Putting an end to Qatar's antisemitic shadow at Northwestern

Much ink has been spilled on the recent rampage of perhaps the world’s oldest hatred. There is no doubt that the antisemitism on our campuses must be stamped out.

To stem its spread, it is not enough to just tackle the Jew hatred on display at anti-Israel and anti-American campus protests. If we want to extinguish the hate, we must recognize that antisemitism has been fueled by Qatari and Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated money and anti-democratic, anti-American forces.

Northwestern University, one of our country's leading private research and teaching universities, offers a cautionary tale.

In January 2024, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights announced that it had opened a Title VI investigation into Northwestern due to its abject failure “to respond appropriately to incidents of harassment” of their Jewish students. In May, the House Education and the Workforce Committee followed up, announcing a hearing into “Northwestern University’s response to antisemitism and its failure to protect Jewish students.”

According to the House committee, the recent Northwestern Gaza solidarity encampment was a “hotbed” of antisemitism and harassment of Jewish members of the university. In fact, already in the days following the Oct. 7 massacre, student organizations endorsed the murder, rape and kidnapping of Jewish Israelis, and explicitly antisemitic propaganda was circulated on Northwestern’s campus.

As the antisemitic climate increased in the months following, seven members of the university’s “Advisory Committee on Preventing Antisemitism and Hate,” established in the aftermath of the Hamas massacre, resigned over the response of Northwestern to address the toxic campus antisemitism, anti-democratic and anti-American politics of intimidation.  

It is vital to understand the context of this pervasive antisemitism on campus and unsurprisingly, it involves “following the money.”

In 2008, Northwestern University established a campus in Education City, Doha, Qatar, with approximately 500 students graduating from Northwestern University in Qatar to date. The tiny but highly influential petrostate with less than 350,000 citizens,  has spent tens of billions of dollars on United States campuses based in Education City, of which a considerable amount has gone unreported and unregulated to the U.S. Department of Education (DOE).

According to the DOE, Northwestern University has received almost $582 million in Qatari gifts and contracts since its establishment in Education City. 

Qatar is no Jeffersonian democracy. In fact, the authoritarian Qatari government’s commitment to Islamism runs deep. As examined in the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) Report, “The Qatari Regime, Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood”, the Al-Thani royal family which rules Qatar has a spiritual oath (Bay’ha) to the Muslim Brotherhood and follows its religious rulings, edicts and fatwas. As such, Qatar has become a “safe haven” for Islamist/antisemitic figures, such as Hamas and the Taliban.

Despite Qatar’s commitment to promoting Islamist ideology and political activism around the world, Northwestern University in Qatar primarily specializes in journalism, with the Qatar Foundation having petitioned Northwestern to enter Doha Education City in order to “train future journalists who could build Qatar’s media presence abroad.”

Subsequently, in 2013 it was announced that there would be “collaboration and knowledge transfer” between Al Jazeera — which U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has condemned as being “full of anti-Israel incitement" — and Northwestern University in Qatar. The decision appeared to spell out a plan for Qatari desire to metastasize their ideological rhetoric far outside of the state itself. In short, Northwestern University in Qatar aimed to train Northwestern students, who would later (at least aspire to) become global journalists, under the leadership of Qatari state proxies.   This is a powerful and dangerous use of soft power that impacts national and international interests.

Shockingly, it is possible to identify instances whereby the socio-cultural regulations of Qatar have been manifested at Northwestern University in Qatar. An event featuring the Lebanese Indie rock band Mashrou’ Leila, whose lead singer is openly gay, was barred from taking place on Northwestern University in Qatar’s campus in 2020. According to a survey conducted in 2021, in keeping with the Al Jazeera view, at least 75 percent of professors at Northwestern University in Qatar condemned Israel as an "apartheid" state that commits "crimes against humanity."

Indeed, following the events on Northwestern’s U.S. campus in the last seven months, it is clear that the illiberal, antisemitic and anti-Democratic rhetoric is contained to its Qatar campus. Astoundingly, for example, Northwestern continues to employ Arthur Butz, an engineering professor who, in his book, “The Hoax of the Twentieth Century: The Case Against the Presumed Extinction of European Jewry,” claims the Holocaust as a hoax.

The pervasive influence of Qatari money on American campuses, particularly at Northwestern University, speaks to the heart of our values and the integrity of our educational institutions. The presence of antisemitism, often disguised as anti-Israel sentiment, is a cancer that threatens the very fabric of academic freedom and democracy.

It is imperative that Northwestern University follow the alumni appeal to immediately terminate the partnership between Al Jazeera and Northwestern University. It would also be a welcome measure for Northwestern University’s leadership to follow in the footsteps of Texas A&M’s Board of Governors, in deciding to close its campus in Doha Education City.

Silence is no longer an option. It’s time to reclaim our campuses and reaffirm our commitment to justice, equality and truth. The hate that is now normalized on our campuses is spreading like a virus on our streets and in our vital political and cultural institutions. It must be stopped.

Charles Asher Small is executive director and founder of The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).