Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
European leaders denouncing the strike against Hamas leaders in Doha. Joining us now is a former UK ambassador to Kuta and a number of other countries, Nicholas Hopton, who is non resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. Nicholas, good morning, and thank you for being with us. I wonder whether we could start with your thoughts on how much of an escalation you believe this is on Israel's part.
Good morning. I think this is a significant development and looks like a major escalation taken by the government of Israel. The arguments they have put forward yesterday to justify the attack, the assassination of Hamas leaders obviously a terrorist organization, but they were sitting in a sovereign country which has a right not to be attacked, and it's also a great
ally of the Western Powers, particularly the United States. So the arguments put forward yesterday to justify the attack, while in line with perhaps premise Netanya, who's stated war objectives from the word go to destroy Hamas, are actually failing to justify under international law what has happened and to explain why they felt it was necessary to do this violating Katar's sovereignty and also without informing their ally the United States as well.
Bureau chief Ethan Bonner that we were just speaking to Bloomberg's is Well Buia chief. We're saying that other Gulf states want to be rid of Hamas, and so you know, other countries may actually not be that sorry that this is what Israel is doing.
Your view, well, there's a big difference between having a policy and how you carry it out. And I think it's true that country across the Arab world, including in the Gulf, and in Europe and elsewhere in the world, see Hamas as a terrorist organization which committed appalling atrocities on the seventh of October against Israeli citizens, and they need to be held accountable and brought to justice for that.
But there's a difference between having a policy of doing that and then breaking international law as a country to carry it out, and that seems to be what Israel has decided to do and which puts it on the wrong side of the international community, all of whom, almost without exception, including the United States, Israel's main remaining ally in their way, they're prosecuting the war in Gaza has They've all come out and unequivocally condemned what Israel did yesterday.
Nicholas, you talked about the US's role in defending Cutter. It has its biggest military base in the Middle East in Doha. Does it appear to you that Trump has lost control of Benjamin Nettinya who here? Should we be worried that perhaps Netanya who would next target Turkey for example, where it's thought that how mass leadership is as well well.
I think this is a deeply embarrassing moment for the White House. And it was interesting that after a few hours, the White House and then Donald Trump himself came out and were very clear that they were unhappy and disagreed with what Primeister nessenya Who had done. I think that was a decisive move. It's the most most critical statement we've seen from the US administration under Donald Trump of Israel's prosecution of the conflict in Gaza and elsewhere in
the West Bank. And I think the question now is how does the US follow this up with Israel. Apparently there was a conversation between Donald Trump and Benjaminyatu Netahu yesterday. I imagine that would have been a difficult conversation. But do those critical words turn into a new American engagement which tries to bring about a meaningful negotiation towards a ceasefire and the release of the hostages, which seems to
be very far away at this point. I think all the questions at the moment are how does the White House and the US administration now act following this military strike by Israel.
What's your view on the UK's position in all of this? Obviously quite distant, but the Prime Minister putting a post on x Kiirs Darmer saying condemning the Israeli strike on Doha, saying that it violates Qatar's sovereignty and risk further escalation across the region, is that it from the UK government? Is what's the UK government's position going to be here? Well?
I think both Kirs Starmer and President Macron France led the European reaction yesterday in condem what it seems to be a clear violation of international law. And the next step, of course, is something that has already been scheduled, which is a meeting in New York in the United Nations General Assembly coming up in the next ten days, and at that meeting. Britain, France and Canada and maybe others have said they will recognize Palestine as an independent sovereign state.
Now that may be just to politics in the eyes of some, but it is a significant step, and I think so far Kirstanmer's resolved to do that will have been strengthened by what happened yesterday.
I do just want to come back to the Turkey point, because the US complained that they hadn't been given enough warning of this attack before it took place. What are your thoughts on whether the US had no knowledge of the attack and whether we should expect more like this in the future.
Well, briefly on Turkey, it is of course a NATO member state and therefore covered by Article five of mutual defense if attacked. It's a different situation. Should Israel decide to attack Turkey and hamas targets there as opposed to attacking Katar, which is not a member of NATO, I think that would be an even more significant escalation. Also because of course Kata is a Turkey is a much more significant global security player than Katar, and Turkey has
I think, still the biggest standing army in Europe. So I would imagine that the Israeli Prime Minister will think twice before doing that. As for your second, part of the question was on the US.
And whether they had any knowledge of the attack or enough knowledge. Do you believe that they had no knowledge of the attack before it took place?
Well, I've seen different analyses. Frank Gardner, the bb very respected security correspondent, was clear yesterday that this attack could not have taken place without the American military having been in many ways complicit to that. At the same time, I think we should take serious note of what the White House has made clear and the US spokespeople that they didn't have advanced warning, or if they did, then it was very not enough in order to stop the attack.
There's also further confusion in this position because the catteries, the cateri primes to shake. Mohammad yesterday, in his press statement, said that the catteries were only warned about the military strike ten minutes after it happened.