The July 31 assassination of Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps guesthouse in northern Tehran shocked Iran. The strike occurred just hours after Haniyeh met Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and newly installed President Masoud Pezeshkian. Khamenei vowed revenge.
Israel’s supporters lauded Haniyeh’s death. His assassination showed both Israel’s intelligence dominance and its ability to act precisely over vast distances. While analysts focus on how Israel pulled off the assassination and speculate about how Iran might retaliate, another question looms.
If Israel is willing to conduct assassinations of terrorists inside Iran, where else might it act? Haniyeh traveled to Iran from his home in Qatar. He felt secure in both countries. He believed Iran was a bridge too far and Israel would never risk its retaliation. As for Qatar, he believed the Persian Gulf sheikhdom’s diplomatic role as mediator between Israel and Hamas immunized him.
With regard to Qatar, he was not wrong. Qatar was a safe haven. For better or worse, neither Israel nor the United States has been ready to act against the militants and terrorists who call Qatar home. Rather than sanction Qatar or designate it as a state sponsor of terrorism, President Joe Biden named Qatar a major non-NATO ally, giving it an endorsement not bestowed upon even Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates.
Qatar is not the only regional country where Hamas believes it can act with impunity. Jordan today also remains largely off-limits to Israeli assassinations after a botched 1997 attempt on Khaled Mashal, Haniyeh’s predecessor, during Benjamin Netanyahu’s first stint as Israel’s prime minister. At the time, Jordanian King Hussein threatened to sever diplomatic relations with Israel if Netanyahu did not provide an antidote to the poison that had caused Mashal to fall into a coma. Under pressure from the U.S., Netanyahu not only sent the necessary medicine but also released a number of high-profile Hamas prisoners.
After Israel was caught, relations with Jordan were too fragile to risk future operations. Jordan, however, would not remain a safe haven. In 1999, after succeeding his father, King Abdullah II expelled Mashal and his top colleagues, convinced that continuing to shelter Hamas was a risk too great to bear.
Qatar and Jordan might have been off-limits to Israeli assassinations, and Iran too up until Haniyeh’s death, but Europe was a different story. European moral equivalence, progressivism, and naivete made the continent a playground for Palestinian and Islamist terrorists alike. Diplomats might denounce both terrorists’ tactics and their attacks, but, when push comes to shove, they do little to stop them. Israeli officials know they are unlikely to be caught operating inside Europe, but, even if they are, consequences will be minimal. In the war against terrorism, neither terrorists nor their targets take European diplomats seriously.
A big question mark now hangs over Turkey. In 1949, Turkey became the first Muslim country to recognize Israel. Under Turgut Ozal’s tenure as prime minister and president from 1983 to 1993, the security partnership between Israel and Turkey grew strong. There could be no discussion of carrying out assassinations on Turkish soil because Turkey would never host terrorists.
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That changed under Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a Muslim Brotherhood acolyte who despises both Jews and Israel and sees Hamas as a righteous religious and liberation movement. Erdogan invited Hamas to Turkey in 2006. Over subsequent years, he has not only given Hamas diplomatic and financial support, but he has also sought to ship weaponry to the group. Nor is Hamas alone. After Turkish journalists exposed Turkey supplying al Qaeda affiliates in Syria, Erdogan responded by arresting the journalists. Captured Islamic State officials and documents expose secret Turkish support for the group.
Turkey may believe it can act with impunity due to its illusion of strength and NATO membership. Terrorists see Istanbul and Ankara as playgrounds where they can relax and regroup, safe from drones and assassins. Perhaps those days should now be over. Erdogan cannot complain: His own government openly kidnaps and assassinates opponents across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Haniyeh died in Tehran. Hamas’s next leader is as likely to die in Ankara.
Michael Rubin is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.