Qatar demands American schools in Doha 'be aligned' in wake of Oct. 7th

The directive arrived on the very same day that the dean of Northwestern University in Qatar refused to append his name to a statement issued by his American counterparts, a statement that rightly condemned an NU-Q professor for seeking to minimize the sheer horror of the Hamas terrorist atrocities of October 7, 2023.

[Image of Northwestern University Qatar campus (top) and Georgetown University Qatar (bottom) would appear here if visuals were provided, but the substance stands without them.]In the immediate aftermath of that barbaric assault byl Hamas, the regime in Qatar, so notably hospitable to the leadership of that very terrorist organization, issued a clear instruction to the American universities it hosts in Doha. They must, in the regime's own words, "be aligned and in touch" regarding all official communications. This demand emerges plainly from emails released by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.

Those same emails form part of a report issued on Tuesday, titled "How Campuses Became Hotbeds: The Rise of Radical Antisemitism on College Campuses." The documents reveal that on October 17, 2023, the government-controlled Qatar Foundation convened a call with representatives of the American branch campuses in Doha. The purpose, according to a readout sent by NU-Q associate dean James Shaw to dean Marwan Michael Kraidy, was to discuss "how it is going" in the wake of the attack.

A Qatar Foundation official, Francisco Marmolejo, President of Higher Education, called for "information sharing and no surprises," as Shaw recorded. He added, "Also each PU's [partner university's] Comms Team to be aligned and in touch with QF," thus conveying the Qatar Foundation's explicit expectations.

Shaw, for his part, voiced what he termed a "slight concern," not at the prospect of aligning with a regime that sustains Hamas, but rather at the fact that his own institution had "navigated the first 10 days of this crisis with minimal comms support due to absence."

One need hardly labor the irony. Here was an American university branch, funded and hosted by a state that harbors and finances terrorists, being pressed to synchronize its public voice with that state, even as its dean recoiled from condemning a colleague who cast doubt on documented atrocities. The alignment demanded was not with truth, or with moral clarity, but with the preferences of those who prefer obfuscation. It is a small but telling illustration of how influence, money, and fear can quietly erode the principles that Western institutions claim to hold dear.

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