Turning Israel’s Terror Into Global Action
By Medea Benjamin
Responding to Israel’s September 10 attack aimed at Hamas negotiators in Qatar, all 12 members of the UN Security Council issued a toothless statement of condemnation that didn’t even mention Israel by name. This cowardly response underscores the pathetic international reaction to nearly two years of genocide.
Israel believes it can do whatever it wants, wherever it wants, with no consequences—which has been true for two years now. It has already destroyed Gaza. It is expanding settlements, annexing the West Bank, threatening Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and Iran. It has attacked aid flotillas, bombed refugee camps, and assassinated negotiators. Now it has bombed a U.S.-allied Gulf capital. And still, the world hesitates.
One would think that the bombing of Qatar—a U.S. ally, the home of U.S. Central Command, and the very place where ceasefire negotiations were being brokered—would be a game-changer. The strike killed five Hamas staffers and a Qatari security officer. The senior Hamas leaders survived, but the real target was not just them. The target was diplomacy itself.
Trump, for his part, has been playing a double game: issuing ultimatums to Hamas while allowing Israel to bomb the very negotiators the U.S. asked Qatar to host. His excuse that his envoy “called too late” to warn Doha is laughable. The truth is simpler: Washington could have stopped this. Its air defenses sat idle. Its umbrella of “protection” never opened. The U.S. is not a bystander; it is complicit.
Netanyahu bragged about authorizing a “surgical precision strike” in Doha on what he called “terrorist chiefs.” But let’s be clear: this was state terrorism, carried out in broad daylight against a sovereign country at the heart of U.S. strategy in the Gulf. It was an assassination attempt deliberately timed to blow up the possibility of a ceasefire by killing the very negotiators needed to reach one. For nearly two years, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has consistently obstructed ceasefire talks. The strike on Doha is final proof that Israel has no interest in peace—only endless war.
In Europe, close Israeli allies Germany, France, and Britain condemned the strike, as did China and Russia. Even in Israel, the attack provoked outrage from hostage families. Einav Zangauker, whose son is captive in Gaza, said Netanyahu had “essentially sentenced my Matan to death.” She asked the question millions are asking: Why does Israel blow up every small chance for a deal?
And the Arab world? Qatar’s prime minister Mohammed Al Thani called the attack “state terrorism,” warning the region that Netanyahu is destabilizing everything and that Netanyahu needs to be brought to justice. Saudi Arabia called it “a violation of international law and an unacceptable aggression against a fellow Arab state.” Jordan warned of “dangerous escalation.” The UAE expressed “grave concern.”
Yet words are cheap. Where is the action? Where is the red line? Arab states have watched Palestinians burned alive in tents, starved at aid lines, bombed in their homes for two years—and offered little more than statements.
If the world allows Israel to get away with bombing Doha, then no country in the Middle East is safe. Arab leaders who rushed to normalize with Israel under Trump’s so-called Abraham Accords—the UAE, Morocco, Bahrain, Sudan—now find themselves exposed as collaborators while Netanyahu bombs Arab capitals with impunity. The very least they must do right now is rescind those accords, and the rest of the Arab world must denounce any moves to normalize relations.
Qatar is convening an emergency Arab-Islamic summit and has called for a collective Arab response. This must be more than words: a coordinated campaign to cut trade, sever ties, and impose sanctions on the rogue Israeli state.
From there, the crisis will move to New York. As the new session of the UN opens and the U.S. continues to use its veto to stop the Security Council from taking action, the General Assembly must put the crisis at the top of its agenda. It must invoke the Uniting for Peace resolution to call for the following:
• A UN protection force to deliver humanitarian aid, protect civilians, preserve evidence of war crimes, and facilitate reconstruction;
• Comprehensive sanctions and military embargo;
• Withdrawal of Israel’s General Assembly credentials;
• Reactivation of the UN’s long-dormant anti-apartheid mechanism, and
• Establishing a war crimes tribunal.
The world is watching, and millions of people across continents are demanding an end to this genocide. The UN General Assembly still has the opportunity to rise to the occasion, proving that international law is more than just words on paper. The bombing of Doha should be the breaking point—the moment the world finally acts.
Medea Benjamin is co-founder of the women-led peace group CODEPINK and co-founder of the human rights group Global Exchange.
Source: dissidentvoice.org, Sept. 12, 2025