It was the first time Israel has struck on Qatari soil, and, more than just shrapnel, its missiles carried two messages. The first is that Israel’s war with Hamas is now global. For decades, Hamas’s political bureau has operated from Qatar, tolerated by the United States, Europe, and indeed Israel, with Doha a useful channel for diplomacy. Hamas could plot, posture, and negotiate in five-star hotels while Israeli bombs flattened Gaza. The fiction was that these men, in their Gulf exile, could be treated differently from those directing the war on the ground.

By attacking Doha, Israel has made clear that this distinction is now a delusion. Yet, if anything, the second message is even more controversial. The men Israel tried to kill were reviewing Washington’s latest ceasefire proposal. By hitting them mid-discussion, it has therefore made the peace process itself a target. Israel has long raged at the diplomatic scaffolding that keeps Hamas at the table; the Doha strike is a challenge not just to Hamas but to the very architecture of mediation that has sustained the brief pauses in the Gaza war.

The strike could be a warning to get on with things, to accept the deal on offer. Let’s not forget that on 7 September, Donald Trump posted a clear warning on Truth Social: “The Israelis have accepted my Terms,” he said. “It is time for Hamas to accept as well. I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”

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But after the strike, Trump’s tone was markedly different. He was, he insisted, “very unhappy about every aspect”. Whether or not he means this genuinely, he certainly needs to say it. Qatar is home to Al Udeid airbase, the largest US military facility in the region, and it’s central to America’s strategy in the Middle East. To allow Israel to bomb Qatar’s capital without clear condemnation is politically dangerous. On the other hand, neither can the White House afford to rupture ties with Israel, which gives Washington a strong foothold in the Middle East, and provides huge benefits in terms of access to military innovation and Israeli intelligence. Because of all this, Washington crouches awkwardly, half-ally, half-broker, trying to placate both sides while still playing mediator with Hamas.

For Hamas itself, the strike obviously is a big problem. As well as enjoying Doha’s hotels, prostitutes and offshore banking facilities, its leaders could also fundraise, spit propaganda, and participate in negotiations without any immediate threat of assassination. That’s over. And if they are not safe in Qatar, where are they safe?

The international response, meanwhile, has been swift and furious. UN Secretary General António Guterres called it a “flagrant breach” of international law, accusing Israel of deliberately undermining a diplomatic process in which Qatar had been playing a constructive role. Turkey went further, branding the attack “state terrorism”. Even Germany declared it “unacceptable”.

As for Qatar, Israel’s attack is almost personal. No wonder it denounced yesterday’s events as a “cowardly violation” of its sovereignty. Its role as mediator rested on a delicate balance: tolerated by the West, trusted by Hamas. Israel has just violated, if not ended, that neutrality. This is the new logic of escalation. The world is now a battleground; diplomacy cannot be used as a cover for impunity.

And if yesterday’s attack cut to the heart of global diplomatic norms, the broader consequences could be severe. The Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab states, were already under strain thanks to the bloodbath in Gaza. Arab leaders who signed them must now explain to their people why they stand alongside a state willing to bomb a Gulf capital. That said, as Jonathan Spyer, director of research at the Middle East Forum, observes, Qatar is not a participant in the Abraham Accords and indeed is an enemy of the UAE and Saudi Arabia in everything but name.

For Spyer, then, the logic here is clear. “Israel is at war with Hamas, because of the Hamas massacre of 1,200 Israelis in 2023,” he says. “Hamas just claimed responsibility for a murderous terror attack in Jerusalem. Qatar domiciles the Hamas leadership and plays a double game — facilitating Hamas activities and then presenting itself as a mediator.” Given all this, Spyer adds, it’s unsurprising that Israel should have attacked Hamas’s Doha leaders once it had the necessary intelligence and military capacity.

Yet ceasefire negotiations, however flawed, were one of the few lifelines in a war that has already killed tens of thousands. By bombing Hamas leaders’ mid-discussion, Israel may hollow out the space for diplomacy. If, after all, mediators can no longer guarantee the safety of participants, then what mediator will host talks? And without talks, the war grinds on, with no end in sight.

