A core misunderstanding surrounds Israel’s counterterrorism strike in Qatar. It suggests that a state’s sovereignty is always absolute, and that any intrusion on this “highest authority” is automatically a crime. In fact, any notion of absolute sovereignty is a contradiction in terms.

If it were otherwise, states could never be meaningfully bound by international law. And the law could never represent anything more than a passive reflection of military power.

Today, it’s the particulars that matter most. In a world legal order that mandates punishment of terror crimes—“No crime without a punishment” is Principle 1 of the 1950 Nuremberg Principles—each state is obliged to cooperate against such offenses. Accordingly, no state is ever entitled to grant safe haven to terrorists on its terri

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