TEHRAN - Last Monday, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced that his country had accepted the U.S. ceasefire proposal to end the war in Gaza. The very next day, Israel attempted to assassinate Hamas leaders while they were in Qatar’s capital to discuss that same proposal.

The attack shocked Qatar and the larger Arab and Islamic world. Qatar is becoming the sixth Middle Eastern country struck by Israel in the past few months. “For decades, Qatar, like the rest of the (Persian) Gulf, believed that a closer relationship with the U.S. would guarantee its security. No longer,” the Guardian wrote.

As the capital of global diplomacy, Qatar was central to the negotiations with the Taliban as the U.S. withdrew its troops from Afghanistan; the return of some Ukrainian children from Russia; the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas and Palestinian prisoners in Israel; as well as a brief ceasefire in Gaza.

Nasrine Malik, the Guardian columnist, says Qatar was aiming to “cement its status as the Switzerland of the Middle East.”  However, Qatar was surprisingly punished for services that it has been doing to silence the guns or settle disputes between antagonized nations. Probably, the soldiers of the United States - the chief patron of Israel - would have still been killed by the Taliban fighters until today if Qatar had not mediated. Or, many more Israeli hostages have been either killed during the regime’s relentless attacks in Gaza or kept in Hamas’s captivity.

 Qatar’s capital came under attack while it has been trying to save Israel from the Gaza quagmire that despite two years of cruel fighting has not been able to force Palestinian fighters to lay down their arms or give in to Israel’s illegitimate demands. 

Qatar also came under attack while it is ranked as the second-largest buyer of American weapons, just behind Saudi Arabia. Also, Qatar is widely considered the largest and most strategically vital U.S. security partner in the Persian Gulf.

Additionally, the tiny country’s Al Udeid Air Base is the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. It hosts key U.S. commands: CENTCOM Forward, Air Force Central Command Forward, and Special Operations Command Central. Qatar has also invested over $8 billion in developing this base for U.S. use.

All these things suggest that when it comes to Israel the United States is ready to sacrifice a close partner like Qatar. The attack on Doha serves as a wake-up call to other Persian Gulf Arab states. They have now realized that the United States is not a reliable partner. Most Probably, they have realized that the U.S. is a great cheater and only seeks to “milk” the rich Arab countries.

Israeli media say Washington gave the green light to the Israeli attack on Doha. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his close associates claim that they decided to attack Doha with no American authorization. But nobody believes it. If it was so, why didn’t the Trump administration condemn the attack and just superficially announced that it is not happy with the event.

If this claim is true, why U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Israel less than a week after the attack and Netanyahu plans to visit the U.S. next week. If the Trump administration was angry of the attack, Rubio should have visited Qatar and not Israel to show his country’s indignation of the attack and express support for Qatar’s national sovereignty, just as fellow Arab countries of the UAE and Saudi Arabia did.

Moreover, if this attack has not taken place with a greenlight by Washington why the war criminal Netanyahu has warned Qatar that either it must “expel” Hamas members or “bring them to justice, because if you don’t, we will”.

Israel is doing these malicious acts while it is pleading the remaining Arab countries to join the Abraham Accords. It is becoming clear that Israel’s big push for normalization with Arab countries is just intended to buy legitimacy. But fortunately, countries that have normalized ties with this regime has reacted strongly to the strike in Doha.

The unbelievable and shocking attack on Doha clearly shows that Israel recognizes no boundary for its hegemonic agenda as Washington has given it the carte blanche to do whatever it desires.

These developments show that regional Arab and Muslim countries must change tact and close their ranks. A suggestion by former Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi can serve as a roadmap in countering Israel. Prior to the summit of the Arab and Muslim countries in Doha in support of Qatar, Salehi said, “The best practical result of this summit can be a ‘collective security pact’ with the inclusion of Persian Gulf states.”

Moreover, Persian Gulf countries can diversify their partnership with the emerging non-Western countries in the rapidly rising and blooming multipolar world. 

Muslim and Arab countries must prove to the U.S. that Israel as its proxy will not be able do whatever it wishes.