What the 747 gift means to Israel

What Qatar’s 747 gift to Trump reveals—and why it demands Israel unite with its neighbors to fight back

Reports that Qatar’s ruling family promised American President Donald J. Trump a luxury 747 to serve as his personal Air Force One – and later, to serve him as part of his Presidential Library whenever it is he will retire – have been met with shock, awe, and laughter. Most commentators have focused on Trump’s receiving of the gift: its legality, its ethical dubiousness, its rationalization. Its bribe-like nature. What often goes missing is the question as to why Qatar felt comfortable to give the gift at all.

Qatar wouldn’t have given the gift so publicly, so brazenly, if its despotic rulers did not believe it would be received. Honored. Cherished. Imagine the shame and humiliation if the American administration had said no, thank you. Such a thing could not be risked: Qatar is, after all, a small state, a partner with Iran in its oil fields, a thorn in the side of the Saudi family and the government of Egypt, a territory housing a tribe of 300,000 people and nearly ten times as many slaves and indentured servants. Public rejection by America is too great a threat to give a gift that would be rejected.

Which is why it is important to understand that gifting a luxury 747 to a sitting US president is Qatar’s victory lap, its way of openly declaring to all those who still doubt its eminence that it is the principal shaper of American foreign policy. Each and every leader who sees their Air Force Wahad land on their airstrip will be reminded of that fact: there is a consigliere to the American boss, and it is an al-Thani.

Winning this position was no easy task. The al-Thani family ruling Qatar has invested tens of billions over the decades to break the Saudi blockade and buy off top administrators in Western capitals. Qatar has spent billions to build influence on future leaders, buying key positions at the elite’s leading finishing schools like Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. Through Al-Jazeera, its news network, Qatar has invested billions into a campaign singling out Israel for the world’s problems, recently signing a formal agreement with TikTok to expand their reach.

The results are clear: even intelligent people, including current or former Liberal Zionists, are turning on Israel. It turns out intensive influence campaigns work. As with hypnosis, it seems that the more intelligent the person, the easier it is to convince them of something untrue with intense exposure.

Israel is not the only one with reason to be afraid. There is a reason Al-Jazeera has been blocked in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Emirates, and now the Palestinian Authority: all these countries know where al-Thani’s sympathies lie, and it isn’t with their regimes. The victory lap is for them as much as Israel, if not more.

Israel and the Jews have a unique opportunity to engage with our neighbors around the Qatari common threat. Since our leadership has repeatedly failed us yet clings to power, it is time for civil society to step up and build a covenant with those who share an ancestral memory of Abraham. A mutual commitment to ending Qatar’s undue influence on our people and world.

Yes, it will take the end of the war on Gaza and recognition that the Palestinian people are going nowhere, because our neighbors will not give them up. This means we will either need to make non-Israeli Palestinians full citizens of Israel or grant them the freedom to choose a citizenship of their own. It will require Israelis to recognize that terrorist movements are best dealt with by secret police operating in the shadows, not conventional wars. And it will require a new theological vision for Jews and Muslims, together, a reminder that there was a time when Abraham had two sons who came together to bury him and lived together in our land, at peace, in Be’er Lahai Roeh.

If we do not act together against Qatar now, I fear it may be too late. They already own sizable portions of the universities training the leadership of tomorrow, the companies owning the channels for media content and distribution, and, clearly, American foreign policy. Alone we have been unable to stand up to the financial might of this small, desert tribe. But together with our neighbors, we just may stand a chance.