Think tanks, universities, museums, newspapers, and key congressional committees are all pieces in a game of 3D chess that the tiny Gulf state of Qatar is playing with its rivals, using our nation’s capital as its game board.
With a population of little more than 300,000 living in less than 12,000 square kilometers of mostly sand, Qatar, with an Islamic majority, that openly supports and harbors terrorists to a disproportionate and unparalleled degree for its size, seems unlikely to have much influence on the American way of life. But you would be wrong to dismiss them.
Over the past decade, Qatar has implemented the single most sophisticated, sustained, successful agenda of any foreign nation or interest group to shape Western policy-making in their favor. The amount of money that this tiny nation has poured into local, state and federal governments, universities, public schools, educational organizations, think tanks and the media is astounding. And, it would be impossible to understand how Washington works today without understanding the nature and scope of Qatar’s campaign.
While there is nothing secret about the money that foreign powers spread around the US capital, the amount and who gets it is not always forthcoming. The point of taking money from foreign powers, aside from the money itself, is to align oneself with the power that money represents, something most politicians would prefer to keep from the voters.
According to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, there is not much in the way of laws or regulations to prevent any of this from happening since Federal reporting requirements and procedures are inadequate. Just recently the media reported that Yale and Harvard had failed to report more than $6.5 billion in foreign funding, a figure that includes more than $3 billion from Qatar and the Gulf States. Accepting all this money from Islamic countries assures that universities also accept anti-Semitic groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine that push measures like BDS and the silencing of anyone that supports Israel.
Since 2009, the Qatar Foundation International provided “direct support” to establish or expand Arabic language at primary, secondary and high schools. Over an eight year period, according to the Wall Street Journal, direct support “to several dozen schools from New York to Oregon” amounted to $30.6 million which goes a long way in explaining why Islam is being taught to our children.
Only a small percentage of Qatar’s “investments” go to buying the loyalties of politicians, and academia. They hedge their bet by pouring money into American think tanks like the Brookings Institute, which has not disclosed the amount of money they received from Qatar through 2010. It is public information, however, that they received $2.9 million in 2011, $100,000 million in 2012 and a 4 year grant of $14.8 million in 2013. We also know that in 2018 and 2019, the embassy of Qatar donated at least $2 million.
A number of other US based think tanks, that include the McCain Institute, the Rand Corporation, the Wilson Center, the Stimson Center, the International Crisis Center and the Bill Gates Foundation, have signed on as strategic partners with Qatar. We may never know for certain how money is involved in this “partnership” but we do know that the International Crisis Center received $4 million, according to the Washington Free Beacon. Robert Malley, president of ICG, a former Obama administrative aide, is often quoted as an “impartial Middle East NGO expert” in the New York Times.
In addition to the numerous real estate holdings in D.C., New York and Boston, Qatar signed a $180 million sponsorship deal in 2018 with Inter Miami, a major league soccer franchise owned by David Beckham. In 2019 they announced they were going to invest an additional $45 billion in real estate and technology and publicly struck a deal for $10 billion deal with ExxonMobil to expand a liquefied natural gas terminal in Texas, home to Sen. Ted Cruz.
This massive wave of Islamic cash washing over our country is destructive. The Islamic states abide by a very different set of values than Americans do, or did. The money does, however, go a long way in explaining why politicians side with Islam over American citizens.
The Cooperation Agreement dealing with US troop presence in Qatar, along with the preposition of military equipment and arms sales, was renewed in 2013 for another 10 years, a relatively short period in the context of a region that has seen mighty empires fade. So what will Qatar do if this agreement is renewed in 2023? Experts believe it is inevitable that Qatar will turn to Islamist terrorists groups for their survival.
Source: Qatar’s State-of-the-Art Foreign Lobbying Campaign by Lee Smith, Tablet Magazine; It’s Time To Officially Acknowledge That Qatar Is A State Sponsor of Terrorism by Jordan Cope, The Federalist
