OPINION:
TEL AVIV, Israel — CNN opened their morning newscast in Israel with an analyst who weighed in on the Israel Defense Forces’ strikes in Qatar by saying the Jewish nation had gone “rogue” — followed by yada yada, Israel needs to stop, yada, yada, yada, Israel is out of control and blah, blah, yada, yada, Israel is to blame for everything. And the news anchor, with silent nodding, apparently agreed.
Here’s the real deal: Israel’s attack on Qatar may have shaken the world. But it shouldn’t have. It wasn’t only justified. It was politically expedient.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — whose own private home in Caesarea, remember, was the target of drone attacks, likely by Hezbollah, in October — launched the strikes against the leadership of Hamas in Doha, Qatar, following what Ynet reported was months of planning. What were the leaders of Hamas doing in Doha? Well, that’s where they’ve been for some time, strategizing “genocide from the comfort of Qatari luxury hotels,” while being “protected by the fiction of diplomatic immunity and the shield of a supposed American ally,” according to the Middle East Forum.
Hamas hiding in plain sight in Qatar — yes, indeed, that’s been the open secret, wink, wink, as far back as Oct. 7, 2023, when they planned the very atrocity against the Jewish people and nation that has brought the IDF to fight its nearing two-year war.
“When Qatar transformed itself into a five-star command center for terrorism, it challenged the fundamental architecture of international order,” the Middle East Forum wrote.
In other words: Just because Qatar was — and ostensibly, still is — a recognized U.S. ally, that doesn’t mean Israel ought to sit idly by and let Hamas use the country as a strategic and funding base for terror operations against the Jewish people. As a matter of fact, such actions on the part of any country ought to translate into immediate alienation from the civil order. Qatar has enjoyed a sort of exemption from common decency and civil standards among many of the leaders of the world because its government has been influential in bridging gaps between Western wishes and the less savory societies the Western countries have needed abroad to fulfill their wishes.
Most recently, Qatar has been behind the scenes to forge relations that will result in the release of the hostages in Gaza. But at a certain point, when diplomacy with evil turns to hosting of evil and then enabling of evil, it has to be recognized that the diplomat-turned-enabler-turned-host is itself evil.
“A Qatari official,” NPR reported way back in November of 2023, “[said] the Hamas political office in Doha was opened over a decade ago in coordination with the U.S., after a request from Washington to establish indirect lines of communication. Qatar says it’s been used across multiple U.S. administrations for mediation efforts. … The Biden administration and senior Israeli officials have lauded Qatar’s role in trying to free more than 200 hostages, among them children and elderly, held by militants in Gaza.”
And now President Trump is reportedly angry with Israel’s attack and wiping his hands clean of the plotting stages. World leaders, too, are making clear their displeasure with Israel.
“Trump advisers vent anger over how Israel conducted strike in Qatar,” CNN wrote a few hours ago.
“Trump denies knowledge of Israel’s ‘unfortunate’ strike on Qatar, as Starmer joins global condemnation,” Sky News reported, of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
But let’s remember a few things: Israel didn’t start the Oct. 7, 2023, war with Hamas. Hamas, the duly elected leadership of Gaza — the chosen ones, by a majority Palestinian voting public — launched an unprecedented assault on the Jewish people, swarming across the border to murder, rape, injure, torture and kidnap. Those who stayed home nonetheless cheered the attack. Iran’s other proxies — and Iran itself! — took advantage of the situation and launched its own missiles into Israel. Meanwhile, the hostages were starved, tortured, killed; some are still suffering. Hamas won’t release them.
Hamas won’t lay down arms, but rather has pledged to never quit, never stop, never halt their quest to eradicate the Jewish people and the nation from the face of the earth.
Under a Joe Biden administration, when weakness from the White House was the order of the day, the message to the world was: open season on Israel.
Under this newest Donald Trump administration, the message to the world is: Mess with Israel — mess with America. And it’s not just Trump’s pro-Israel, pro-freedom leadership that has changed the tone of geopolitics.
It’s Germany. It’s Switzerland. It’s the Netherlands. It’s Austria. It’s Italy. It’s Argentina.
“The kids are all right: What Germany’s conservative turn means for Europe,” the European Council on Foreign Relations wrote in June.
“The new Swiss political map: More conservative and less ‘green,’” Swiss Info wrote in October of 2023.
“What to Know About the Netherlands’ New Far-Right Government,” The New York Times wrote in July of 2024.
“Austrian far-right leader receives mandate to try to lead a government for the first time since World War II,” PBS reported in January.
“Italy’s [Prime Minister Giorgia] Meloni shows her arch-conservative credentials at G7 summit,” Reuters reported in June of 2024.
“Why Did Argentina Just Elect a Radical Right-Wing Political Outsider?” the Journal of Democracy wrote of Javier Milei in November 2023.
The world’s shaking on its political axis. And conservative principles are coming to the top.
Netanyahu, his generals, his Cabinet, his military forces — all of Israel — know that the political timing is right, right now, to root out and destroy the terrorists who’ve been terrorizing the Jewish nation for years. That includes both on-the-ground forces and the planners and plotters of the terror attacks.
Israel’s not gone rogue.
It’s just been released from an uncomfortable and dangerous bind that’s tied its hands for years and caused it to dance diplomatic steps so as to appease the governments of the world, many of whom are antisemitic sympathizers and supporters of the terror camps.
Those governments are going back into the shadows and a stronger, more capable, more civilized and morally righteous voice is emerging on the world stage.
The timing is right for Israel to fight for real — and wherever that fight might lead, so be it. Israel’s war against terror is all of America’s war against terror; it’s all of civil society’s war against evil.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “God-Given Or Bust: Defeating Marxism and Saving America With Biblical Truths,” is available by clicking HERE.
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