Trump treads a fine line on Qatar and Israel

Oops. The White House is claiming that President Trump directed the ubiquitous Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar that Israel was going to strike Hamas headquarters in Doha. But Qatari officials denied that they received any such warning.

“What happened today is state terrorism and an attempt to destabilize regional security and stability, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading the region to an irreversible level,” Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani stated in a televised address. “These missiles were used to attack the negotiating delegation of the other party. By what moral standards is this acceptable?”

Trump himself has been a study in inconsistency on the Israeli effort to target the Hamas leadership. On the one hand, he declared on social media that “unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a Sovereign Nation and close Ally of the United States, that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker Peace, does not advance Israel or America’s goals.” On the other, he averred that “eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”

The reason Trump is trying to spit the difference is, of course, that he wants to placate an aggrieved Qatar without openly denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Trump’s caution may also be ascribed to the fact that there is no evidence that the attack was successful. Hamas is claiming that none of its senior leaders were killed. If so, the move was worse than a crime, to borrow Talleyrand’s famous phrase. It was a blunder.

Trump has indicated to Al Thani that there will be no second strike, thereby ensuring that Hamas can operate with impunity. White House spokesman Karoline Leavitt says that Trump told Al Thani, “such a thing will not happen again on their soil.” Meanwhile, the fate of the hostages held by Hamas looks even more tenuous.

Writing in the Washington Post, David Ignatius pointed out that “By undermining diplomatic options for ending the conflict, Israel has narrowed its path forward. Its only choice now might be military reoccupation of most of Gaza – something that Israeli officials say they badly want to avoid.” Some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet may be jonesing to occupy Gaza and extrude its inhabitants into Egypt. But whether Netanyahu himself wants to pursue that path is an open question. He may have reckoned that he could score a big success by blasting the leadership of Hamas into oblivion, then claim a grand victory over the terrorists who have been menacing Israel.

Instead, he has created a chorus of international obloquy, as France, Germany and Great Britain, among others, denounce the Israeli move. In Trump’s own MAGA base dissatisfaction with Israel is mounting. At the recent National Conservatism conference in Washington, for example, American Conservative editor Curt Mills created something of a furor with his criticisms of the close ties between Israel and America. Mills asked, “Why are these our wars? Why are Israel’s endless problems America’s liabilities? Why are we in the national conservative bloc, broadly speaking, why do we laugh out of the room this argument when it’s advanced by Volodymyr Zelenskyy but are slavish hypocrites for Benjamin Netanyahu? Why should we accept America First – asterisk Israel? And the answer is, we shouldn’t.”

With his attack on Doha, Netanyahu has ensured that the debate over Israel and America will only intensify. Quo vadis, Donald Trump?