About a year ago, American journalist Bob Simon from the CBS News show 60 Minutes conducted an extensive interview with the two most powerful people in the Emirate of Qatar: Emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabar Al Thani. The worldview that they described to him in fluent English was antithetical to fundamentalist Islam. While they expressed opposition to Western cultural icons and harmful Western influences, which, according to them, have penetrated their own perceptions of Islam, they nonetheless represent a certain openness to the West and a desire to be part of the global family of nations.
Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabar Al Thani, whose personal wealth is estimated at $2.5 billion, recently bought a townhouse in Manhattan from Jewish real estate agent Avi Rosen for a whopping $47 million. I was reminded of the CBS interview and the purchase of the home in Manhattan following the prime minister’s dramatic statement after his meeting in Washington with Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden (April 29): “The Arab League delegation affirmed that agreement should be based on the two-state solution on the basis of the 4th of June 1967 line, with the [possibility] of comparable and mutual agreed minor swap of the land.”