RSS
Qatar’s Back Door to Higher Education
Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
JNS.org – In an earlier column, I debunked a recent study suggesting that foreign contributions to higher education were responsible for the rise in antisemitism. In my work, I have illustrated some cases where Arab donations have had a nefarious impact, but it’s difficult to do because universities don’t report what most of the money they receive is used for. Besides demanding greater transparency, the United States and the world need to expand our investigation to trace indirect funding to “independent” institutions.
Qatar is by far the largest donor to universities. Since 1986, it has contributed more than $5 billion (billions more are undocumented) contributions since 1986. The largest gifts were for the creation and operation of Weill Cornell Medical College-Qatar in Doha, which can’t be said to cause antisemitism at the Ivy League’s main campus in Ithaca, N.Y. Because of the U.S. Department of Education’s failure to require universities to publish how they spend the foreign donations, we don’t know if any is going to professors or departments because they are pro-Qatar, anti-Israel or antisemitic, or if they adopt those policies after receiving the money. We can only surmise that universities will not want to risk losing funding by publishing anything critical of the emirate.
Meanwhile, gone largely unnoticed is Qatar’s backdoor to universities, the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW), which is affiliated with the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies in Doha.
The ACW describes itself as “a nonprofit, independent and nonpartisan research organization dedicated to furthering the political, economic and social understanding of the Arab world in the United States and to providing insight on U.S. policies and interests in the Middle East.”
It says it relies on tax-deductible contributions from “individual supporters, organizations, foundations and corporations.” However, according to its tax return, all but $900 of its $2,262,150 in donations came from the center in Qatar.
A hint of its orientation can be found in its two most recent events: “Gaza and the Crime of Genocide: Legal and Political Dimensions of Accountability” and “Repression of Palestine Activism Amid the War on Gaza.”
Khalil E. Jahshan, the executive director and a veteran of several Arab lobby groups, has said the “clearest political message” of Hamas’s attack on Israel was “the one addressed to the ‘Camp of Normalizers’—be they Israeli, Arab, Americans or Europeans—that their plans to forge a ‘New Middle East’ without Palestine shall not pass unopposed.”
He also tweeted: “Top #Biden adviser and confidant Brett #McGurk is obsessed with rewarding #Israel for its #genocidal war in #Gaza by furthering the #Trump-era cash-&-carry #normalization deal between #Saudi_Arabia & Israel at the expense of #Palestinian national rights.”
The center has 14 academic advisers, 13 of whom are professors from universities such as Georgetown, George Washington, Maryland and Princeton. It does not indicate whether any members are paid. Among the professors on the list are Columbia University professor Hamid Dabashi. He refers to ISIS as “murderous thugs” and says, “Their Israeli counterparts meanwhile conquered parts of Syria and declared it part of their Zionist settler colony.” Dabashi does see one difference, which suggests that he doesn’t read The New York Times, “ISIS does not have a platoon of clean shaven and well coiffured [sic] columnists at the New York Times propagating the cause of the terrorist outfit as the Zionists columnists do on a regular basis.”
While Dabashi wears his disdain for Israel on his sleeve, a more slippery example is the University of Maryland’s Shibley Telhami. An Israel critic, he is best known for producing widely quoted surveys related to Israel with questions consistently written to elicit negative responses towards the Jewish state.
Another adviser, Osama Abi-Mershed, an associate professor in the influential Walsh School of Foreign Service and Director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) at Georgetown University, is a supporter of the antisemitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. He has pledged “not to collaborate on projects and events involving Israeli academic institutions.”
Abi-Mershed’s colleague, Marwa Daoudy, an assistant professor in International Relations at the Walsh School and CCAS, tweeted “Palestinians are denied the right to exist as human beings.” He also praised South Africa’s foreign minister for comparing Israeli policy to apartheid, and accused Israel of genocide and “cultural genocide.”
