Strikes’ price: Israel’s shocking Doha attack

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0:40Hello, and welcome to The Intelligence from The Economist. I'm Rosie Blore. And I'm Jason Palmer. Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world.

0:55I eat chocolate every day, so this story is close to my stomach. Cocoa prices are now so high that scientists are developing lab-grown beans. Question is, are they as good as the real thing? And people thinking of having a little holiday in America might have thought twice about it this year. Has all of the tumult of Trump 2 had an effect on tourism numbers? It's a complicated question, so we put one of our brilliant data folks on it.

1:31But first... The End The End The End

1:41The End In Doha, the capital of Qatar yesterday, explosions. Very unexpected explosions. Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Israeli airstrikes pummeled a building north of the city's center. Smoke filled the skyline. The target of the fighter jets, Israel says, was senior Hamas leaders. Hamas says six people were killed, including a member of the Qatari security forces. What may also have been fatally wounded were near-term negotiations for peace in Gaza, and the sense that Qatar was a safe place to carry them out. I was shocked when the news started coming in on Tuesday, and everyone that I know in the region was shocked.

2:32Greg Karlstrom is a Middle East correspondent for The Economist. There was a real sense that an attack on Qatar was a red line. It was a taboo that Israel was not going to break, that America was going to prevent Israel from breaking. And so when it turned out that Israel had indeed carried out an airstrike in the middle of the afternoon in Doha, it was a shock to everyone in this region. So why did it happen? And do we have a sense for the motivations, the plan, the tactics? We know why Israel wanted to target these Hamas officials, because they've been very clear since October 7th that they viewed any member of the group anywhere in the world as being a target.

3:15So the desire to strike at these leaders was there. Why they did it, though, at this particular moment, we don't have a clear answer yet from the Israeli government. Obviously, this happened at a time when there were ongoing ceasefire negotiations about the most recent proposal that Donald Trump presented several days ago. The Hamas leadership had convened in Doha to discuss this. You had people who flew in from Turkey, flew in from other countries. And so in some sense, perhaps there was an opportunity because everyone was gathered in the same place. And the Israelis have said that they acted as a result.

3:56And according to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, this was an Israeli operation, in his words. He said Israel initiated it, Israel conducted it, and carried it out independently. Now, they were meeting in the same place, exactly the same place, where they celebrated this savagery almost two years ago. At the beginning of the war, I promised that Israel would reach those who perpetrated this horror. And today, Israel and I have kept that promise. And so what do we know about whether this mission accomplished its goal? We don't really know as we're having this conversation. Hamas put out a statement on Tuesday night, several hours after the attack, saying that its leaders who were targeted in this strike had survived.

4:49That means people like Khalil al-Hayah, who was the chief negotiator, or Hamas. He was one of the targets of this strike. He is said to have survived, but we haven't seen or heard from him since. So there's no definitive proof. Israeli officials, I think notably, have been very cautious in their statements. Usually when they've assassinated members of Hamas, members of other groups, they have rushed to declare that those people were killed. They haven't done that. in this case, they're not making any claims about who lived or who died. So we don't have an answer to that yet. But we know that lower ranking members of the group were killed.

5:26One of them, Hayat's son, another was the director of his office. At least five people from Hamas killed, according to the group, and at least one member of the Qatari security forces also killed in the strike. And that's going to make this already quite significant event, I think, even bigger for the Qataris, the fact that one of their nationals was killed. But as you hinted before, the who almost matters less than the where for this attack. It does. If you look back over the past two years, Israel has struck at Hamas across the region, Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iran. They have carried out a wide ranging campaign of assassinations, but they have not targeted the Hamas leadership in Qatar, even though that country for many years now has hosted the political leaders of Hamas.

6:14Part of the reason they haven't done that is because Qatar has served as a mediator for these ongoing ceasefire negotiations. And the other reason is that, of course, Qatar is a very close American ally. It hosts the regional headquarters of America's Central Command, a large American airbase, gifted Donald Trump a new plane a couple of months ago. And because of its closeness to the United States, it was essentially seen as off limits for a long time. Obviously, that calculus no longer there on the part of the Israeli government. They are accusing Qatar of hosting and harboring Hamas for a long time.

6:52And it's true, Qatar has done that. But I think it's important to mention they've done that with the encouragement of the United States, which thought Qatar was a useful conduit for talks with Hamas over the years. And before October 7th, that even happened with the tacit ascent of the Israeli government, which allowed Qatar to bring tens of millions of dollars each month into Gaza, money that helped to support the Hamas-run government there. Both America and Israel were for a long time willing to tolerate Qatar hosting the leaders of Hamas. And I think now that whole premise, not just when it comes to Hamas, but when it comes to other Islamist groups or militant groups where Qatar tries to play mediator, that has been a central tenet of their foreign policy for many years.

