Qatar.

Gulf states have paid enormous sums for American security guarantees. Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait have hosted US military bases, purchased billions of dollars in American weapons systems, and aligned their foreign policies with Washington’s strategic objectives. In return, they expected protection from precisely this type of aggression.

The Doha attack makes us question the effectiveness and seriousness of these arrangements. When a key ally needed protection from another American client state, US forces stood aside. This pattern mirrors historical colonial practices where imperial powers maintained local arrangements only as long as they served metropolitan interests, abandoning allies when convenient.

The collapse of multilateral institutions

The emergency Arab-Islamic summit held in Qatar on 15 September, bringing together leaders from the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and 22-member Arab League, represents an attempt to construct alternative security architectures in response to Western institutional failure (Al Jazeera, 2025). Leaders called on the international community to take urgent action to halt Israeli attacks and urged OIC member states to examine whether Israel’s UN membership is compatible with its UN Charter obligations.

More significantly, the Gulf Cooperation Council pledged to “activate a joint defence mechanism”, signalling movement toward regional security arrangements independent of US protection (Al Jazeera, 2025; PBS News, 2025). While the summit’s immediate outcomes remained largely rhetorical, it marks the beginning of what could become a fundamental realignment of regional security architecture.

This shift reflects growing recognition that existing international institutions, the UN Security Council, NATO, and various Western-dominated multilateral frameworks cannot adequately address 21st century security challenges when major powers consistently violate international law with impunity.

The economics of perpetual conflict

The Doha attack also illuminates what can only be described as the capitalism of war, the way defense industries and military contractors benefit from perpetual conflict. The Middle East has become a testing ground for military technologies and a marketplace for weapons systems, with Western powers maintaining regional instability to justify arms sales and military presence.

Israel’s military actions serve multiple functions within this system: they provide real-world testing for military technologies later exported globally, they justify continued US military aid (much of which returns to American defence contractors), and they maintain regional tensions that drive arms purchases throughout the Middle East.

The attack on Doha occurred using eight Israeli F-15 fighter jets and four F-35s, which fired air-launched ballistic missiles from over the Red Sea, a demonstration of advanced military capabilities that doubles as marketing for defence industries. Every “surgical strike” becomes a product demonstration for potential customers worldwide.

Toward a new international framework

The Doha attack represents what may prove to be the beginning of the end of Western hegemony in international politics. The unanimous global condemnation, the emergency Arab-Islamic summit, and the activation of alternative security mechanisms suggest that the international community is finally recognizing the need for new frameworks that do not privilege Western interests above international law.

Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani warned against Israel’s “expansionist vision” and declared Qatar’s determination to “preserve our sovereignty and confront Israeli aggression” (Al Jazeera, 2025). This represents more than rhetorical defiance; it signals a broader shift among Global South nations toward asserting independence from Western-dominated security arrangements.

The challenge now is constructing viable alternatives. The Arab Peace Initiative, first endorsed in 2002 and repeatedly reaffirmed, offered Israel full normalization in exchange for withdrawal from occupied territories. Israel’s consistent rejection of such proposals reveals its preference for permanent conflict over peaceful coexistence.

Regional powers possess significant leverage if they choose to use it. Gulf states control vast sovereign wealth funds with international investments, major energy resources, and crucial transportation routes. Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, and other Islamic nations represent enormous consumer markets and industrial capacity. Coordinated economic measures could impose real costs on states that consistently violate international law.

Reclaiming the language of international relations

Finally, the Doha attack requires us to challenge the politically charged terminology that obscures rather than illuminates international relations. Terms like “right to self-defence,” “peace process,” “negotiation,” and “terrorism” have become weapons of discourse, carrying embedded biases that favor certain actors while delegitimizing others.

When Israel attacks diplomatic facilities in a third country, this is not “self-defence”, it is aggression. When Palestinian resistance to occupation is labelled “terrorism” while Israeli state violence against civilians is called “security operations,” language itself becomes a tool of oppression. When “peace processes” consistently reward aggression while penalizing compromise, they become mechanisms for legitimizing conquest.

The international community must develop new vocabularies and frameworks that accurately describe power relations rather than obscuring them. This means acknowledging settler colonialism as settler colonialism, calling state terrorism by its proper name, and recognizing that genuine peace requires justice, not merely the absence of resistance.

The imperative for change

The Doha attack has shattered any remaining illusions about the viability of the current international system. A framework that allows one state to attack diplomatic facilities in a third country with impunity, while the global hegemon offers only mild criticism of its own client state, cannot sustain international peace and security.

The world faces a choice: continue operating within failed institutions that privilege Western interests above international law, or construct new frameworks based on genuine equality and mutual respect. The emergency summit in Doha, the activation of alternative defence mechanisms, and the growing international isolation of states that consistently violate international law suggest that this transformation may already be underway.

The question is not whether change will come—the current system is already collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. The question is whether that change will be managed through peaceful institutional transformation or imposed through continued conflict and crisis.

The Middle East, as one of the world’s richest and most strategically important regions, cannot afford to remain a battleground for competing imperial ambitions. Its peoples deserve security, prosperity, and self-determination, goals that remain impossible under the current international order. The Doha attack may prove to be the catalyst that finally forces the construction of something better.

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The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.