It’s almost comic how quickly Arab leaders rush to call Israel a “coward” the moment another red line is crossed, as if a few press statements will reverse a decades-long collapse in Arab deterrence. The only real cowardice this week came from the leaders issuing those condemnations, not the one that ordered the strike on Doha.

Israel bombed the capital of a US-aligned Gulf monarchy, a state that hosts the largest American military base in the region, in broad daylight. It hit a known Hamas facility, with known targets, during a known ceasefire negotiation. And it did so knowing full well that nothing would happen in response. No counter-attack. No diplomatic freeze. Not even a genuine shift in posture from the Americans.

Because, the truth is, Israel has already won the argument that no one in the region can stop it. The Netanyahu government calculated, correctly, that the Arab world is in no position to act, and that the US, even under Trump’s most recent “I’m very unhappy” routine, would do nothing to hold it back.

And that makes this strike less an escalation than a declaration: the rules of the game no longer apply.

What happened in Doha wasn’t some shocking deviation. It was the latest, perhaps most daring, move in a clear and accelerating pattern. Israel has struck Tehran,........

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