On 9 September Israeli warplanes bombed an upmarket district of Qatar’s capital, Doha. According to Tel Aviv, the attack, which killed seven people and injured 20, was aimed at ‘Hamas terrorists’. The Qatari authorities, however, claim the real target was the Palestinian negotiating team who were meeting there to consider the latest US ceasefire proposal for Gaza.

From the podium at the UN, Emir Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani condemned the strike as ‘state terrorism’ and accused Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu of seeking to turn the Arabian peninsula into an ‘Israeli sphere of influence’. But behind Qatar’s outrage at the violation of its sovereignty lies a deeper frustration – at being betrayed by its US protector.

Following the deadly Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, the emirate had secured US assurances that Palestinian leaders living there would not be targeted while negotiations for the release of hostages in Gaza continued. In May the Qataris had warmly welcomed President Trump, promising him hundreds of billions of dollars in investment. This was meant to cement ties and persuade Trump to put pressure on Netanyahu to spare Doha. Yet US officials failed to give their Qatari counterparts advance warning of the approaching Israeli aircraft, even though the powerful radars at Al-Udeid base – the largest US base in the region – could not have missed them.

Washington joined the 14 other members of the Security Council in condemning the attack, but in Doha, no one was under any illusion: the US would not stop a future strike targeting the Hamas leadership.

This equivocal stance should surprise neither the Qataris nor the rulers of the other Gulf monarchies. Since the end of Barack Obama’s first term (2008-12), the reliability of US security guarantees for the peninsula has been questionable. By abandoning Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak to his fate in the face of a popular uprising (2011) and barely reacting to Houthi (…)

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