Netanyahu informed Trump before Israel bombed Qatar: Axios
The US news outlet has published a story saying Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu informed US President Donald Trump that Israel planned to attack Hamas leaders in Qatar before last week’s strike occurred.
The White House has said it was notified only after missiles were in the air, giving Trump no opportunity to oppose the strike.
But Axios reported, citing unnamed Israeli officials, that Netanyahu spoke to Trump on Tuesday morning, before the attack took place.
Rubio made ‘wrong call’ in not visiting Qatar before Israel
US Secretary of State Mark Rubio’s decision to pay a supportive visit to Israel on Monday, days after it attacked US ally Qatar – and to visit Doha a day later – was the “wrong call”, Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding, has told Al Jazeera.
“He should have demonstrated by his actions that the United States truly was angered by Israeli behaviour. [He should have visited] Qatar first; it should have been a demonstration of real solidarity,” Doyle said.
“But this is yet another misstep diplomatically from the Trump administration.” Doyle said the US is sending many mixed signals, saying it backs the Gaza ceasefire talks and then taking no action when Israel attacked negotiators in Doha.
“It’s all over the place – it’s presenting a very weak, incoherent position to the world. It’s not getting a grip on things. The [US] president says he wants to resolve these conflicts, but in fact, his actions that lack clarity are making things far worse,” he said.
“So the United States is not really acting in its own interests here. Nor is Israel. And I think it needs a much firmer hand on the tiller to actually appreciate the risks that are involved in not trying to bring about real and proper security.
“And at the moment, I think that the United States is going to be a big loser in all this because many countries, not just Qatar, will look to other countries in the world to be part of their security umbrella because they will see the US as an unreliable partner.”
