Israel’s failed attempt to wipe out Hamas’s negotiating team at their villa in Qatar reverberates long after the physical debris has been cleared; the political mess remains.
What was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s real motive? Was the attack necessary? Was it an act of revenge against the leaders of the terror organization responsible for the October 7 massacre or, more plausibly, an attempt to sabotage negotiations for a ceasefire and hostage release?
What role did the White House play? What about the Mossad, Israel’s foreign intelligence service? How does this help Israel? Was it worth it? Was it hubris after successes in Lebanon, Iran, and Syria?
What about the long-put-off investigation into the nation’s most humiliating intelligence blunder? In a few weeks, we will mark two years of war, death, and destruction in Gaza. It is overdue for the nation and the Jewish people that there be a full and independent investigation by an independent state commission of inquiry into the intelligence, security, and political failures that led to the attack.
Begin the probe
The probe can begin by asking why Netanyahu is so adamantly opposed to having it in the first place. That is bound up in his thinly disguised efforts to thwart any movement toward ending the war.
Why bomb Doha and the negotiating team now? Hamas leaders were presumably meeting to consider US President Donald Trump’s latest “last warning” to accept an essentially Israeli plan with American wrapping. Netanyahu may have decided to try to kill the negotiators because he was worried they might take Trump seriously (which he does not).
The Israeli leader has a history – shared with Hamas – of finding last-minute objections and changes to ceasefire/hostage deals because neither side really wants the war to end. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the ultra-religious leader and lynchpin of Netanyahu’s coalition, opposes a ceasefire and wants to occupy Gaza and drive out the local population. “Returning the hostages isn’t the most important goal,” he has said.
Hamas feels it is winning the global war of public opinion. It sees Israel flirting with pariah status and under intense pressure and criticism from friends and allies, including many in the American Jewish community. Israelis are angry and divided over the fate of the hostages. For Hamas, the dead Gazans are merely martyrs to the greater cause.
A recent poll showed that half of American voters believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. An even higher number want to halt sending more military aid to the Jewish state.
Trump publicly criticized the Israeli attack and sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio to Jerusalem to personally tell Bibi that his boss is “not happy.”
On Friday, the United States added its vote to a unanimous UN Security Council resolution condemning the Doha attack, although Israel was not mentioned by name.
Qatar’s prime minister told the council: “Extremists who rule Israel today do not care about the hostages; otherwise, how do we justify the timing of this attack?”
Questions are being raised about when the US president learned of the attack, and what he did. The Israelis reportedly notified the Pentagon of the pending attack, which then informed the White House, where Trump ordered his special envoy to inform the Qataris. Officials in Doha said by the time they got the call, the bombs were already falling.
Did Bibi delay?
Did Netanyahu delay notifying Washington to avoid being ordered to turn the planes around, as Trump had done in the war with Iran?
Or did Trump hesitate? Or, conversely, did Trump try to foil the Doha attack by alerting the Qatari government, which could then tip off Hamas’s leadership, as the Democratic Majority for Israel advocacy group claimed?
This attack – by air-launched ballistic missiles across Saudi Arabia, because the Mossad opposed sending in a kill team – was much more than simply trying to decapitate a terror group. That could have waited until the leaders were in another country and the hostages were freed. It took over 20 years to avenge Munich.
Qatar is a major US ally and has a history of cooperation with Israel. Mossad director David Barnea questioned the attack because he felt it would harm, not hasten, the chance for a deal, and it would damage his agency’s long-standing relations with Qatar.
The Mossad and the White House had previously assured Qatari leaders that Hamas terrorists would not be targeted in their country, according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius.
Netanyahu himself cut a secret deal with Doha in 2018. He approved Qatar funding for Hamas on the assumption that the group would focus on governing Gaza and not attack Israel. He also saw it as inflaming the rivalry between the Islamist extremists and the secular Fatah-led Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.
If he could show that Palestinians couldn’t make peace with each other, they couldn’t make peace with Israel, thus diminishing pressure for the creation of a Palestinian state. Of course, the funds were diverted to terrorism. Netanyahu, with a Trumpian instinct for avoiding responsibility, insisted the funds were for humanitarian use only, and that those duplicitous terrorists deceived him.
Another mysterious link involves several of Bibi’s former and current aides who have been arrested or questioned on suspicion of being on the Qatari payroll.
Also stupid
Whether the Doha attack was motivated by revenge, sabotage, or something else, it was also stupid, possibly doing more damage to Israel than to Hamas. It harmed US relations with a critical ally that is home to Al Udeid Air Base, the largest American military base in the Middle East, and headquarters for US Central Command, which includes Israel.
Notwithstanding Qatar’s relationships with Hamas and Iran – more likely, because of that – Israel’s intelligence services have had a working relationship with that country, and its leaders have frequently visited Doha.
The attack exacerbated Israel’s already fraught relations with its European allies and trading partners. It has angered Arab leaders, particularly those with or about to normalize relations with Israel.
It’s difficult to see how killing the negotiating team would incentivize Hamas to capitulate and release the hostages – a priority for most Israelis but not their government. Israeli security and military sources are telling reporters they see little if any military impact of the attack; the political and diplomatic impact, however, is clear.
Most of all, the attack may not have killed the intended targets, but it may have destroyed any remaining chances of the hostages coming home alive. More Jews and more Palestinians will die as Bibi’s war drags on.
Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is one of the hostages, asked: “Why does the prime minister insist on blowing up every chance for a deal?”
The writer is a Washington-based journalist, consultant, lobbyist, and former legislative director at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.