Hamas will now seek to turn the dead into martyrs, brandishing them to the world as proof that Israel is the enemy of peace. For its part, Israel did not kill the men it sought. But it has made clear that it is prepared to carry its fight wherever it deems necessary, regardless of diplomatic conventions.

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By Arta Moeini

One of the clearest agents of change over the last decade has been the repeated erasure of political norms. In the West’s domestic politics, Donald Trump, Brexit and the rise of populism have torn up so much of what we once thought was politically immutable. Similar trends are clear internationally too. When the Iranians first struck Israel directly, in April 2024, people scoffed at the lack of damage it did. But I did not: I knew that the norm of direct Iran-Israeli confrontation was shattered. More direct conflict would ensue and so it did. Last night, yet another international norm — you don’t touch the GCC — has vanished too.

Sometimes we move from one era to another in a single event: think of 9/11 or the fall of the Berlin Wall. Generally, though, we do so more gradually, as the political and ideological scaffolding that held it in place slowly disintegrates. That seems to be happening here, as we move from our “Long Age of Peace” to what increasingly looks like “An Age of War”.

From the Israeli perspective, anyway, the imperative is clear: to move beyond an era defined by relentless terror attacks and perpetual conflict toward something resembling security. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has staked his legacy on a gamble: that overwhelming strength, and the repeated destruction of Israel’s enemies, can achieve what diplomacy with Hamas has not. Much of Western Europe, and the world’s international institutions, continue to insist that negotiations must be given space, that “de-escalation” is the only viable path. Israel, though, looks to its record of its hard-power gambles, from the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah to the extraordinary pagers operation, that have paid dividends both domestically and regionally.

Yesterday was yet one more gamble, perhaps Israel’s most dangerous so far. Now we will have to wait and see: if the international institutions and diplomatic norms of the postwar political settlement remain, or whether we are truly into a new epoch, in which to flourish, and indeed to win, states must now abide by an altogether new set of brutal political norms.

Caro’s ongoing multi-volume life of LBJ has everything. On one level, it is a political thriller. On another, it is a history of the US in the second half of the 20th century. It is so much more, besides, including a meditation on one of the enduring questions in history: can a bad person do good things?

Which brings us to Donald Trump’s role in securing peace between Israel and the UAE, with Bahrain now following and, soon, more Arab states. President Trump provides the latest incarnation of that question — the answer to which is plainly yes. History is littered with figures with whom one would rather not engage on a personal level, but whose contribution to humanity was immense.

Take, in our own times, Martin McGuiness and Ian Paisley. The latter was a bigot, who proudly trumpeted that bigotry and even flirted with paramilitaries. The former was almost certainly a murderer. For the bulk of their time on earth, they both lived lives that should have sent them to the hell in which they believed — and yet when they died they were widely and genuinely mourned, with a legacy of peace that endures to this day.

How about Steve Jobs? As close to a monster as the rules of the modern workplace allowed, but who used that monstrous ego and personality to change our world for the better. Or there is Henry Ford, a grotesque bully and a bigot beloved of Hitler and his circle. But one of the great industrialists, whose vision transformed capitalism and who enabled huge numbers of people to afford a car of their own.

More interesting, perhaps, than that simple question — and one reason why LBJ is so fascinating a figure — is a variation on it: can a bad man do good things for bad motives?

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It is almost impossible to overstate the importance of the deals between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE and with Bahrain, both in their own terms and as harbingers of what is likely to follow. Diplomatic and political reality, as well as the Arabic concept of mu-wazana (balance), mean that the rest of the Gulf States and other Arab countries will follow. And thus, quite apart from the obvious lessening of one set of tensions in the region, recognition by Gulf states will cement an alliance standing up to Iran, a nation which threatens peaceful existence far beyond the Middle East.

