Qatar Waging Stealth Influence Operations Across U.S. Academic System, Documents Show

WFB: Group urges Trump admin to investigate Doha’s funding of propaganda.

Qatar is spending billions of dollars to infiltrate the American education system as part of a propaganda effort that legal advocates say violates federal statutes and warrants a full-scale investigation, according to a nonpublic memorandum sent from an investigative group to the State Department and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The Qatar Foundation (QF), a state-controlled entity tasked with promoting the country’s interests, has spent at least $1.5 billion since 2012 to fund a range of educational initiatives at 28 universities across America, making it one of the education system’s most prolific foreign funders, according to information obtained by the Lawfare Project, a U.S.-based legal group that has been petitioning American universities to turn over information about their financial relationships with Qatar.

Foreign funding of American universities has been a concern for some time, with countries such as Qatar, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, and others injecting billions into their budgets. The Education Department found in late 2019 that several schools failed to report more than $1.3 billion in foreign funds. Qatar’s emergence as one of the leading foreign funders has generated concerns about anti-Israel and anti-Semitic bias working its way into the classroom.

The Lawfare Project’s investigation, which has been provided to the Trump administration, “reveals considerable Qatari infiltration in the American education system and the media,” according to a copy of the investigative materials viewed by the Free Beacon. “This infiltration, funded and organized through QF and [Qatar Foundation International], has turned American universities and primary and secondary school teachers into de facto agents of the Qatari government, conveying its political (and anti-Semitic) views to students and the general population without any acknowledgment of the origins of these views.” read more