7:34I think seeing their territory bombed by Israel is going to call into question whether that is a viable approach to foreign policy for the Qataris. So with all that in mind, this must not have best pleased the Americans. That is the message that we're getting from the Americans. A few hours after the attack on Tuesday, Caroline Levitt, the White House press secretary, read out a very carefully worded statement that suggested that America was only notified once this attack was already underway and that by the time they told the Qataris about it, essentially it was too late to do anything about it.

8:09Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard in bravely taking risks with us to broker peace, does not advance Israel or America's goals. However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal. And then we heard similar language from other White House officials and from Trump himself. They're all trying to push the story that they didn't know in advance. But honestly, no one in the region believes that story. It seems very implausible that Israel would not have notified the United States before carrying out an attack on a close American partner.

8:53The American explanation is just seen as spin in the Gulf. And so that is also, I think, one of the long-term consequences of this. It's going to reinforce these existing fears in the Gulf about American security guarantees. They've already been attacked in recent years, Gulf countries, by Iran, by Iranian-backed militias. Now they've been attacked by Israel as well, and their American security guarantor doesn't seem to be able to do much about it. I mean, it changes the calculus, as you say, about security guarantees, but also about the perception, any that was left, that America might rein Israel in.

9:29It does. I mean, there's this remarkable sense that America almost looks like the junior partner in its relationship with Israel, whether it knew about this strike in advance, either it could not or would not restrain Israel from attacking one of its closest allies in the Middle East. And whatever it is Trump says now about being upset, being shocked, being infuriated. We've had almost two years of similar leaks from first the Biden administration and then the Trump administration. And yet at no point have they actually moved to restrain Israel in Gaza or to a large extent elsewhere around the region.

10:07And that's ultimately a question of choice, a question of political will. If America wanted to restrain Israel, which relies entirely on the U.S. for military resupply, for diplomatic support, If America wanted to restrain Israel, it could. It is choosing not to. And presumably the discussion at this stage of peace negotiations for Gaza is nearly dead in the water, on pause? I think that's a very safe assumption. Whether or not the leaders of Hamas survive this attack, it's hard to see them immediately coming back to the negotiating table. I think there's also a very real possibility that Qatar now is going to step away from its role as mediator, which means if and when these talks resume, they're going to shift to Cairo.

10:52Perhaps it will be other Hamas officials who were involved in those talks. But all of that is in the future. I think right now this proposal that had been on the table in recent days that Donald Trump was insistent that both Israel and Hamas needed to accept, I think that proposal is not going anywhere for now. Greg, thanks very much for joining us. Thank you, Jason.

11:34Theobroma Theobroma means food of the gods. It forms the first half of the scientific name of a very fickle tree. The second half is cacao. Annie Crable is one of our news editors. By the time it was given that name in 1753, rich Europeans were already worshipping the seeds of the cocoa tree. Three centuries later, demand is still climbing, but supply can't keep up. Annie, I am myself a worshipper of the seeds of the cocoa tree, but I don't think I know much about it. Tell me a bit. Cocoa is grown on these squat little trees in pods, and they are pretty fragile crops. They have to be grown in the tropical belt, so 20 degrees north and south of the equator, so largely in Latin America and West Africa.

12:34These are places that are already disproportionately impacted by climate change. And cocoa production contributes to deforestation. It's one of the environmental externalities associated with the cocoa industry. It's been hard to solve these problems. There have been some voluntary sustainability initiatives that companies have agreed to take on, for example, but they've had pretty limited effect. But Annie, as you say, we still just can't get enough chocolate. Yes. So starting in late 2023, there has been a severe shortage. This stemmed from the cocoa crop in Cote d 'Ivoire and Ghana, and these countries produce about 70 % of the world's cocoa.

13:17So a combination of crop disease, climate change, poor farming practices, they caused a massive shortage and cocoa prices hit a record high in December 2024. Since then, they've come down a little bit. They've settled at about triple what they were in August 2023. So the price of cocoa has been really volatile and the share prices of big chocolate companies like Barry Calibo and Nestle have also been pretty volatile. So you say the prices have been volatile, but how are the big producers dealing with this supply shortage? They've raised prices for consumers and they've leaned into some of their chocolate-free candies like gummies or cappuccino-flavored Kit Kats.

14:08And they've started to look into some cocoa alternatives that have emerged too. So Lindt, for example, which is a big Swiss chocolate company, last year created a chocolate bar with a German company called Planet A Foods, and they use sunflower seeds instead of cocoa beans. They roast and ferment the sunflower seeds to basically mimic the taste of cocoa. Even crazier is what a few startups in the United States and Israel and Europe are doing, which is lab-grown cocoa. So you take a plant cell, you grow and feed and ferment those cells in a bioreactor, which is basically like a tank, and you produce cocoa from these cells.

