Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more Qatar Campus Collusion: Hamas-Friendly Gulf State Demanded US Schools in Doha 'Be Aligned' After Oct 7 Plus, Harvard looks to recruit at Jewish day schools after study finds steep decline in Jewish enrollment Eliana Johnson Mar 18 READ IN APP Top: Northwestern University Qatar (NU-Q / Facebook) Bottom: Georgetown University Qatar (EQRoy via Alamy) Emails released by the House Education Committee show that Qatar pressed American universities with satellite campuses in Doha to coordinate their messaging with the regime in the days following Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack. University officials were instructed to “be aligned” to ensure “information sharing and no surprises,” the Free Beacon’s Collin Anderson reports. The directive came during an Oct. 17 call organized by the state-run Qatar Foundation, which asked that the communications from each university “be aligned and in touch” when it came to their official communications. The same day, Northwestern University Qatar’s campus dean, Marwan Michael Kraidy, declined to sign onto a statement from the university criticizing a professor who had downplayed the Oct. 7 attack. Northwestern Qatar also “intentionally chose not to circulate” a university statement describing the Oct. 7 attack as “abhorrent and horrific,” according to the committee’s report. The revelations come amid growing scrutiny of Qatar’s financial ties to U.S. universities and the influence and foothold it gains with that money. Qatar is the largest foreign funder of American higher education: It funneled $396 million to American universities in 2024 and $1.2 billion in 2025. Schools like Northwestern and Georgetown are big recipients. They operate campuses in Doha under contracts that dole out millions of dollars in annual “management fees” and require compliance with Qatari law and cultural norms. A Georgetown visitor’s guide exposed in the committee report, for example, asks visitors to the university’s Qatar campus to “speak respectfully about the emir, the ruling family, and the government system”; “be cautious about spreading rumors on social media, even if they’re true”; refrain from “publicizing crises happening inside Qatar”; and avoid “criticizing religions, prophets, or holy books.” Talk about an education, however unintended, in a government where a terror-friendly monarch and his family wield absolute control. READ MORE: ‘Information Sharing and No Surprises’: Qatar Demanded American Schools In Doha ‘Be Aligned’ In Wake of Oct 7, Emails Show