K.C. Singh | Israel’s Doha Hit Churns Islamic Bloc: India in Fix

On September 9, 2023, on the sidelines of the G-20 summit hosted by India in New Delhi, a new India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) was announced. It traverses the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s absence was noticeable. The Saudis appeared to be unwilling to sit beside Israel, until the Palestinian issue could be resolved.

Their reluctance proved prescient as barely a month later, on October 7, Hamas fighters jumped the security barrier, killing, raping and abducting Israelis and foreigners. The retaliatory war by Israel still continues, causing tremendous loss of life in Gaza, repeated displacement of the population and disruption of food and medicine supplies. Israel has, ignoring the global outcry, continued its onslaught, arguing it would stop only if all living abductees are released and Hamas surrenders.

If former US President Joe Biden was reluctant to press Israel to end the hostilities, his successor President Donald Trump has done worse. He even joined Israel’s attacks on Iran, to eliminate or lethally damage the Iranian nuclear programme. He even targeted top American universities, including Ivy League Harvard and Columbia, for tolerating pro-Palestine protests. This undermined the right of freedom of speech, permitting peaceful protests.

President Trump also positioned himself as a global mediator and peacemaker. He inherited two major conflicts, in Ukraine and Gaza. Prior to the election he had claimed that not only Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if he was President in 2022, but he could, if in power, end it within “24 hours”. He based it on special ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Nearly eight months later, the two conflicts continue.

An emergency summit was held in Doha, Qatar, on September 15, of leaders of the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), and the Arab League (22 members). Some members are common between the two groups. The immediate provocation was an aerial attack on September 9, by Israel, on the suspected location of top Hamas leaders in Doha. They were meeting to discuss a US-supported ceasefire proposal.

Qatar has been mediating between the two combatants since the conflict began.

President Trump earlier made a high-profile visit to Doha, where he was presented a Boeing 747, besides billions of dollars in promised investment in the United States. The bonhomie was surprising as in 2021, during Mr Trump’s first presidency, when he visited Riyadh, he triggered a joint Saudi-Emirati condemnation of Qatar, resulting in boycotts and threats. Qatar was blamed for engaging all manner of radical Islamists in the region and the independent and occasionally critical coverage by Qatar-owned Al Jazeera television. President Trump

mediated the Abraham Accords in September 2020, normalising diplomatic relations between Israel and the UAE and Bahrain. Morocco soon followed suit.

Saudi Arabia held back, demanding that Israel first finalise the path to Palestinian statehood, under the UN-mandated two-state solution.

President Trump found that normalisation depleted as he assumed office on January 20, 2025. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has exploited his close relations with Mr Trump and the dominance of Jewish voices in the American government to achieve two objectives. One, to destroy or cripple the Iranian nuclear programme and contain, if not eliminate, Iranian influence and interference in West Asia and the Gulf. Two, compel Palestinians to either abandon their homeland, in the West Bank and Gaza, or face further division and constriction, through the expanding West Bank Jewish settlements. Mr Netanyahu’s dependence on far-right coalition partners has motivated this ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

The ruling families of the six GCC countries fear the Islamic radicals as much as Israel does, if not even more. However, a majority of their people, especially in populous countries like Saudi Arabia, do not share these thoughts. The same duality also colours their approach to Iran. While they condemned publicly the Israeli and US attacks on the Iranian nuclear facilities, in private they welcomed the Iranian regional influence and nuclear programme getting constrained. However, by attacking Qatar Israel has overreached. The Doha summit outcome on September 15 demonstrates that.

Qatar’s ruler Sheikh Tamim bin Gamid Al Thani called it a “treacherous attack”, reflecting a “state of madness of power”. Attacking the mediating nation and the negotiators of their antagonists indicated that Israel had “no genuine interest in peace”. The final communique, however, lacks concrete steps to counter or deter Israel. It basically contains strong condemnation and pledges of solidarity.

Several nations, nevertheless, proposed strong and actionable steps. Turkish President Recep Tayib Erdogan urged economic pressure on Israel, as “past experience” has proven its success. Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi addressed the Israeli people, warning that Israel was undermining “existing peace agreements”. Egypt was the first Arab nation to normalise diplomatic relations with Israel in 1979. Jordan followed some years later and eventually the Abraham Accords were signed in 2000. The Malaysian Prime Minister also felt that mere condemnation was insufficient. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian validly enquired why countries were not cutting ties with Israel.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sought Israel’s suspension from the United Nations, knowing well the US would veto it. But he recommended a task force to “ward off Israel’s expansionist designs”. More specifically, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) proposed a unified military command, to ensure collective self-defence. Clearly, the Israeli undermining of regional security architecture, with US connivance or neglect, is compelling the Islamic and Arab countries to converge. Unified resistance by Egypt, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and the GCC can out-balance Israel. But strategic differences may disallow that.

The BJP’s partiality towards Israel’s Zionist leaders since 2014 has had the Indian government veer towards the US-led security paradigm in the Gulf and West Asia. The IMEC was one such brainwave, which assumed that the Palestinian issue was dead.

Prime Minister Netanyahu’s aggressive regional posture is to enable both domestic political survival and exploitation of the Trump presidency to eliminate threats permanently. Thus, the region faces new instability and likely shifting alliances.

As the only power possessing nuclear weapons amongst the Islamic and Arab nations, Pakistan gains significance, which seems to marginalise India. That made India change its neutral stance at the UN and condemn Israel. The US also joined in, frustrated by Mr Netanyahu’s blasé attitude. But unless the US ends backing Israel, the situation to India’s west, right up to the Mediterranean, appears to be bleak