14:57Last year, Mondelez, which is a big snack company, they own Cadbury, for example, and Toblerone. They invested in Celeste Bio, which is an Israeli startup. And they're doing lab-grown cultivated chocolate, and they're focusing on creating the cocoa butter. So that's basically the fatty bit of the cocoa bean that gives chocolate its really nice texture. Barry Calabo in July announced that they were going to partner with Swiss academics who are working on lab-grown cocoa technology. And then there's an American company called California Cultured. They've been around for about five years, and they have a variety of different offerings.

15:37None of them are available to purchase yet, but they say they have cracked dark chocolate, which has fewer filler ingredients, for example, than milk chocolate, harder to hide any weird flavors or textures there. And is any of this a viable solution? If any of this proves scalable, the lab-grown chocolate in particular, you would be able to avoid some of those environmental issues that are associated with the traditional agricultural cocoa industry that I was talking about earlier. The question is if they can get this technology to scale cheaply. There is a cautionary tale, which is lab-grown meat.

16:16So in 2021 and 2022, investors were really excited about lab-grown meat. It had over a billion dollars in investment in 2021, for example, and it just has not managed to get regulatory approval broadly. They have not managed to nail the texture, for example. They haven't managed to scale it cheaply, which is the most important thing. And in the meantime, there's been a consumer backlash, which especially in the United States, Some Republican-controlled states, for example, have preemptively banned lab-grown meat, even though it's not even available on the shelves. So you have technological constraints, you have regulatory constraints, and you have consumer reception challenges.

17:05So the key for lab-grown chocolate will be to avoid all of that. People I've talked to say that the technology is simpler, it's cheaper, and you're not creating necessarily an end product. It might not have the same ick factor for consumers. It doesn't threaten a domestic industry in the context of the United States. There's no cocoa that we grow here that would drive people out of business like meat might in the context of ranchers. So it probably won't become a culture war fixation, but that's what the lab-grown cocoa industry has to overcome. And Annie, the all-important question is, how does it taste?

17:43I've tried the sunflower seed alternative by Planet A Foods, and it's pretty convincing. As a milk chocolate substitute, it often will be combined with nuts or pretzels or something like that. And I can imagine big chocolate companies are excited to sink their teeth into an easier alternative. The real test is going to be dark chocolate bars. Those 72%, 80 % for serious chocoholics will meet their test to be determined. I look forward to trying it. Annie, thank you so much. Thank you so much, Rosie.

18:44After years of restrictions during COVID-19, tourism has finally taken off worldwide. The industry has managed to get back to pretty much pre-pandemic levels. But in the US, international tourists seem to be losing interest.

19:05America has dominated news headlines over the past year. But for the tourist sector, it seems that not all publicity is good publicity. Using analysis from America's International Trade Administration, a government agency, we found that international visitors arriving at American airports are down by 3.8 % compared with the same period in 2024. That's 1.3 million fewer people visiting the US. The most dramatic fall so far this year has come from Canada. So far this year, 7.4 % fewer people arrived by plane on Canadian flights. The difference is even larger over the summer. Arrivals were down by 13.2 % compared with 2024.

19:47And car crossings have dropped off too. In June, they were a third lower than last year. This is probably a result of many Canadians boycotting trips to America and American products after the trade war and Trump's comments about making Canada into the 51st state. Many people have been vocal about this. We have some friends from Canada, and they used to come every winter, spend time with us, and they no longer come. They just don't want to come because of the thing with Canada. But as well as fewer arrivals from Canada, there was also a drop in arrivals from Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia.

20:26So what we saw in the data was that large cities seemed to have had the biggest drops. So at Boston Logan and Chicago O 'Hare airports, there was a roughly 8 % fall in international arrivals compared with the same period last year. In JFK, in New York, there was a 7 % fall. But on the other hand, resort locations in Florida, like Orlando and Tampa, have actually had more international tourists this year than they had last year.

20:58So the big picture is the travel and tourism make up around 3 % of America's GDP. So losing international tourists could be really costly. But so far this year, hotel operators say that higher spending from wealthy domestic tourists has actually helped to offset some of these losses. But there's another trend going on. Domestic tourists are also going to other parts of the world more than they did last year. International flights are up by around 2.9 % compared with 2024. In 2024, around 22 % more Americans flew abroad than foreigners came into the country. This year, it's 27%. So for President Trump, who is obsessed with trade imbalances, more Americans spending their hard-earned money abroad and fewer tourists spending it at home should be worrying.

22:08That's all for this episode of The Intelligence. We'll see you back here tomorrow.