Another adviser is retired USC professor Laurie Brand, former president of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and now chair of its Committee on Academic Freedom, which devotes much of its attention to criticism of Israel and defense of antisemitic speech, as in its post-Oct. 7 letter to universities denying that anti-Zionism is antisemitic. While expressing heartbreak over the loss of Israeli and Palestinian lives, the letter has nothing to say about the Hamas massacre that created the toxic campus environment. She is indignant over the supposed silencing of Israel’s detractors while defending the boycott of Israel.
George Washington University history professor Dina Khoury is another former MESA president who supports BDS and has condemned Israel in a prior Gaza conflict for its actions to defend its citizens. Another BDS’er is Amaney Jamal, the Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Politics at Princeton University.
Sheila Carapico, a professor of political science and international studies at the University of Richmond, is another BDS supporter and a consultant to Human Rights Watch. She wrote an article complaining about Saudi Arabia bullying Qatar.
‘The price we had to pay’
ACW also has 18 research fellows, including Dana El Kurd, an assistant professor at the University of Richmond who wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post assailing the normalization of relations between Israel and the Gulf states, claiming that rather than advancing peace, Israel is giving the Arab regimes tools to solidify their authoritarian rule. She claims the Palestinian issue is the “root cause of the Arab-Israeli conflict” and suggested that the Abraham Accords emboldened Israel to annex Palestinian territory, ignoring that Israel gave up a plan to exercise sovereignty to achieve the agreement with the Gulf states.
One member of the ACW board is Mohammed Abu Nimer, director of the Peacebuilding and Development Institute at American University. Hamas, he says, has “engaged in the fight against the Israeli occupation since 1987”; that is, two years after every Israeli was withdrawn. He also repeats the canard that Hamas changed its charter and no longer seeks Israel’s destruction. The man who received the 2023 Distinguished Scholar Award for his “groundbreaking work in interreligious dialogue and faith-based peacebuilding” refers to the situation in Gaza as “genocide.”
Another board member is Laurie King, an anthropology professor at Georgetown who was a co-founder of the virulently anti-Israel website Electronic Intifada. She has compared Israel to Afrikaner South Africa and called for it to be boycotted. She falsely accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing.” Not surprisingly, she objects to antisemites being called out for antisemitism.
Predictably, I found no statements condemning Hamas for massacring 1,200 Israelis.
The creation of the ACW is not Qatar’s first effort to use a Washington think tank as part of its influence operation. In 2007, it convinced the Brookings Institution to open a center in Doha. A few years later, the emirate agreed to a $14.8 million, four-year donation to help fund the affiliate in Qatar and a project on United States relations with the Islamic world. Brookings closed the center in Doha and stopped taking money from the emirate in 2017. Previously, it listed Qatar as one of its top donors, giving more than $2 million. Brookings’s divorce came after its president, Gen. John R. Allen (Ret.), was investigated by the Justice Department for illegally lobbying for Qatar (no charges were brought).
A former visiting fellow at the Doha Center who went on to teach at the University of Queensland in Australia offered one clue to the impact of associating with Qatar. Saleem Ali told The New York Times, “If a member of Congress is using the Brookings reports, they should be aware—they are not getting the full story.” He said he had been warned during his job interview not to criticize Qatar in his published work. “There was a no-go zone when it came to criticizing the Qatari government,” said Ali. “It was unsettling for the academics there. But it was the price we had to pay.”
Qatar didn’t hide what it expected to get for its contributions. When Brookings renewed its agreement for the Doha center in 2012, the Times reported that the Qatar Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced, “the center will assume its role in reflecting the bright image of Qatar in the international media, especially the American ones.”
When Brookings finally dumped Qatar, the emirate lost the prestige of associating with a prominent think tank. Undeterred, the Qataris created their own to give an academic veneer to their influence campaign.
Evaluating the impact of Arab funding on higher education is often a chicken-and-egg proposition. Are professors on the advisory board spreading propaganda because they get paid or are they recruited by Qatar to its stable of apologists because they are anti-Israel (I’ll leave it to others to decide if they’re also antisemitic)? If there is no financial or professional benefit, why associate with Qatar?
Whatever their reasons, they have affiliated themselves with the country that supports Hamas and Islamists.
