Qatari wealth invades American educational institutions

In an attempt to improve its image, the Qatari regime has poured its vast wealth into foreign universities with the aim of achieving acceptance in Western political, economic and media circles.

Qatar is one of the most important foreign funders of universities in the United States, allocating billions of dollars to secretly infiltrate the American education system in an attempt to impose itself on the scene and improve its image. Legal experts say that this is a violation of federal laws and raises fears of Qatari approaches leaking into education curricula, which warrants comprehensive investigations, according to a special memo published by the Washington Free Beacon.

A group of legal experts from Lawfare have obtained information about the financial relations between American universities and Qatar. The Qatar Foundation, a subsidiary of the Qatari regime that is dedicated to supporting and promoting Doha’s interests, has spent more than $1.5 billion since 2012 to support a range of educational initiatives at 28 universities in the United States.

Although US federal law stipulates the announcement and disclosure of any foreign contributions valued at more than $250,000, the universities that received Qatari funding did not disclose this, and about 98% of the Qatari support went to just six American universities: Texas A&M, Georgetown, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern and Virginia Commonwealth. Each university also has a campus in Qatar.

According to the Daily Caller, Georgetown University topped the list of recipients of Qatari funds with $333 million, followed by Northwestern University with $277 million, then the University of Texas with $225 million, Carnegie Mellon University with $71 million, Cornell University with $47 million, and finally the Virginia Commonwealth University with $40 million, in addition to some other universities, including Harvard, Arizona, and Michigan.

Terrorist platforms

The concerns raised about Qatari funding for American universities prompted researcher Varsha Koduvayur, a Gulf affairs specialist at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), to publish an article on Fox News calling for the need of the US administration to verify the nature of Qatar’s vast funding and an insightful review of all that the Qatar Foundation has contributed in the field of school curricula for Arabic language programs.

Koduvayur expressed concern over the Qatar Foundation’s contributions, as the foundation is known to host extremist advocates who spread hate speech, which is the backbone of the ideology of terrorist groups such as ISIS, at its elegant mosque in the educational city of Doha, which broadcasts its activities directly via satellite to universities in the United States.

“It must also be clear that charitable giving in Qatar is not altruism,” Koduvayur said in the article. “Rather, it is a way that the donor hopes, through its donations, to encourage American decision makers to overlook the heinous acts that Qatar is committing abroad, such as suspicious relations with Hamas in Gaza, financing extremist militias in Libya, and paying a huge ransom to terrorists in Iraq and Syria. Washington must make clear to Doha that America welcomes real investments in its educational system, but does not accept paying for influence to achieve malicious goals.”

Koduvayur called for President Donald Trump’s administration to publicly announce that it will not tolerate the Qatar Foundation's poor efforts to circumvent federal disclosure rules, adding that Qatari money can benefit Americans, but only if it comes under real supervision. Therefore, universities must announce any grants offered by the Qatar Foundation and clarify the relationship of the institution with the ruling family in Qatar and its turbulent history that has supported and continues to support extremist preachers.

Soft power

As part of its malicious plan to search for influence within American society, Qatar funded up to 3,000 training programs directed at American students in an attempt to seize cultural leadership in the Arab and European worlds.

Carnegie Mellon University provided great services and was involved in violating privacy and leading cyber-hacking attacks against 1,500 US politicians, including political activists stationed in Washington, DC, according to the Washington Free Bacon.