No safety in Middle East after Israeli strike on Qatar, says former Turkish PM

More diplomatic pressure needed to rein in Israel, Ahmet Davutoglu tells The National

Ahmet Davutoglu, former prime minister and foreign minister of Turkey, at the Future Party offices in Istanbul. Lizzie Porter / The National

No one in the Middle East feels safe amid an increasing sense that the Israeli government is fuelling region-wide instability, former Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu told The National.

Israel’s strike on a Hamas negotiating team in the heart of the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday broke a new threshold by targeting a close US ally in the Gulf, the former Turkish official said in an interview at his office in western Istanbul.

“Nobody in the region now is safe because they attacked Qatar,” Mr Davutoglu said. “Attacking Qatar means attacking a country having the base of Centcom headquarters,” he added, referring to the US military’s command centre at Qatar’s Al Udeid Airbase.

Mr Davutoglu, 66, played a key role in Turkish foreign and domestic policy for more than two decades. He served as both foreign minister and prime minister under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, before the country’s shift to a presidential system. Mr Davutoglu fell out with Mr Erdogan and resigned as prime minister in 2016, later forming his own political party, the Future Party.

Alongside representatives of Qatar, the US and Egypt, the veteran Turkish politician played a key role in mediating between Hamas and Israel in previous conflicts over the past 20 years. He recalled working with his US and Qatari counterparts to end a six-week conflict in Gaza in 2014, when he was Turkey's foreign minister.

“We met in Paris, first in the American embassy, then in the Turkish Embassy – John Kerry, myself, Khalid Attiyah of Qatar, in a trilateral process,” he said. “We contacted the Egyptian side. And Kerry talked to the Israeli side. I remember, in one night, we had at least five, six telephone calls to each other.”

Israel’s attacks on Qatar and across the region threaten efforts to end more than 23 months of conflict in Gaza, Mr Davutoglu said. The strike on Doha, which killed five Hamas members and a Qatari security officer, drew widespread condemnation for breaching Qatari sovereignty and jeopardising truce negotiations.

Qatar, working alongside Egypt and the US, has played a key role in attempting to mediate a deal for the release of Israeli hostages and a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.

Turkish politicians, including Ahmet Davutoglu, attend the burial in Qatar of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh, on August 2, 2024, days after he was assassinated by Israel in Iran's capital. Turkish Grand National Assembly / Anadolu / Reuters

“They were very close to an agreement” for a ceasefire, Mr Davutoglu said. “Hamas accepted many conditions and they [Israel] attacked. They don't want to have peace.”

The Israeli military said its “precision strike” targeted Hamas’s top leaders, although none were confirmed killed. Army chief Lt Gen Eyal Zamir said it would continue to pursue the group "everywhere, at every range, near and far".

Mr Davutoglu said there was a growing sense among countries in the region, including Turkey, that Israel’s actions have spread beyond Palestine to become the main source of instability.

It is not anymore between Israel and Iran, or Israel and the region. It is between Israel and UN principles, and humanity

Ahmet Davutoglu,
former Turkish prime minister and foreign minister

“It is not any more a tension between Israel and Hamas. It is not any more between Israel and Palestine. It is not any more between Israel and Arab countries,” Mr Davutoglu said. “It is not any more between Israel and Iran, or Israel and the region. It is between Israel and UN principles, and humanity.”

Some observers believe Turkey is particularly at risk from spiralling conflict because of its proximity to countries that Israel has struck recently, including its neighbours Syria and Iran.

Observers and politicians in Turkey, including Mr Davutoglu, as well as in Israel, have in recent days raised the spectre of Israeli attacks on Hamas targets in the country.

Israel “claimed that it's a war against Hamas. No, they attacked Gaza, they attacked the West Bank, they attacked Lebanon, they attacked Yemen,” Mr Davutoglu said. “They attacked Syria. They even attacked Iran. Now Qatar. What is next?”

There is long-standing Israeli umbrage at Hamas’s presence in Turkey. The Turkish government does not recognise Hamas as a terrorist organisation and the Palestinian group’s leaders often visit the country. After the October 7 Hamas-led attacks on Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, Mr Davutoglu expressed support for "the justified resistance of our Palestinian brothers and sisters" in a post on social media.

Once-burgeoning Turkey-Israel relations have nosedived since the attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza. Ankara severed trade and air links with Israel in May last year, although it stopped short of cutting diplomatic ties. Mr Davutoglu thinks that the action taken did not go far enough: he wants all countries in the region that have diplomatic ties with Israel to sever them.

The Turkish politician met Hamas’s former leader Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul three months before he was assassinated in the Iranian capital Tehran on July 31 last year. The Israeli strikes on Doha would not prevent him continuing to meet the current Hamas leadership, he added.

Turkey’s Nato membership is likely to be a deterrent factor for Israel, experts previously told The National. Under the military alliance’s covenants, an attack on any member should prompt other member states to come to its defence, including by using armed force if necessary.

Ahmet Davutoglu wants all countries in the region to sever ties with Israel after the Doha attack. Lizzie Porter / The National

All the same, Ankara should make the risk it faces clear to its Nato partners, Mr Davutoglu said.

“First, they should see that there is a crisis here. Otherwise, they don't know. Nobody is moving. They are so comfortable in their capitals because they are far away from the Middle East."

He said countries across the region should also step up diplomatic pressure on Mr Netanyahu’s government and its main backer in Washington to rein in Israeli operations.

"The road to Tel Aviv goes through Washington," Mr Davutoglu said.

In an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council on Thursday, acting US Representative to the United Nations Dorothy Shea said that unilateral bombing inside Qatar “does not advance Israel’s or US goals”. But “eliminating Hamas, which has profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal", she added.

Unless there is a ceasefire, countries that recognise Palestine, including Turkey, should refuse to attend the UN General Assembly in New York this month, Mr Davutoglu said. The boycott would be a protest at the US’s refusal to allow Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas a visa to join the meeting.

Like in 1988, when the Reagan administration denied Palestinian Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat entry to the US, states that recognise Palestine should hold an alternative assembly in the Swiss city of Geneva, he added.

“The Americans must get a signal that the UN is not a strategic apparatus of the US and Israeli partnership,” Mr Davutoglu stressed.

The actions of Mr Netanyahu’s government are isolating Israel from its neighbours, undoing decades of diplomacy that saw delicate peace agreements emerge between the country and other Middle Eastern states, he added.

“This is first a threat to peaceful Israelis as well,” he explained. “Now they are very much isolated from the region.”