Netanyahu puts Trump in a bind

 

By James M. Dorsey

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Israel is playing a high-stakes game of bluff poker.

The problem is that the stakes are high not only for Israel but also for its foremost supporters, the United States and Europe, as well as Gulf states with which it enjoyed close relations despite differences over Gaza, Palestine, and Iran.

How the US, Europe, and the Gulf respond to Israel's targeting of Hamas's leadership in exile in Qatar, one of three mediators alongside the United States and Egypt in the Gaza war, is likely to determine whether Israel's gamble pays off.

The fact that Israel failed to kill any of the senior Hamas leaders gathered to discuss an Israeli-endorsed US proposal to end the war and initial responses to the attack don't bode well for Israel.

The international community has roundly condemned the attack, even if US President Donald Trump stopped short of condemnation but publicly castigated Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Israel will likely take heart from the fact that Mr. Trump took Mr. Netanyahu to task in off-the-cuff remarks and a posting on his social media platform, Truth Social, but failed to follow through on a promise to issue a "full statement."

Mr. Trump's failure to issue the statement appears to have only emboldened Mr. Netanyahu.

While the prime minister warned Qatar and others barely 24 hours after the attack that if they failed to expel Hamas leaders or bring them to justice, Israel would, Israel's ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter, dismissed the international community's condemnation.

Messrs. Trump and Leiter’s statements ignored Mr. Trump’s promise, immediately after the Israeli strike, that Israel would not attack Qatar a second time.

“Right now, we may be subject to a little bit of criticism. They’ll get over it,' Mr. Leiter said.

In Mr. Netanyahu’s mind, the attack was the likely the next logical step in his long-standing effort to discredit Qatar as a mediator, accusing it of playing a double game by funding Hamas’s presence in Qatar while projecting itself as a neutral go-between.

In doing so, Mr. Netanyahu conveniently neglected that Israel had acquiesced in a 2012 US request that Qatar allow Hamas to open an office in Doha to facilitate a backchannel and that he had asked the Gulf state to fund the Hamas administration in Gaza to keep Gazan and West Bank Palestinians divided.

Even so, Israel dismisses international criticism of the attack at its peril.

Mr. Netanyahu's warning was as much directed at Turkey, Iran, and Lebanon as it was at Qatar.

Unlike Qatar and Lebanon, which are unable to take on Israel militarily, Turkey and Iran are likely to strike back if Israel were to hit targets in Istanbul, Ankara, or Tehran.

More immediately, Israel’s attack on Qatar threatens to force at least some of its staunchest allies to move beyond words and act.

Qatar is Europe’s second-largest gas supplier after the United States, accounting for 14 per cent of European gas supplies.

In response to Israel’s conduct of the Gaza war, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, one of Europe’s staunchest supporters of Israel, this week announced plans to seek sanctions and a partial suspension of trade with Israel.

Ms. Von der Leyen didn’t mention Qatar in her announcement, but there is little doubt that the Israeli attack is part of what pushed her across the line.

The EU’s 27 member states have so far been divided over sanctions against Israel. It was unclear whether the attack on Qatar may sway holdouts such as Germany and Hungary.

In the meantime, Ms. Von der Leyen stated that she would freeze support to Israel provided by the EU's executive branch, amounting to approximately 32 million euros (US$37.5 million), which would not require the approval of all member countries.

Europe, rather than the United States, is Israel’s largest trading partner, as well as the foremost destination for Israeli investments, according to the Amsterdam-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO).

The Center reported that the EU held €72.1 billion in investments in Israel in 2023, compared to the United States’ €39.2 billion. Similarly, Israel invested €65.9 billion in the EU, seven times more than the €8.8 billion invested in the United States.

In 2024, European trade with Israel totalled €42.6 billion, significantly more than the €31.6 billion with the United States in the same year.

In addition, Europe accounts for approximately 30 per cent of Israel’s arms acquisitions. It is Israel’s second-largest supplier after the United States.

Credit: SOMO

Unlike Ms. Von der Leyen, Mr. Trump has been tiptoeing through a minefield in his response to the Israeli attack. For him, the stakes are geopolitical, economic, and personal.

With Qatar hosting the largest US military base in the Middle East, Mr. Trump was at pains to stress that neither he nor the United States was involved in the attack or had more than a few minutes of advance knowledge.

Mr. Trump stressed the United States’s friendship with Qatar, a Major Non-NATO Ally, and key partner in attempts to negotiate a ceasefire, if not an end to the Gaza war.

The president, much like when he failed in his first term in office to rush to Saudi Arabia’s aid when Iranian-backed Yemeni Houthi rebels claimed responsibility for attacks on the kingdom’s oil facilities in 2019, will need to demonstrate the United States’s reliability as a security partner.

Doing so could put the United States at odds with Israel.

Together with Gaza and Israeli strikes against Iran and the Syrian military, Israel’s attack on Gaza has cemented Gulf perceptions of Israel as a rogue player that is destabilising the Middle East.

Mr. Trump could restore a degree of confidence in the United States by more assertively pushing Mr. Netanyahu to end the Gaza war and move towards post-war security and governance arrangements in Gaza.

The problem with that is that Gulf states, like many others in the international community, have said they would have no part of Messrs. Trump and Netanyahu’s vision of a depopulated post-war Gaza.

In addition to geopolitical concerns, Mr. Trump will want to ensure that pledges of US$3.6 trillion in Qatari, Saudi, and Emirati investment in the United States are not at risk as a result of the Israeli attack on Qatar.

The same goes for The Trump Organization. Led by the president’s two oldest sons, the organisation is expanding in the Middle East with new ventures in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman.

Beyond expressing a degree of anger, Mr. Trump has not indicated whether, in his mind, Mr. Netanyahu has crossed a line with Israel’s attack on Gaza.

With the United Nations Security Council scheduled to hold an emergency session on Thursday and an emergency Arab and Islamic summit in Doha in the coming days, Mr. Trump doesn’t have much time to decide whether he will call Israel’s bluff.

Dr. James M. Dorsey is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, and the author of the syndicated column and podcast, The Turbulent World with James M. Dorsey.