Donald Trump condemns Israel’s strike against the leader of Hamas in Qatar
Donald Trump sharply condemned Israel’s bombings on Hamas leaders in Doha, saying that he “doesn’t advance Israeli or the American goals.”
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WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (Reuters) – Four months ago, President Donald Trump met with Qatar leaders, praised his gorgeous palace and signed a fundamental defence agreement with the Gulf Monarchy, the key ally that hosts the largest US base in the Middle East.
Israel’s surprise attack on Tuesday on Hamas leaders in Doha shook the relationship, angered Trump and elicited fierce criticism from Doha and its western allies.
Ordered by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, targeting the political offices of Palestinian extremist groups, the strike killed Qatari security agents and five other people, but failed to kill Hamas leaders. Trump said he was “very unhappy about every aspect of Israeli operations.”
But for all Dig stations, a strike is unlikely to change the president’s basic approach to Israel, analysts and US officials say. If anything, the bombing underscored the cold calculus under Trump Netanyahu’s relationship.
Israel shows that it is not afraid to oppose our interests. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration did not formally warn Washington about the impending bombing campaign on Tuesday, US officials said.
That lack of warning reminded me of Israel’s attack on Hezbollah. Without notifying then-President Joe Biden, Israel injured thousands of extremist groups in a pager where Israel was trapped in a booby.
Trump, on his part, occasionally expressed his dissatisfaction with Netanyahu. However, his administration strongly supported Israel’s campaign to undermine Hamas and allowed him to lead key issues such as Iran’s nuclear program.
“I think Trump is plagued by Netanyahu’s tactics on this,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Fund for International Peace and U.S. Peace Negotiations for Veterans.
But Miller says, “(Trump’s) instinct is that Hamas agrees with Netanyahu’s notion that as a military organization, it cannot simply be hollowed out. It means that it needs to be fundamentally weakened.”
Requested for comment, the White House introduced Trump to his true society statement on Tuesday night, telling Reuters that the bombing would not advance our or Israeli interests.
“However, Trump wrote, “It is a valuable goal to eliminate Hamas, who benefited from the misery of those living in Gaza.”
The Israeli Embassy in Washington did not respond to a request for comment.
There is no rupture
Some analysts refused to rule out the possibility that Netanyahu would still exhaust Trump’s patience if he brought even more surprises in Washington. In reality, it could mean the withdrawal of political cover against Israel’s continued invasion of Gaza.
Israel’s military campaign in the Palestinian enclave was triggered by a Hamas-led rampage in southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
“They are doing so now because his Arab friends complain to him about what Israel is doing – he might tell them a reliable plan to replace Hamas that runs Hamas the next day in Gaza.
Israel’s strike on Doha could curb Trump’s hopes for Gulf countries to join the Abraham agreement to join more Gulf countries. This is a groundbreaking agreement mediated by his first administration, where several Arab countries developed diplomatic relations with Israel.
Still, a burst between the two men appears unlikely, says Michael Oren, a former US ambassador to Israel, thanking Trump for his strength and dealings to end the war.
“If Netanyahu can continue to appeal to both sides of this president, he will be fine. I’m not worried about the relationship,” Oren said.
It’s hot and cold
The Trump Netanyahu partnership has seen its ups and downs, authorities acknowledge.
“It’s been hot and cold since the campaign,” said a senior White House official.
In May, Trump traveled Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates during his first major foreign trip, skipping Israel, which many analysts considered a snub. The Republican president took office in January and has pledged to reinvigorate relations with Netanyahu, which had deteriorated under his Democratic predecessor.
During that trip, Trump agreed to lift sanctions against the new Syrian government at the request of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It warned Israeli officials questioning the motivations of former al-Qaeda commander, Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharara.
However, just a month later, the Trump Netanyahu Alliance appeared to be back on track. After Israel launched an air force with Iran in June, Trump campaigned to end foreign conflicts, but even some of his own political allies were surprised by sending B-2 bombers to partially destroy Iran’s major nuclear facilities.
If it produced goodwill within Netanyahu’s administration, it would not benefit Trump’s foreign policy interests, at least in the short term.
A few days later, Trump blasphemed Iran and Israel for breaking a US-brokered ceasefire. In July, the US appeared to be criticizing Israel’s strike in Damascus, which destroyed parts of Syria’s defense ministry. And on Tuesday, Israel notified the US just before Qatar’s strike but had no coordination or approval with Washington, two U.S. officials said.
“The United States can make decisions by asking Israel to cajole to make decisions,” said Jonathan Panikov, former deputy US national intelligence officer in the Middle East. “But Netanyahu will continue to act as if he sees it as Israel’s greatest interest.”
(Reporting by Gram Slattery, Steve Holland and Matt Spetalnick, Additional Reports by Jonathan Landai and Emily Rose of Washington, Jerusalem, Edited by Don Darfey and Alistair Bell)
