Washington, DC – The Israeli attack against Hamas leaders in Qatar has prompted familiar headlines in the United States about the president being unhappy with Israel.
Over the past two years, as the US has provided Israel with billions of dollars to help fund the war on Gaza, there have been numerous stories about the White House – under both Joe Biden and Donald Trump – being frustrated with Israeli conduct.
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But the attack on a US partner that works closely with Washington on various issues and hosts one of the largest US military bases in the Middle East was a major escalation.
Still, Trump’s response has so far been muted. On social media, he said he felt “very badly” about the location of the attacks and later told reporters he was “not thrilled” by Israel’s actions.
It took the White House hours to address the assassination attempt on Tuesday, and when it did, it stopped short of condemning the attack. “Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally, does not advance Israel or America’s goals,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said. “However, eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.”
Experts say Trump’s failure to take a firmer position will likely further erode Washington’s credibility in the region and raise questions about the broader ties between the US and the Gulf.
“The response was contradictory, did not make sense, lacked in diplomacy and it lacked in substance,” said Khalil Jahshan, the executive director of the Arab Center Washington DC. “It is not befitting a superpower.”
Trump later reiterated Leavitt’s statement, saying he promised Qatar’s emir that such an attack would not happen again.
But less than 24 hours later, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his envoy to the US both appeared to threaten Qatar with further attacks.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the State Department still has not commented on the attack, despite the status of Qatar as a major non-Nato ally of the US.
Red lines crossed
The White House initially said the US informed Qatar of the attack before it happened, but after Doha quickly denied the claim, Trump later acknowledged that by the time his envoy Steve Witkoff spoke to Qatari officials, it was “too late”.
The assassination attempt failed to kill Hamas’s top leaders but killed six people, including a Qatari security officer.
Doha described the Israeli attack as “treacherous”, noting that the Hamas leaders who were targeted were discussing Trump’s own ceasefire proposal, and their meeting was not a secret.
Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute, said the Israeli attacks cast doubt over the US role as a broker in the region, noting that Washington was similarly negotiating with Tehran when Israel attacked Iran in June.
“Certainly, the US as a state that can negotiate in good faith is being called into question,” he told Al Jazeera.
Coates Ulrichsen stressed the significance of the Israeli attacks, which he said crossed “strong red lines” that will be difficult to uncross.
He said the Israeli attacks upended the assumption that Gulf countries are beyond Israel’s military reach due to their defence partnerships with the US.
Coates Ulrichsen drew parallels between the Israeli assassination attempt in Doha and the 2019 drone attacks on Saudi oil facilities, which Riyadh blamed on Iran – a charge Tehran denied.
Trump, then during his first term, did not come to Saudi Arabia’s help after that attack, prompting several Gulf states to de-escalate tensions with Iran, culminating in the restoration of diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran in 2023, brokered by China.
“We have to wait and see what the consequences of this attack will be, but they could be just as consequential potentially if they contribute to the perception in the Gulf that the US security umbrella and deterrence is in question,” Coates Ulrichsen said.
Trump visited the Gulf region in May, and heaped praise on Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as he said he secured trillions of dollars in investments from the three countries.
During the visit, Trump rebuked US military interventions and portrayed himself as a peace president.
The Doha attack, however, and the US response to it “contradict” Trump’s promises to the region, Jahshan said.
“What Trump put in jeopardy is whatever is remaining – which is not much, by the way – of US credibility,” Jahshan told Al Jazeera.
Netanyahu lauds Trump
Despite the official line that the US is irked by the attack on Doha, Netanyahu joked about the strikes during a ceremony at the US embassy in Israel shortly after they took place.
He said he had planned to be at the event earlier but was “otherwise engaged”, referring to overseeing the air attacks in Qatar.
On Thursday, Netanyahu appeared for a photo-op with US Ambassador Mike Huckabee to name a beach promenade in a coastal town in Israel after Trump.
The Israeli prime minister also appeared to praise Trump’s call for ethnically cleansing Gaza and turning it into the Riviera of the Middle East.
“President Trump spoke to me several times about beachfront property. He said to me, you have wonderful beachside properties here. He’s talking about one that’s a bit to the south here, in Gaza,” he said, according to his office.
He later renewed his threat to target Hamas leaders in Qatar.
“I say to Qatar and all nations who harbour terrorists, you either expel them or you bring them to justice – because if you don’t, we will,” he said.
Who knew what when?
Washington has failed to reveal when or how exactly it knew the attacks were happening. Trump said his administration was notified by the military, suggesting he did not pre-approve the attacks.
But Jahshan said it would not have been possible politically or militarily for Israel to carry out the attack without a US green light.
The US military has military assets, radars and air defences across the Middle East. And both Israel and Qatar are part of the US military’s Central Command area of responsibility.
Jahshan noted that the building struck by Israel is less than 20 miles (32km) away from the largest US airbase in the region – Al Udeid in Qatar.
“They must have cleared it with the US. Netanyahu is aggressive, but he is not that stupid,” he told Al Jazeera.
For his part, Coates Ulrichsen highlighted that the public reporting indicates that the US did not give prior blessings to the attacks, but he said the issue will likely be a key point of discussion between Washington and the Gulf.
“Behind the scenes, conversations today between Gulf leaders and US counterparts will be really honing in on who knew what and when, and what precisely was the chain of events,” he said.
“Were there to be any suggestion that the US either had full knowledge of Israel’s plans or somehow greenlit them, that would be incredibly damaging to US-Gulf security and defence and political relations.”
‘Opportunity for peace’?
Despite the global outcry, Trump said the attack on Doha could serve as an “opportunity for PEACE”. And Jahshan said he did not disagree.
He said any escalation can potentially be an off-ramp to end conflict, but he stressed that the Trump administration does not appear to be ready, or even capable, of engaging in the necessary diplomacy to use the Doha attacks to end the war on Gaza.
The problem, he said, is the “asymmetrical” nature of the US-Israel relationship, where Washington remains committed to unconditional support for Israel no matter what it does.
“The US has hundreds of allies around the world, but none has this predicament where the national interest of the client state supersedes the national interest of the superpower,” Jahshan told Al Jazeera.
Trump himself had said that attacking Qatar does not serve US interests.
Matt Duss, executive vice president at the Center for International Policy, underscored that the US continues to provide Israel with arms to conduct its wars across the entire region.
“Striking a major non-NATO US ally like this, in the midst of negotiations that are being supported and brokered by the United States, against officials who are being hosted in Qatar originally at the request of the United States, is a level beyond anything even I expected,” Duss told Al Jazeera in a TV interview.
“There is, of course, a route to dealing with this for Donald Trump, just as there was a route to dealing with this for Joe Biden if they chose it, and that is to cut off the US supply of weapons. Israel cannot continue to prosecute this war without a steady supply of US weapons.”