Qatar has been buying its way into the heart of American power. Not metaphorically—literally. The small Gulf state has dumped billions of dollars into American universities, co-opted think tanks, and inserted itself into political circles on both sides of the aisle. It’s not just about soft power anymore. This is strategic infiltration.
According to Middle East Forum, Qatar pumped “$33.4 billion into businesses and real estate; $6.25 billion to universities; $72 million to lobbyists. Qatar purchases access to our corridors of power while simultaneously funding Hamas terrorists who seek our destruction. The pattern is clear: Qatar targets critical infrastructure, including our energy grid. It bankrolls academic departments that foment campus unrest, buys Manhattan skyscrapers, and infiltrates Silicon Valley. Its capital flows to Washington insiders who shape Middle East policy.”
And now, in the latest display of quiet power, Qatar gifted the President of the United States a brand-new plane.
This isn’t a gift. It’s a transaction. And we don’t know what was sold.
Experts Sound The Alarm
Jonathan Conricus, a former Israel Defense Forces spokesperson and now senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), has made it clear that Qatar is not neutral. He describes the Gulf emirate as an “active nefarious actor,” using its wealth to export ideological influence and to shield organizations like Hamas. He’s seen what this money funds—from underground terror tunnels in Gaza to misinformation and antisemitic narratives in the West.
Others, like Michael Doran of the Hudson Institute, argue Qatar is just playing defense—just a tiny monarchy with a population of 300,000 surrounded by giants like Saudi Arabia and Iran. But here’s the flaw: Qatar already hosts the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East, the Al Udeid Air Base, just outside Doha. With thousands of American troops stationed there, Qatar doesn’t need more protection. What it IS doing is leveraging that partnership as cover for its far-reaching agenda.
Buying The American Narrative And Minds Of The Youth
Qatar’s influence isn’t just in think tanks and campuses—it’s also in your living room.
In 2013, Qatar’s state media arm Al Jazeera bought Al Gore’s cable network, Current TV, for a staggering $500 million. The rebranded Al Jazeera America failed commercially, but its goal wasn’t ratings. It was presence in 40 million American households.
The acquisition gave Qatar the ability to market propaganda under the guise of serious journalism. It continues to do so under the AJ+ brand on social media, pushing anti-Israel, anti-Western, and often antisemitic narratives to audiences across the globe. It doesn’t aim to inform—it aims to manipulate.
The monarchy’s influence extends into elementary public schools.The Qatar Foundation provides materials for New York City’s “Arab Culture Arts” program which has a map of the Middle East with Israel removed. Tova Plaut, a New York City public school instructional coordinator for pre-K through fifth grade classrooms, said “It’s not just that we’re experiencing Jewish hate in NYC public schools, we’re actually experiencing Jewish erasure.”
A report by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) uncovered extensive foreign influence and anti-Israel bias infiltrating as many as 8,000 K-12 classrooms, reaching one million students. Qatar is mentioned 48 times in the report.

Congressional Sleepwalking
Disgracefully, few members of Congress have called out Qatar for their support of Hamas and fueling antisemitism in American schools.
Rep. Carol Miller (R-WV) did so in November 2023 noting “the influence of foreign governments on tax-exempt college campuses, [specifically] Qatari funding for Northwestern University. It is no coincidence that it now has a campus in the Gulf country and has become a pipeline for reporters for the Qatari state-owned media Al Jazeera and their youth-focused subsidiary, AJ+.”
Rep. Ann Wagner (R-MO), Vice Chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee said in May 2024, “It’s simple: if Qatar can’t pressure Hamas to make a deal with Israel, they must expel these terrorists so they can be brought to justice and punished for their horrific crimes against humanity. If they won’t do either, then the United States should seriously examine whether Qatar still deserves the privileges of its status as a major non-NATO ally.”
Yet it’s taken the public gift of an airplane to President Trump to finally make everyone in Congress wake up to the evils of Qatari influence.
Conclusion: Start The Audit And Pressure Campaign
President Trump has no qualms bankrupting Iran’s oil business if it continues to pursue a nuclear weapons program. It is time to threaten the Qatari regime to reverse its nefarious connections to state sponsors of terrorism and vicious antisemitism, or face actions similar to those inflicted on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Congress should use the airplane gift as an opportunity to open a wide ranging probe into Qatari influence everywhere in the USA.
Related articles:
Banning Qatar’s Al Jazeera Is Only News Sometimes (December 2024)
Nexus of Terrorism Hypocrisy: UN, Qatar and Hamas (January 2021)
Al Jazeera (Qatar) Evicts Jews and Judaism from Jerusalem. Time to Return the Favor (October 2016)
An Easy Boycott: Al Jazeera (Qatar) (April 2015)







