The post Qatar’s Back Door to Higher Education first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Iran Criticizes Arab-Islamic Summit Statement, Flags Objections After Doha Meeting
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir of Qatar, attends the emergency Arab-Islamic leaders’ summit in Doha, Qatar, Sept. 15, 2025. Photo: Hassan Bargash Al Menhali / UAE Presidential Court/Handout via REUTERS
Iran has criticized the final statement of the Arab-Islamic Summit held in Doha on Monday as insufficient, in the wake of last week’s Israeli attack targeting the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Qatar.
In a statement released shortly after the summit, Iran reaffirmed its “unwavering support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination,” while arguing that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict cannot adequately address the Palestinian issue.
According to the Iranian delegation, “the only real and lasting solution is the establishment of a single democratic state across all of Palestine, through a referendum involving all Palestinians inside and outside the occupied territories.”
On Monday, Qatar held a summit of Arab and Islamic nations in the aftermath of last week’s Israeli strike on Hamas, with leaders gathering to express support and discuss regional responses.
The Sept. 9 strike targeting leaders of the Palestinian terrorist group in Doha marked a significant escalation of Israeli military operations, reflecting Jerusalem’s broader efforts to dismantle the terrorist group amid the ongoing war in Gaza.
Expressing solidarity with Qatar, summit leaders condemned Israel’s strike, labeling it “cowardly, illegal, and a threat to collective regional security.”
In the final statement, the heads of state declared that “an assault on a state acting as a neutral mediator in the Gaza crisis is not only a hostile act against Qatar but also a direct blow to international peace-building efforts.”
Alongside the United States and other regional powers, Qatar has served as a ceasefire mediator during the nearly two-year Gaza conflict, facilitating indirect negotiations between the Jewish state and Hamas.
However, Doha has also backed the Palestinian terrorist group for years, providing Hamas with money and diplomatic support while hosting and sheltering its top leadership.
During the summit, Arab and Muslim leaders called for a review of diplomatic and economic relations with Israel while firmly opposing any attempts to displace Palestinians.
In the final statement, the heads of state also emphasized resisting Israel’s efforts to “impose new realities on the ground,” urged enforcement of International Criminal Court (ICC) warrants for Israeli leaders over war crime allegations adamantly denied by Jerusalem, and coordinated actions to suspend Israel’s UN membership.
Although Iran participated in the summit and endorsed the declaration, its delegation issued a separate statement shortly afterward clarifying that doing so “must in no way be interpreted, explicitly or implicitly, as recognition of the Israeli regime,” reaffirming its rejection of the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Iranian leaders regularly declare their intention to destroy Israel, the world’s lone Jewish state.
The statement also stressed that the Palestinian people have the right to employ “all necessary means to achieve their inalienable right to self-determination,” emphasizing that backing this cause is “a shared duty of the international community.”
As the heads of Arab and Islamic states convened for a summit on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned he did not rule out further strikes on Hamas leaders “wherever they are.”
During a diplomatic visit to Israel, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed strong support for Israel’s position, even as Washington previously voiced concerns over the strike in Qatar, a US ally.
Speaking alongside Netanyahu, Rubio said the only way to end the war in Gaza would be for Hamas to free all hostages and surrender. While the US wants a diplomatic end to the war, “we have to be prepared for the possibility that’s not going to happen,” he said.
RSS
“Your Name Was Included”: UC Berkeley Cooperating With Trump Administration, Admits to Disclosing Names
Students attend a protest encampment in support of Palestinians at University of California, Berkeley during the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, in Berkeley, US, April 23, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect
The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) is cooperating with the Trump administration’s inquiry into campus antisemitism, providing materials containing the names of some 160 people identified in disciplinary reports and other official documents.
As first reported by The Daily Californian, UC Berkeley’s official campus newspaper, the university’s Office of Legal Affairs notified every person affected by the mass disclosure, writing to them on Sept. 4.
