As Qatar resumed mediating an Israel-Hamas hostage deal, the Gulf state has also been using its economic power to support Hamas terror and spread propaganda on North American campuses.
One key figure in this effort is Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, the mother of current Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani.
“She is a fashion icon and a philanthropist, but she is openly pro-Hamas,” Asaf Romirowsky, historian and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East community, told The Press Service of Israel.
Through the Qatar Foundation, which Moza heads, Qatari money is flooding American schools and universities to indoctrinate American students.
A 2022 study by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) argued that as funding from Middle Eastern countries increases and becomes less transparent, campuses experience an “erosion of democratic values.” Another ISGAP report labeled Qatar as the largest foreign donor to US universities.
“Our investigations during the Trump administration revealed that many of the US most prestigious universities are shockingly agnostic about who they’ll take money from,” Paul R. Moore, former chief investigative counsel in the US Department of Education, told TPS-IL. “The purposes of these donors are often very much contrary to the US national interests. The failure of many of the universities to respond to antisemitic protests is a perfect example. The universities didn’t want to offend their Middle Eastern donors.”
Romirowsky and Moore agreed that President-elect Donald Trump will demand greater transparency from universities about their foreign funding.
“Qatar money is tunneling anti-American values into America, buying hearts and minds. This needs to be changed,” Romirowsky said.
Added Moore, “I fully expect that the incoming Trump administration will quickly reverse the current administration’s negligence of its enforcement obligations. Civil investigations are very likely to occur with universities that have failed to be in compliance.”
After Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed in October, Moza eulogized the mastermind of the October 7 attacks.
“The name Yahya means the one who lives. They thought he was dead but he lives. He will live on and they [Israel] will be gone,” she tweeted.
In a recent article in the Jewish Journal, Moza was called a matriarch of the royal family, “heavily involved in the dispersing of funds,” according to Jonathan Schanzer, senior vice president of research for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
According to the FDD, Qatar has given an estimated $1.8 billion to Gaza’s Hamas-run government since 2007, with reports indicating that around 80 percent of that money was paid as salaries to Hamas terrorists and leaders.
Image - Qatar's emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani/Reuters