Israel bombed Qatar’s capital, Doha, on September 9, killing six Hamas members. To this point, Qatar was one of the few places in the Middle East Hamas was safe from Israel. Now that assurance is shattered. Israel has shown itself willing to attack Hamas’s headquarters in a country hosting America’s largest overseas base. If Hamas isn’t safe in Qatar, it isn’t safe anywhere.

“We went after the terrorist masterminds who committed the October 7 massacre,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the following day. “And we did so in Qatar, which gives safe haven; it harbors terrorists; it finances Hamas; it gives its terrorist chieftains sumptuous villas; it gives them everything. … And I say to Qatar and all the nations who harbor terrorists, you either expel them or you will bring them to justice. Because if you don’t, we will.”

Israel targeted a meeting with Hamas’s top brass. Present at the meeting were leader Khaled Mashal, chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya and exiled West Bank leader Zaher Jabarin. According to Hamas, only five lower-ranking people died, plus a Qatari security official. However, media reports suggest two senior leaders were wounded, one in critical condition. These leaders are thus far unnamed.

Qatar’s close relationship with the United States, combined with its facade as an international mediator, has made it seem untouchable. While Israel has infiltrated Iran, Lebanon and other enemies, Qatar’s relationships with the West have protected it. Calling out Qatar for sponsoring terrorism—Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and the Taliban—was taboo.

The World Reacts

Qatar called Israel’s strike “a criminal attack” that “constitutes a flagrant violation of all international laws and norms and a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents of Qatar.” Apparently, Qatar’s decades of sponsoring some of the world’s most notorious terrorist groups do not “constitute flagrant violations of international laws and norms.”

The rest of the world also attacked Israel. French President Emmanuel Macron said the attack against Qatar was “unacceptable, whatever the reason may be.” He added that “war must under no circumstances spread in the region.” British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also condemned “Israel’s strikes on Doha, which violate Qatar’s sovereignty.” Spain called the strike “a violation of Qatari territorial sovereignty and a flagrant breach of international law.” In her State of the Union speech, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for suspending free trade with Israel.

Some of these countries have carried out frequent strikes against terrorist groups abroad. Nobody complains when Britain bombs Yemen’s Houthis or France fights jihadists in West Africa. Even in the invasion of Gaza, as much as the international community condemns Israel for its real and imagined treatment of civilians, few in the West fault Israel for fighting Hamas directly. They only fault Israel’s war on Hamas when it implicates Qatar.

Qatar has a well-documented history of buying influence in the U.S. government. It has similar links with Europe. Last year, President Macron proudly announced €10 billion (us$11.7 billion) of Qatari investment into French start-ups and investment funds. In 2023, Starmer visited Qatar in a Qatari-sponsored private jet. In 2022, European Parliament Vice President Eva Kaili was arrested for accepting bribes from Qatar.

At the very least, Europe’s vehement defense of Qatar suggests a conflict of interest.

The big question is whether the U.S. had any involvement. At the moment, this is ambiguous. U.S. President Donald Trump claims to have only found out about the attack after it started. Since then, anonymous government sources have given conflicting accounts of the president’s involvement, from personally green-lighting the attack to lambasting Prime Minister Netanyahu for it.

Regardless, what Netanyahu did was very bold. If he had U.S. support, he still would have expected the rest of the world to gang up on Israel. If he didn’t, then he would have the entire world against him. And he still gave the order.

The Lion Is Still Rising

After Netanyahu attacked Iran in June, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry called him “Israel’s rising lion.” He wrote: “The Israelis needed a strong leader who would really fight in that war, and Netanyahu delivered. He did nothing less than break Lebanon’s ties with Iran. What he did to Hezbollah, he has now done, to the best of his ability, to Iran’s nuclear program …. Netanyahu has fought and won like no Israeli prime minister for quite some time. He has the will to fight, fight, fight for his nation.”

Netanyahu has shown the world how to successfully combat radical Islam. Israel, under his watch, went from being attacked from almost all borders to sending every one of its radical Islamist enemies into hiding. Even previously untouchable Qatar is no longer immune.

What does this have to do with those who live outside the Middle East?

