Israel blows up peace negotiations and makes a mess with its vital ally

Washington: Israel has pushed its luck on multiple occasions as it conducts its campaign to exterminate Hamas. This time, it may have gone too far.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu launched a brazen attack inside the sovereign territory of a key US ally, Qatar – the country that, with broad agreement from all concerned, has hosted Hamas’ political leadership since 2012 and provided a space for peace talks to take place.

Such negotiations are critical right now, with 48 hostages still held by Hamas from its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel – some alive, some dead – and Israel seemingly set on a ground invasion of Gaza City.

But Netanyahu’s strikes specifically targeted the people with whom he is supposed to be negotiating. Hamas claims top negotiator and exiled Gaza chief Khalil al-Hayya is alive, but says his son was killed.

Not only does the Doha attack seem to pull the plug on those negotiations, but it has outraged Qatar, which will be considering whether to remove itself from the peace process altogether.

Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani is already talking about “retaliation from the whole region”, accusing Netanyahu of barbarism and saying the strike is a watershed moment.

“I really think it’s counter to getting the hostages out,” said Beth Sanner, a former deputy director for national intelligence during the first Trump administration, on CNN. “My heart is breaking for the hostage families.”

Bring Them Home Now, an official group representing the families of the hostages, expressed similar fears.

“A grave fear now hangs over the price that the hostages may pay,” the group said on X.

“We know from the survivors who have returned that the revenge directed at the hostages is brutal. The chance of bringing them back now faces greater uncertainty than ever before ... The time has come to end the war.”

While some of the details are murky, it appears from the Trump administration’s account of events that there was no advanced co-ordination with the US from Israel on this attack. No wonder: you would have to think Netanyahu would have been told “no”. Qatar is a key American ally and friend.

Trump says his government was informed about the strikes by the US military, essentially as they were happening. He asked his special envoy Steve Witkoff to warn the Qataris, but it was too late. Qatar says the attack happened at 3.46pm local time and the first call from the Americans came at 3.56pm.

Matt Duss, executive vice-president of the Centre for International Policy, a progressive think tank, said the Israeli operation was “absolutely insane”.

“Israel just launched an attack on the capital of a major non-NATO US ally in the midst of US-supported negotiations against officials who were originally hosted there at the US’s request,” he said.

The White House has signalled that it’s not happy. It called the incident “unfortunate” and Trump said he felt “very badly” about the location of the attacks. He has promised Qatar it won’t happen again.

If we accept his version of events, he has surely also been embarrassed. It has been very publicly demonstrated the US cannot be relied upon to control its great partner Israel, despite the closeness of Trump and Netanyahu.

Remember, Qatar just gifted Trump a $US400 million ($607 million) Boeing 747, along with making significant investment commitments in the US.

Still, Trump is hardly giving Netanyahu both barrels. He praised the principle of the operation – destroying Hamas – and said the attack could be an opportunity for peace. That’s more like a rap on the knuckles, and inevitably raises doubts about whether the US was really in the dark about this.

It’s not like Trump always holds back. Last time Netanyahu was on the verge of doing something he didn’t like, he publicly said it showed Israel and Iran “don’t know what the f... they’re doing”.

Even if Trump moves on quickly – and the indication is he will – the negotiations are now in tatters. And the hostages may, tragically, be the first to pay the price.

Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for our weekly What in the World newsletter.