“Last spring, the [US Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, or OCR]] initiated investigations regarding allegations of antisemitic harassment and discrimination at UC Berkeley. As part of its investigation, OCR required production of comprehensive documents, including files and reports related to alleged antisemitic incidents,” chief campus counsel David Robinson wrote. “This notice is to inform you that, as required by law and as per directions provided by the UC systemic Office of General Counsel, your name was included in report as part of the documents provided by OGC [Office of General Counsel] to OCR for its investigations on Aug. 18, 2025.”
He added, “These documents contained information about reports or responses related to antisemitic incidents.”
Anti-Israel activists told the Californian that the university is helping the Trump administration hunt witches.
“I think the message was sent to anybody has who has ever been accused of antisemitism, which of course, includes a lot of Palestinians,” one said, claiming that he has been falsely accused. “Whenever we teach about Palestine, it usually leads to an investigation. I think they flagged and sent all of that information to the federal government.”
Students for Justice in Palestine, infamous for its ties to jihadist terror organizations, also criticized the move, charging that the administration had promised to conceal their identities and thereby obstruct the government’s inquiry.
“Chancellor Rich Lyons should not have given assurances that he wouldn’t be giving our information to the federal government,” the group said. “Beyond that, he should never have bowed down so easily. I would think that a university that prides itself on being this liberal haven would at least stand up to a fascist like Donald Trump.”
UC Berkeley came under scrutiny in 2024 after a mob of hundreds of pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at its Zellerbach Hall featuring Israeli reservist Ran Bar-Yoshafat, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protesters overwhelmed campus police.
Footage of the incident showed a frenzied mass of anti-Zionist agitators banging on the doors of Zellerbach. The mob then, according to witnesses, eventually stormed the building — breaking windows in the process, according to reports in The Daily Wire — and precipitated the decision to evacuate the area. During the infiltration of Zellerbach, one of the mob — assembled by Bears for Palestine, which had earlier proclaimed its intention to cancel the event — spit on a Jewish student and called him a “Jew,” pejoratively.
Other incidents, including the university’s employment of a lecturer who tweeted antisemitic images — one of which accused Israel of organ harvesting, a blood libel — the rewarding of academic benefits for participating in anti-Zionist activity, and the banning of Zionist speakers from Berkeley Law, have raised concerns about anti-Jewish hated on campus. In 2017, The Algemeiner ranked UC Berkeley as number five on “The 40 Worst Colleges for Jewish Students.”
In August, an Israeli professor sued the university, alleging that school officials denied her a job because she is Israeli — a claim its own investigators corroborated in an internal investigation, according to her attorneys at the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law.
Filed in the Alameda County Superior Court, the complaint is seeking justice for Dr. Yael Nativ, who taught in UC Berkeley’s Department of Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies as a visiting professor in 2022 and received an invitation to apply to do so again for the 2024-2025 academic year just weeks after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel.
A hiring official allegedly believed, however, that an Israeli professor in the department would be unpalatable to students and faculty.
“My dept [sic] cannot host you for a class next fall,” the official allegedly told Nativ in a WhatsApp message. “Things are very hot here right now and many of our grad students are angry. I would be putting the dept and you in a terrible position if you taught here.”
Berkeley’s Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination (OPHD) later initiated an investigation of Nativ’s denial after the professor wrote an opinion essay which publicly accused the school of cowardice and violations of her civil rights. OPHD determined that a “preponderance of evidence” proved Nativ’s claim, but school officials went on to ignore the professor’s requests for an apology and other remedial measures, including sending her a renewed invitation to teach dance. After nearly two years, the situation remains unresolved.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
RSS
Israel Issues Travel Warning Ahead of Jewish Holidays Amid Rising Attacks, Discrimination Targeting Israelis Abroad
A flag is flown during a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, outside the European Parliament, in Strasbourg, France, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yves Herman
Israel has issued a travel warning ahead of the upcoming Jewish high holidays and the second anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, atrocities, alerting citizens of heightened terrorist threats against Israelis and Jewish communities abroad.
On Sunday, the National Security Council (NSC) urged travelers to stay alert, cautioning that the two-year anniversary of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel could trigger attacks by Iran-backed or Hamas-linked terrorist groups targeting Jews and Israelis abroad.
