An emergency summit of Arab and Islamic country leaders was held in Doha on 15 September 2025, which condemned Israel’s “cowardly” attack on Hamas leaders in the Qatari capital, but the participants made no promises of concrete action. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s pledge to “activate a joint defence mechanism” may have been the most actionable result of the summit, which was opened by Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, who called the Israeli bombing “blatant, treacherous, and cowardly”. Qatar’s frustration and disappointment can be gauged from the fact that it has the largest American military base in the Arab world, and gifted billions of dollars’ worth Flying Palace to POTUS Trump and purchased trillions of dollars’ worth of military hardware from the USA in the recent past. Besides, Qatar continued to play as a messenger and host for fetching diplomatic outcome in favour of USA and allies’ military misadventures in Afghanistan and in the other ME countries including Palestine; and yet the American security umbrella failed to protect its sovereignty against unbridled Israeli air raids and bombing in Qatar. Quite obviously Qatar must have hoped to present a united response to Israel’s attack but leaders offered different views about what to do, and the group agreed to take only minimal action. Obviously, the West’s strong influence and significant differences among the nations blunted any likely attempt at real military cooperation.

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