“I could be a stupid person and say no, we don’t want a free plane,” said the president of the United States about the Boeing 747-8 which the royal family that rules Qatar has offered as a gift.
There are obviously ethical, legal and constitutional issues — to say nothing of security concerns — with President Donald Trump’s willingness to accept a $400 million donation from a Middle East petrostate with tens of billions of dollars of business interests in the United States. (It’s also more than a bit hypocritical, given that Trump leads the party still obsessed with Hunter Biden’s comparatively low-stakes shady overseas business dealings.) Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., put it concisely in a post on X: “Not only is this farcically corrupt, it is blatantly unconstitutional. Congress must not allow this over-the-top kleptocracy to proceed.”
Perhaps less noticed is that Trump is poised to accept an exorbitant personal gift of a jumbo jet (meant to be used as Air Force One) from a government that has provided substantial funding for the antisemitic, fascistic terror group Hamas about 100 days after he signed his “Executive Order to Combat Anti-Semitism.” (For years, Qatar funded Hamas with the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government.)
Trump is poised to accept an exorbitant personal gift from a government that has provided substantial funding for the antisemitic, fascistic terror group Hamas.
At the same time, Trump’s administration continues to employ Kingsley Wilson as deputy press secretary for the Department of Defense, despite a recent social media record of posts widely seen as antisemitic. And since Trump returned to the White House, two powerful members of his inner circle have made “stiff-armed salutes” in front of big crowds and many cameras. Yet, the administration has used the thinnest of pretexts to characterize activists as antisemitic, before then claiming they’re providing material support to Hamas.
“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said in a White House fact sheet that accompanied his January antisemitism executive order. He also promised to “quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”
Indeed, Trump’s supposed war on antisemitism is his rationale for his war on universities and campus activism. Meanwhile, pro-Israel and Trump-friendly media outlets have published many articles and op-eds decrying what they say is the nefarious influence of Qatari billions on U.S. universities and student activist groups. (We’ll have to check back in later to see if they’re equally appalled by Qatar’s lavish funding of an American president’s air travel.)
The Trump administration has tried to justify its deportation proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil, the green-card holder and spouse of a U.S. citizen who served as a mediator and spokesperson for a pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel student activist group encamped last year on the campus of Columbia University, on the basis of fighting antisemitism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later admitted Khalil had broken no laws, and the government has yet to provide any evidence that Khalil spread Hamas propaganda or participated in any harassment of Jewish students and staff. (Khalil is still detained in Louisiana and last month a federal judge ruled he can challenge the government’s deportation attempt in court.)
NBC News reviewed over 100 pages of documents the Trump administration filed as evidence to back up its deportation efforts for Khalil, and found that “in some instances, the government appears to be relying on unverified tabloid articles about Khalil. In others, the government’s claims about him are clearly erroneous because timelines don’t match.”
Let’s call Trump’s so-called war on antisemitism what it is: Trump’s cudgel to attack his perceived enemies.
In plain English, Trump and his administration’s claims that they’re battling antisemitism are absurd. In fact, they are falsely likening protected speech with which they object (such as co-signing an op-ed critical of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza) to a national security crisis requiring the most severe methods of enforcement, including denials of due process. The administration is also cloaking its brazen attempt to shake down universities and bring them to heel politically by withholding federal funds in the name of “protecting” Jews.
As Trump put in the antisemitism EO’s fact sheet, “My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”
But in accepting a $400 million personal gift from Qatar, a country that funded the group that gleefully butchered Jews on Oct. 7, 2023, Trump has made an absolute mockery of his “war on antisemitism.” Let’s call Trump’s so-called war on antisemitism what it is: Trump’s cudgel to attack his perceived enemies.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and opinion columnist for MS NOW, often covering free speech, civil liberties and extremism. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.