Following the October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel and subsequent counterterrorism operation by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), we are witnessing disturbing scenes of pro-Hamas protests in the Western countries, including college and university campuses in the United States, where a large number of students are participating chanting anti-Israel and anti-Semite and even Nazi slogans, while some of the protesters are openly praising Adolf Hitler and the Holocaust stating Hitler should be murdered all the Jews in the world.
These extremely alarming scenarios not only are generating doubts within the counterterrorism experts and security agencies in the West about the very dangerous future where these students and protestors may resort to terrorist acts targeting “non-Muslims”, including Christians, Jews and Hindus in the United States and rest of the Western nations. In this case, as media reports say – what is more alarming is a data that says, currently there is over 450 million weapons are available within 50 million households. The implication is that the average gun-owning household owns nearly eight guns. According to 2017 report by Pew Research Center, three-in-ten American adults said they were owning a gun, and another 11 percent said they did not personally own a gun but live with someone who did. Among those who did not own a gun, about half say they could see themselves owning one in the future.
With this alarming information, it is not unwise to ask – what happens if these unruly pro-Hamas mob resort to committing hate crimes targeting mainly Jewish populace as well as others who are against Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups. And of course, enemies of the West, particularly Iran and Qatar would love to witness such a dangerous scenario.
It may be mentioned here that since September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US soil, Qatar has emerged into the largest foreign donor to American academia. A study by the Institute for Anti-Semitism Studies found a direct link between the amount of donations and the presence of pro-Palestinian groups on the US campuses. Even two months ago, none of us might be thinking about Qatar’s flow of cash to the American colleges and universities. Instead the focus war on Doha’s fund to Gaza – more precisely to Hamas and other terrorist groups in that part of the world.
According to a study published in 2022 by the National Association of Academics in the United States, a study that did not cause too much noise at the time, in the period between 2001 and 2021, precisely after the September 11 attacks, the Qataris donated a whopping US$4.7 billion to universities in the United States. The recipients, however, did not report part of the money received, as required by law, which certainly is a punishable offense.
The National Association of Scholars in a September 2022 report Quoting the Department of Education said:
Northwestern University received more than US$600 million in Qatari gifts and contracts since it opened a branch campus in the country in 2007. The Illinois-based university is one of six American campuses in Qatar, each of which has a particular specialization. Cornell University, for example, focuses on medical education, while Georgetown University specializes in government and politics. Northwestern University’s branch campus in Qatar (NU-Q) primarily covers journalism. The Qatar Foundation (QF), a state-led non-profit founded in 1995 by Qatar’s ruling family to improve Qatari society, funded this educational complex.
After founding QF, Qatar began to recruit Western universities to build branch campuses in Education City, Doha, so that the nation could provide its youth with educational opportunities. The first branch campus, established by Virginia Commonwealth University, opened in 1997. NU-Q opened in 2008, largely due to the work of Carnegie Foundation of New York president Vartan Gregorian, who was both a member of QF’s board of trustees and a close friend of one of Northwestern’s trustees.
QF recruited Northwestern to establish a Qatari branch campus in the hopes that the university would train future journalists who could build Qatar’s media presence abroad. At first, this purpose was largely unstated. In 2013, however, NU-Q entered a formal agreement with the Qatari-owned news outlet Al Jazeera designed to train journalists for the outlet. NU-Q and Al Jazeera signed a Memorandum of Understanding that created Al Jazeera scholarships for NU-Q students and established journalist exchange programs and training workshops in which the students could participate.
According to experts, Qatar has become the largest foreign donor to American academia in the two decades since 9/11. What has been going on since the outbreak of the war on the campuses of the prestigious American universities, is a multi-participant event that was organized in advance and waited for the right moment. This moment came after the Hamas pogrom of October 7.
Let us now try to understand the impact of Qatari cashflow into the American academia. At serene Amherst University in Massachusetts, 57 pro-Hamas and anti-Israel students were arrested after rioting and taking over the administration building.
At Tulane in New Orleans, arrests occurred after a confrontation between Jewish students and a pro-Hamas group. The clash started when unruly pro-Hamas demonstrators, reminiscent of those associated with Hamas terrorists in Israel, began not only waving the Palestinian flag but also burning the Israeli flag. Some were even observed tearing American flags. Disturbingly, some of these pro-Hamas protestors carried placards with photographs of Adolf Hitler and slogans supporting the Holocaust.
At Cooper Union in New York City’s East Village, a surreal situation unfolded as the administration chose to lock Jewish students in the library to protect them from an angry mob of pro-Hamas protesters. The protesters had breached campus security guards and were banging on the doors and windows.
At George Washington University, a student projected anti-Semitic messages on the library wall, including “Free Palestine from the river to the sea” and “Glory to our martyrs”.
In the weeks following the October 7 Hamas pogrom in Israel, more Jewish and Israeli students across the United States expressed fear for their safety due to the escalating violence in anti-Semitic demonstrations and events.
Recent events indicate that universities are recognizing that these incidents go beyond the progressive ideals typically embraced on campuses. While universities historically champion free speech and critical thinking, the rapid organization and resource availability for these demonstrations raise questions, paralleling concerns in London where large Palestinian flag distributions occurred during massive protests. Elite universities, perhaps unintentionally, have become breeding grounds for anti-Semitism.
In the United States, the belief that strengthening cooperation with Qatar and receiving donations to establish branches of prestigious American universities would expand soft power took a turn for the worse. Qatar’s substantial funding to top U.S. universities led to the establishment of branches in Doha, Qatar’s capital. However, these financial ties are raising concerns, especially as Qatar’s influence extends into various fields and geographic regions.
A 2020 examination by ISGAP, The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, revealed a direct link between donations from Qatar and other Persian Gulf countries and the presence of pro-Palestinian groups, particularly SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine), on college campuses. Some universities witnessed SJP-led demonstrations and days of rage immediately following the events of October 8, even before significant Israeli operations in Gaza.
In response to the escalating situation, even Claudine Gay, the president of Harvard, admitted that the university had not done enough to address the long and shameful history of anti-Semitism. She announced the formation of a group of consultants to formulate recommendations on handling these events during a Shabbat dinner at the university’s Hillel, showing a more decisive stance compared to her earlier hesitancy.
With these fact and date, it can be easily assumed that Qatar not only is funding American academia with the ulterior motive of creating notoriously anti-Semite group of students within the society, it also is breeding future journalists by brainwashing them with extreme bias against Israel and Jews. Most importantly, as these indoctrinated journalists are continuing to enter into print and electronic media in the United States as well as Western nations, we can only anticipate their role in those media, which certainly shall have disturbing impact on every nation in the world, while these brainwashed journalists shall give instigation to jihadism and anti-Semite notoriety at every possible chance they would get.
In brief, while Qatar is furthering its agenda of establishing its tremendous influence on the Western societies by breeding future jihadists in the American educational institutions, it also is making progress in generating a large number of heavily indoctrinated journalists – who would ultimately hijack mainstream medias and turn those into Islamist propaganda machine.
