American Profs Advance Qatari Influence Operations on ‘Islamophobia’

The College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Doha, Qatar.

Qatar has run successful, well-financed influence operations in the West for years, including in academe, where it is now the largest foreign donor to American universities. Academics and administrators could refuse this largess, which always comes with the expectation that Qatar’s Wahabbi interests will be represented. In the case of many Middle East studies professors, money isn’t the only consideration (although it surely gets their attention). They already agree with the aims of Qatar’s propaganda, which among other things advances the fiction that “Islamophobia” is rampant in the West. Counter-Islamist Grid Fellow Ahnaf Kalam reported on a recent instance of this mutual understanding at the New English Review‘s Iconoclast:

In February, the College of Islamic Studies at Hamad Bin Khalifa University (HBKU) in Doha, Qatar, hosted a panel titled “Global Islamophobia: Understanding its Roots, Challenging its Impact.” It was a fitting venue for a misinformation campaign based on the weaponized term “Islamophobia,” coined not to advance debate but to end it. Emad El-Din Shahin, interim provost and dean of the host College, is a member of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood sentenced to death in absentia in Cairo.

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Winfield Myers is managing editor of the Middle East Forum and director of its Campus Watch project, which reviews and critiques Middle East studies in North American universities. He has taught world history and other topics at the University of Michigan, the University of Georgia, Tulane, and Xavier University of Louisiana. He was previously managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine and CEO of Democracy Project, Inc., which he co-founded. Mr. Myers has served as senior editor and communications director at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and is principal author and editor of a college guide, Choosing the Right College (1998, 2001). He was educated at the University of Georgia, Tulane, and the University of Michigan.
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