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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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This represents something shocking, in that Qatar has been historically less hostile to Israel than the Arab average, and is a direct ally of the United States, hosting the largest US base in the middle east. Qatar was actually hosting the Hamas leadership at the quiet behest of the United States, to keep them coherent and on hand rather than chaotic and in Palestine or underground, and wanted to kick them out after 10/7 but was told not to by Israel's protector the United States. Despite all this cooperation, Qatar does not get to decide if Doha will be bombed today, Israel feels it can make that decision with impunity.

Israel uses a different calculus. If Qatar's actions are 60% pro-Israel and 40% pro-Palestine, Israel doesn't look at them and think, "on balance, they are 20% pro-Israel, nice". It thinks, "they are 40% pro-Palestine, time for a cheeky airstrike."

But I agree with @TIRM this all might be 4D chess. No one really likes Palestinians in the Middle East, but it's bad taste to overtly help Israel. Qatar can't just arrest the leaders of Hamas and extradite them to Israel, even if this is a good idea. What it can do is pass a note saying, "btw, this and that Hamas bigwigs will be all alone at these coordinates".

Then Qatar can show some performative indignation, "oh, how dare these Zionists violate the sovereignty of our country! Our small and peaceful and American-friendly country that can't even strike back in retaliation!" Everyone of their neighbors goes, "by Allah, they are right, we shall write a strongly-worded letter!" and Hamas moves to literally a NATO country.