President Donald Trump compelled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to apologize to the Prime Minister of Qatar over last month’s airstrike targeting Hamas terrorists in the Qatari capital of Doha.
The unusual apology likely signals that a deal is in the works for an end to the war in Gaza. Israel would almost certainly have refused to apologize for defending itself without receiving concessions in return.
Israel launched the airstrike after Hamas claimed credit for further terror attacks inside Israel. Hamas’s billionaire leaders live in comfortable exile in Doha while ordering Palestinians to die as terrorists in Gaza.
While Israel had hoped to kill senior Hamas leaders, it only managed to kill some junior officials, plus one Qatari guard. It is possible Qatar, after being warned by the U.S., tipped off Hamas leaders about the attack.
The Times of Israel reported:
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just apologized to the Prime Minister of Qatar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, for the Israeli strike in Qatar on September 9.
Channel 12 says Netanyahu spoke by phone for several minutes with Al Thani from the White House, where he is being hosted by US President Donald Trump. Trump was also on the call.
A foreign diplomat familiar with the matter confirms to The Times of Israel that Netanyahu apologized to Al Thani for Israel’s strike in Doha that killed a Qatari security guard along with several lower-level Hamas members.
Israel made a similar apology in 2013, when President Barack Obama compelled Netanyahu to apologize to Turkey for intercepting a boat, the Mavi Marmara, full of armed Hamas supporters. Violence then ensued.
Such apologies rarely amount to accepting any real fault, but are seen as necessary for diplomatic purposes. In the Turkish case, the U.S. helped broker an improvement in Israeli-Turkish relations, which have since worsened again.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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