Two things right off the bat.

First, Israel’s a rogue state now.

Second, brazen assassinations and assassination attempts are a calling card of Mossad. Standard operating procedure. If you’re an enemy of the Israeli state, you’re not safe anywhere. You could die at any time. And unlike America, Israel doesn’t bluff and doesn’t get too distracted to forget how badly they want to kill you. If you end up on a hit list at Mossad, the only way you won’t be killed by Israel is if somebody or something else kills you first.

Israel’s assassinated so many high-ranking political and military officials from Iran’s largely defunct “Axis of Resistance” over the last two years that even I’ve lost count. Actually, that’s not true. As regular readers will attest, I’ve documented each and every such assassination known to, or suspected by, the public. My point is just that if this weren’t a special interest of mine, I would’ve lost count.

One of those assassinations was Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas’s politburo who Israel sent up (or down, probably) while he was hanging out in Tehran at a “safe”house, late last summer. At the time, I called the Haniyeh assassination “wild,” and certainly not because it was out of the ordinary for Mossad to pick off a sworn enemy of the Israeli state.

Rather, Haniyeh’s killing was risky because he was somewhat unique in retaining a measure of genuine respect among the military leadership in Gaza (Haniyeh was a diehard Hamas lifer whose membership in the group dated to the beginning, during the First Intifada) despite his transition to life as a political elite operating on the group’s behalf from the plush confines of de facto asylum in Qatar.

If you wanted to negotiate with Yahya Sinwar, you needed Haniyeh alive. Otherwise you risked a scenario where the armed terrorists in Gaza (the ones doing the fighting and holding the prisoners) lost even more respect for their pampered compatriots in Doha, effectively leaving you to negotiate with two groups, one of which is semi-rational and reachable, the other irrational and unreachable.

Haniyeh’s assassination also stood out as remarkable because of the venue and the timing. Targeting him in the Iranian capital was an escalation in itself. The fact that he was in town for the inauguration of new Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian was insult to injury.

But there was a reason Mossad chose Tehran. If you’re going to kill members of Hamas’s politburo, your options are pretty limited. You won’t catch them in Gaza. They don’t go there. They do go to Istanbul, but you can’t assassinate them in Turkey. Recep Tayyip Erdogan would lose his mind. So, you’re left with Iran and Qatar. But Qatar’s a kind of Mideast Switzerland (albeit with a nefarious leadership). It’s off limits for assassinations. Or at least it’s supposed to be.

On Tuesday, we learned (or relearned) that what’s “supposed to be” the case is totally irrelevant for the current Israeli government which conducted an airstrike targeting Hamas’s politburo in Doha. Note the emphasis. The fate of Khalil al-Hayya, the group’s chief negotiator and ranking member following the death of Haniyeh and Sinwar, was disputed. Unverified reports suggested he was killed in the strike. Hamas said otherwise.

A spokesperson for Benjamin Netanyahu described the strike as “a wholly independent operation.” In other words: There was no US involvement, or at least not in the actual logistics. “Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it and Israel takes full responsibility,” Netanyahu’s office said, emphatically, in an amusingly transparent attempt to preemptively exonerate Donald Trump.

On Monday, Trump issued what he called an ultimatum to Hamas. “Everyone wants the Hostages HOME. Everyone wants this War to end! The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well,” he said. “I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!” So, even as the US military didn’t participate in the strike, Trump knew what was coming.

Qatar was unamused. The IDF acted “recklessly and cowardly,” the foreign ministry chided, noting that the strike targeted a residential building. I’d caution against assuming the Qatari leadership was completely in the dark about Tuesday’s events if for no other reason than Qatar isn’t in the dark about much.

I’ve said this a lot, and I’ll say it again here: The Qataris are ruthlessly conniving. “A double-dealing, scheming bunch,” as I put it in May, while discussing their $400 million flying bribe to Trump. If they have any principles, I’m not aware of them. That’s not to suggest they’d sell out Hamas after all these years hosting the group’s politburo but… well, stranger things have happened. I’ll just leave that there.

In the same statement, the Qatari foreign ministry accused the Israelis of committing a “criminal assault [in] blatant violation of all international laws and norms.” That’s, um, nothing new to the IDF. Tuesday’s events represent “a serious threat to the security and safety of Qataris and residents in Qatar,” the ministry went on.

Expressions of disbelief — feigned and otherwise — aside, this didn’t come out of the blue. In addition to Israel’s reputation for brazen assassinations, the IDF’s alluded repeatedly this year to killing Hamas’s political leaders. Wherever they are. For example, Israel Katz threatened to kill al-Hayya in May, and just yesterday he said the IDF intended to “annihilate” the group’s leadership outside of Gaza. I suppose this is what he meant.

Regionally, this is problematic for a number of reasons. It’ll be another blow to Israel’s (apparently disingenuous) pretensions to normalizing relations with all of its neighbors except Iran. Qatar’s willingness to harbor Hamas has always been a point of contention, but making threats against the politburo and actually bombing Doha are two different things.

Qatar’s had its problems with the Saudis and the UAE, but just as the Arab world was disturbed to see Israeli war planes bombing Iran at will, so too will the region be unnerved by an IDF airstrike on Doha.

Less importantly, this could damage Doha’s reputation as a travel destination. Nobody goes there expecting to be blown up. It’s not Aleppo. If you look up “What to do in Qatar,” “Fight the holy wars” isn’t on any top 10 lists.

Finally, assuming the Qatari leadership was indeed in the dark about this strike, it’s going to piss them off, particularly as it relates to Trump and that silly plane they gifted him. He knew about this strike, and if a luxury-fitted Boeing isn’t worth a heads up, well then maybe the next time Washington needs a go-between in the region, The House of Thani won’t be as helpful.

Remember: Qatar hosts the Al Udeid Air Base, otherwise known as the largest American military installation in the region. That base was “targeted” (not really; it was a stage-managed, face-saving exercise) by Iran in June. Tuesday thus marks the second time in three months that the Israel-Iran soap opera resulted in bombs falling on Qatar.

Coming full circle, Israel’s out of control. Just in general. It’s not so much that any one act is unjustified or can’t be justified if you employ an expansive interpretation of retributive right. Rather, it’s that the Israelis are routinely acting outside of, and without regard for, the formal and informal boundaries which govern wartime behavior.

Far from being held to any unreasonably high standard, as the likes of Katz routinely complain, the world lets Israel get away on the daily with acts any one of which would be viewed as intolerable if perpetrated by almost any other nation.