Qatar, US discuss deterrence amid Netanyahu’s threats
In an exclusive interview with The Hill, Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari raged against Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu and said Qatar is only looking to grow its security partnership with the U.S.
The comments come two days after Israel launched strikes targeting senior Hamas political officials in Doha, rocking a residential neighborhood in the Qatari capital.
Al-Ansari, who is also an adviser to Qatar’s prime minister, welcomed President Trump’s “condemnation and determination” to deter a future Israeli attack, speaking via Zoom from Doha.
“I think the whole world has a lot of cards it hasn’t played with Netanyahu, and I think there was a lot of reluctance internationally, including in the U.S., to take a lot of action in the hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu will sign a deal, will cease fire and will get his hostages out through diplomatic means,” al-Ansari said.
Qatar is in high-level discussions with the U.S. to reassess its security partnership, al-Ansari said, adding it “will take some time,” because it had never before considered Israel as a direct threat.
“This is an attack orchestrated by a megalomaniac who is leading a radical government in Israel. It has nothing to do with the United States,” al-Ansari said.
The explosions lasted for less than five minutes, al-Ansari said, and in that time, six people were killed — five Hamas members and a Qatari security official — and at least three others were wounded.
The strikes marked a major escalation of Israel’s war against Hamas and introduced a new level of volatility in a region fraught with conflict.
Some senior Republicans have broken with the president’s criticism of Israel’s strike, putting their support behind Netanyahu.
Al-Ansari pushed back and said GOP senators should “look into the facts and not be blinded by the smoke screen that Netanyahu offers.”
“This is an attack on a sovereign state, on a residential neighborhood with six schools, a number of nurseries and residents who are all civilian,” he said, noting American students are also enrolled in schools nearby.
“This is an attack that happened behind the United States. If your priority is the national security of the United States, is the foreign policy of the United States and the international standing of the United States, then you should question when your allies do things behind your back and attack sovereign countries where your army, your people, more than 10,000 servicemen and women operate.”
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