“The recent period has been characterized by continued efforts to carry out terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets by the various terrorist organizations (most of them led by Iran and Hamas),” the NSC said in a statement.
“Oct. 7 may again serve as a significant date for terrorist organizations,” the statement read.
Israeli officials warned that the threat mainly stems from Iran and its terrorist proxies, which have increasingly targeted Jews and Israelis beyond Israel’s borders.
In recent months, the NSC reported that dozens of plots have been thwarted, even as violent incidents — including physical attacks, antisemitic threats, and online incitement — have continued to rise.
“With the war ongoing and the terror threat growing, we are witnessing an escalation in antisemitic violence and provocations by anti-Israel elements,” the NSC said in its statement.
“This trend may inspire extremists to carry out attacks against Israelis or Jews abroad,” it continued.
According to the NSC, Iran remains the leading source of terrorism against Israelis and Jews worldwide, acting both directly and through proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah.
“Iranian motivation is growing in light of the severe blows it suffered in the framework of ‘Operation Rising Lion’ and the growing desire for revenge,” the NSC said in a statement, referring to the 12-day war with Israel in June.
Amid rising tensions over the war in Gaza, Israeli officials have previously warned of Iranian sleeper cells — covert operatives or terrorists embedded in rival countries who remain dormant until they receive orders to act and carry out attacks.
In light of this reality, the NSC also warned that social media posts revealing ties to Israeli security services could put individuals at risk of being targeted.
“We advise against posting any content that suggests involvement in the security services or operational activities, including real-time location updates,” the statement read.
This latest updated warning comes amid a growing hostile environment and a shocking surge in anti-Jewish hate crimes targeting Jews and Israelis worldwide.
Across Europe, Israelis are facing a disturbing surge of targeted attacks and hostility, as a wave of antisemitic incidents — from violent assaults and vandalism to protests and legal actions — spreads amid rising tensions following recent conflicts in the Middle East.
On Saturday, a 29-year-old Israeli and his sister were attacked by three Palestinian men while on vacation in Athens, Greece.
According to local media reports, the two siblings were walking through the city’s center when three unknown individuals carrying Palestinian flags approached them, shouting antisemitic slurs.
The attackers assaulted the Israeli man, a disabled Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veteran, scratching him, throwing him to the ground, and striking him with their flagpoles, while his sister attempted to intervene and protect him.
October 7 is a global war against Jews & Israelis.
Pro-Palestinian radicals just attacked an Israeli man in Syntagma Square, Athens. via @N12News https://t.co/IZR2IdNrUI pic.twitter.com/9S2o4IjtO6
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) September 14, 2025
Greek authorities arrested all five individuals involved in the incident. According to the Israeli man’s father, his son was placed in a cell with 10 Arabs, where he was reportedly beaten again and feared for his life.
In a separate antisemitic incident earlier this year, a group of Israeli teenagers was physically assaulted by dozens of pro-Palestinian assailants — some reportedly armed with knives — on the Greek island of Rhodes.
After leaving a nightclub, the teens were followed to their hotel, where they were violently assaulted, leaving several with minor injuries.
In another example of rising anti-Israel sentiment and hostility toward Jewish communities, one of Britain’s most prestigious military academies, the Royal College of Defense Studies, announced Sunday that it will bar Israeli students from enrolling next year, citing concerns over the war in Gaza.
In Belgium, two IDF soldiers attending the Tomorrowland music festival were arrested and interrogated by local authorities following a complaint from the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), an anti-Israel legal group that pursues legal action against IDF personnel, accusing them of involvement in war crimes.
According to HRF, the soldiers were seen waving the flags of the IDF’s Givati Brigade, which they claimed has been “involved in the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and in carrying out mass atrocities against the Palestinian population.”
In France, a 34-year-old Algerian man was sentenced to 40 months in prison for threatening passengers with a knife and making antisemitic death threats after boarding a train at Cannes station.
In another incident earlier this year, a Jewish man wearing a kippah was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Anduze, a small town in southern France.