Israel shouldn’t be as successful as it has been. Iran and Qatar are the world’s largest state sponsors of Islamist terrorism. People join Hamas and Hezbollah because they believe dying is a noble end so long as they take Jews with them. The global community has used some powerful levers to pressure Netanyahu to stand down, even putting out an international arrest warrant for him. Yet not only are Prime Minister Netanyahu and the State of Israel surviving this onslaught, they are winning. They are riding on success after success. They arguably have even more power, prestige and influence than before the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre by Hamas.

Why?

“The Lion of the tribe of Judah [Jesus Christ, Revelation 5:5] saved Britain in World War ii,” Mr. Flurry wrote. “The Western world could have lost everything, but God protected them! God prepared Churchill in a special way to stand in Hitler’s path of destruction. If Britain had lost to Adolf Hitler, that madman would have conquered the world. … Look at the state of Israel today, and it is clear that Benjamin Netanyahu is fulfilling that role in the Jewish state.”

God made a covenant with ancient Israel to fight its battles: “And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you” (Leviticus 26:7-9). The State of Israel is a descendant of those ancient Israelites. God conditioned the blessings of Leviticus on obedience to His law (verses 1-3), and modern Israel has many societal ills contrary to God’s ways. But God’s name is still on the State of Israel. Israelis still have some pride and respect for that name and their national history with God. It is no coincidence that the State of Israel is seeing victories today reminiscent of the ones the Bible describes for God’s people.

But there is a deeper reason God is blessing the Jewish state.

Behold Your God

God no longer sends countless prophets to warn Judah, but He still has plans for the State of Israel. Isaiah 40:9-10 show God commissions a message to tell “the cities of Judah, Behold your God!” Matthew 24:15-16 show that God would have people deliver His message to the Jewish state before the Second Coming of Christ. The work of God has a job to do in Israel.

Radical Islam’s current invasion of Israel does not start the “countdown to Armageddon.” But it does get in the way of finishing God’s work. Members of God’s Church were observing His annual holy days in Jerusalem when the October 7 attack happened, forcing God’s people to flee as refugees. God’s work sponsors an archaeological dig that had to be postponed because of the war. When Celtic Throne, a show sponsored by God’s Church that shows the history of David’s throne through song and dance, toured Israel earlier this year, it had to cancel two of its shows because of Iranian missiles.

2 Kings 14:26-28 is an end-time prophecy of America and Israel having severe problems that threaten to blot them out. (Mr. Flurry’s free book America Under Attack explains this in detail.) Verse 28 includes Judah, or the Jewish state today, in the context of a war of recovery.

“From the time of Joe Biden’s inauguration,” Mr. Flurry writes in America Under Attack, “I predicted that we would have more Palestinian terrorist attacks because of the change in leadership. That is exactly what began to happen. Anybody should be able to recognize why! God is wrathful about this. If this continues, it will end very badly! You see how important it is that somebody ‘recover’ something.”

Mr. Flurry continues:

There is also a connection here to God’s work. Isaiah 40:9 shows that God’s Church in this end time has a message that must be delivered to “the cities of Judah”: “Behold your God!” Much of that message revolves around our archaeological discoveries …. This work has a vitally important message that the Jews need to hear as a witness in this end time!

Satan knows this. He and his Antiochus are working fiercely to blot out our message, which is the ultimate expression of “the name of Israel.”

Mr. Flurry predicts a program “to recover some of Judah’s freedom for God’s Church to even be able to deliver God’s message to the cities of Judah.”

Israel still has much to do in winning this war against radical Islam. But Hamas is on the cusp of defeat. Iran and Hezbollah have been beaten to submission. Now even Qatar has reason to be afraid.

Hamas is the primary instigator of the current conflict. Its top leadership is no longer safe in its capital-in-exile. If Hamas is this vulnerable, it probably doesn’t have much time before it loses the war.

“God has a warning for the modern-day nations of Israel,” Mr. Flurry wrote in “Netanyahu: Israel’s Rising Lion,” “and He has commanded a man to deliver it!”

He continued:

Prophecy shows that the threats facing our world will grow worse—and no political leader can solve them. … The success that Israel has had with Operation Rising Lion is going to give way to the end of the watchman work of a man chosen by the people. Then, there will be only one watchman message left—that of God’s watchman, before the worst suffering ever on Earth!

As Israel continues to have success fighting back against radical Islam, expect God’s work to have a stronger presence in Israel—with a powerful message of the true meaning of world events.

To learn more, read “Netanyahu: Israel’s Rising Lion.”