Netanyahu’s attack on Qatar makes Trump look weak in Mideast eyes
Israel's strike on a U.S. ally upends Donald Trump's "peace efforts," but buttresses his "Gaza Riviera" plan.
Here’s what Israel’s misbegotten military strike on Hamas leaders in Qatar did and didn’t do.
It didn’t kill those leaders, who were gathered to discuss Donald Trump’s latest peace proposal in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which is a U.S. Gulf ally that hosts America’s biggest air base in the Mideast.
It did kill any slim chance for future Israel-Hamas peace talks on ending the war and Hamas rule in Gaza. It will likely kill — i.e., lead to the death of — the 20 living Israeli hostages Hamas is holding. And it exposed the utter failure of Trump’s deluded peace plans for Gaza.
Either the president secretly greenlit the attack — undermining his own efforts and betraying the Qataris who were mediating at his request — or he was made a fool of by Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu. So far, Trump has refused to directly criticize the Israeli leader for the strike on Doha.
Either way, the attack did not advance peace, but ensured the Gaza war would continue. It signified that the Israeli government feels free to continue its efforts, apparently with Trump’s backing, to ethnically cleanse the Palestinian population out of the Gaza Strip.
The timing of the attack made clear that Netanyahu wants to wash his hands of any “peace process.”
It came just as he ordered a new offensive in Gaza aimed at driving a million people still living in and around Gaza City into small spaces in southern Gaza filled with overcrowded tent camps lacking sufficient food, water, or sanitation.
On the verge of, or already in, famine conditions due to Israeli blockage or bureaucratic hindrance of humanitarian food aid, these camps cannot possibly survive the doubling of their population.
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And, no, the starvation is not due to theft by Hamas, although there is much theft by gangs due to the Israelis’ disbanding of the Gaza police force and the United Nations distribution system. Moreover, the alternative system set up in the south by Israel under military control — with only four distribution centers — has guaranteed chaos and the daily slaughter of scores of desperate Palestinian civilians grappling for food.
Israel’s top defense officials have warned the government against undertaking the new operation in Gaza City, believing it will cause immense Israeli military casualties (never mind the slaughter of untold numbers of Palestinian civilians who are too old, too weak, or simply unable to abandon whatever shelter they still have).
The Israel Defense Forces rightly fear it will be dragged into urban guerrilla warfare in Gaza City, and ultimately be forced into a military administration of the entire strip. That is likely, since without any further negotiations to resolve Gaza’s political future, there will be no one but the IDF to keep “order.”
Having destroyed Hamas’ military structure in Gaza — a legitimate response to the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre — the IDF believes there is no point to continuing the fighting. Military leadership has argued that a hostage deal should be negotiated instead.
The desperate families of the remaining hostages believe likewise. Einav Zangauker, whose son, Matan, is being held by Hamas in Gaza, has posted on X that she is “trembling with fear” over the attack in Doha.
“It could be that at this very moment the Prime Minister has actually assassinated my Matan, sealed his fate,” she wrote.
But, unrestrained by Trump, Netanyahu has opted to continue fighting. On his orders, the IDF has begun blowing up the remaining high-rise buildings in Gaza City and appears intent on razing the rest of the urban area.
Yet, there is an even darker, Trump-fed narrative underlying Netanyahu’s decision. The Israeli leader’s right-wing political allies, whose support he needs to stay in power, openly seek the “voluntary” transfer of Gaza’s population to anywhere that will take them. They are making life so wretched that, presumably, Palestinians will feel they have no choice but to leave. Or, to put it less delicately, will be forced to leave.
These right-wing leaders, along with Netanyahu, have latched on to Trump’s shameful “Gaza Riviera of the Middle East” plan as a cover story.
In February, Trump advocated moving all Palestinians out of the strip — supposedly temporarily — while luxury condos were built along the “valuable” Gaza seafront. Right-wing Israeli politicians and settlers met in parliament in July to discuss an updated version of the Trump plan labeled “The Riviera in Gaza: from vision to reality.”
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The new plan envisions the creation of high-tech “smart cities” that trade in cryptocurrency (another Trump favorite), and the construction of 850,000 housing units — but not for Palestinians. Of course, the plan ignores the fact that no country is prepared to take in two million Gazans whose homes and possessions have been destroyed in this war.
The Washington Post reported this month that a 38-page version of the plan — which calls for paying Palestinians a pittance to leave or be confined to “restricted zones” in southern Gaza — is circulating within the Trump administration.
Which brings us back to Trump’s role in the military strike on Qatar — and in negotiations to end the Gaza war.
Having backed Netanyahu to the hilt in retaliating against Hamas and striking at Iran, the president has built up enormous political capital with Jerusalem. He could have used this leverage to push for a real peace plan, one that would have involved moderate Arab states in rebuilding Gaza. This would have been a logical follow-up to the Abraham Accords negotiated during Trump’s first term.
But such a plan would have required serious U.S. diplomacy, with skilled negotiators, not reliance on Trump’s instincts or his ill-informed real estate pal, Steve Witkoff. It would have required crafting a long-term political solution to the Palestinian question, rather than a mega real estate deal.
Instead, Trump seems to have bowed to, or been bamboozled by, Netanyahu, who is leading Israel into an endless military and humanitarian quagmire in Gaza — and making his U.S. patron look like a fool.