Senior analyst Amit Segal calls Israel’s botched strike in Doha “the most successful failed assassination in history,” arguing the attempt forced Qatar to flip and jump-started long-stalled hostage negotiations — a dramatic twist that reshapes diplomacy and domestic politics.
Senior Israeli political analyst Amit Segal has delivered a striking assessment of the current Israel-Hamas war and hostage deal negotiations, branding Israel’s failed assassination attempt in Qatar as “the most successful failed assassination in history.”
Speaking on Channel 12, Segal revealed that Israel was the true initiator of the American-backed plan to end the war, though problematic clauses were inserted during negotiations. Still, he stressed, “the feeling is that Israel will not be caught off guard tonight” as the expected announcement on the deal looms.
Segal underscored that without the assassination attempt in Qatar, none of today’s diplomatic momentum would exist. “When Donald Trump says we’re on the verge of a deal, he may be wrong in timing, but the basis is Qatar itself admitting that Hamas will have to bend,” he explained.
Qatar, which only months ago blocked a partial deal for 10 live and 18 fallen Israeli hostages, has now reversed course—out of raw fear. “They suddenly realized that after five Muslim capitals were targeted during this war, theirs could be next. They don’t want the fire to reach Doha,” Segal said. Borrowing former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s brutal words to Yasser Arafat, Segal quipped that Qatar’s message to Hamas is now: “Sign, you dogs, sign.”
On the political battlefield, Segal noted that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s backing ensures the plan will clear the government, but its survival afterward is less certain. “We’re already in an election year. Everyone’s looking for a convenient escape route,” he observed.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Segal predicted, will likely oppose the deal to posture as guardians of sovereignty and settlement expansion, while painting Netanyahu as a betrayer.
Yet Segal suggested Netanyahu could seize this moment to engineer a grand reset: “He can pass a draft law, achieve normalization, and then head into elections with his bloc calmer and stronger after the war ends.”
For Israel, the “failed” operation in Qatar has paradoxically tilted the battlefield—both militarily and politically—in its favor.