Much of the credit for this must go to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, whose story is itself an example of the enduring question. Mired in corruption allegations, with a trial due to start in weeks, Mr Netanyahu is a ruthless operator who ditches allies when they no longer serve his purpose and who will say almost anything to secure re-election. But unsavoury as he may be domestically, as a geopolitical strategist he is a genius. For almost any other Israeli leader, the security threat posed by the Iran nuclear deal would have marked a disastrous failure. For Mr Netanyahu, it provided the opportunity to regenerate Israeli relations with its neighbours.

Building on his long-term strategy of using Israeli strength and resolute defence of its security to persuade its neighbours that they have no realistic choice but to formally acknowledge its existence and build a relationship, the Israeli leader leveraged Arab opposition to President Obama’s Iran deal to Bismarckian ends.

But while the presence of Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in the UAE were necessary for a deal, which led to Bahrain joining them, there was one figure without whom no deal would have been possible: President Trump.

A fortnight ago, the US leader was nominated by a Right-wing populist Norwegian MP for the Nobel Peace Prize. Understandably, the idea has been mocked almost universally. Understandably, because President Trump is an appalling figure — a man who stokes racist fires, who traduces democratic norms, who treats the office of president as a form of ego-massage, who bullies and who lies. His re-election as president might endanger the US’s democracy itself — and perhaps still more so if he is not re-elected and refuses to accept the result.

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And yet. As Christian Tybring-Gjedde, the Norwegian MP behind the nomination, put it: “I think he has done more to create peace between nations than most other peace prize nominees. The committee should look at the facts and judge him on the facts — not on the way he behaves sometimes.”

In 2009, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for not being President Bush. He conducted himself with dignity and propriety throughout his two terms in office — but his foreign policy legacy was a disaster, with his main accomplishment a deal with Iran so dangerous and bad that almost all of Iran’s neighbours have tried their level best to scupper it.

And it would take some beating for murderous negligence than his refusal to back up his own language over Syria, when he announced in April 2012 that the use of chemical weapons by Bashar Assad would be a “red line” and then did precisely nothing when, a year later, Assad killed more than 1,400 of his own people with sarin gas. Obama gave off the vibe of a wise and good leader. The reality was disastrous for the US — and its allies.

President Trump, on the other hand, is a prize shit, who disgraces his office in ways more previously unimaginable with every passing day. But he is also responsible for one of the most significant and important breakthroughs ever towards Middle East peace. Which president is more deserving of a prize for peace?

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Trump is hardly the first US president to embody this dichotomy: Richard Nixon, the only president to resign and a byword for paranoia, bigotry and the abuse of office, was also responsible for one of the great foreign policy breakthroughs of the modern world when he visited Beijing.

And then we return to Nixon’s predecessor, LBJ. He was corrupt, lied with impunity, was a megalomaniac, a misogynist and a bully. He was also a coward. He urinated into his washbasin in front of secretaries and shouted orders to his aides while defecating. But he also changed the lives of hundreds of millions of black Americans for the better through the civil rights legislation that he pushed through — when few others (including many of those in his administration) thought it possible.

What makes LBJ so endlessly fascinating is his motivation. He had next to no interest in the cause. As Caro’s biography shows, his interest in civil rights was — as with everything else in his life — entirely political. No southern politician could be elected president while the South remained so reactionary, so he used his skills to remove that problem for him — the skills of a lying, corrupt bully.

Civil rights may have been a vehicle for Johnson rather than a cause, but what are President Trump’s motives? For Johnson, civil rights were a means to an end. For Trump, Middle East peace deals are the end, but not because he has any interest in the region or in policy more generally. Rather, he portrays himself as the Deal Maker Par Extraordinaire. One day it is North Korea, the next Abu Dhabi. One may turn out to be a charade, the other to have substance. But both — and everything else — are about the Trump brand and the braggadocio that is its foundation. The components and substance of any deal, of any policy, are an irrelevance; what matters is the fact of President Trump’s involvement and how that is sold to the electorate.

And so, once more, we contemplate that eternal question of what makes a good person. President Trump may stretch that label to breaking point. But not quite…