PHILADELPHIA – January 20, 2026 – The Hamas-supporting Gulf nation of Qatar has secured control over large segments of Georgetown University (GU) in Washington, D.C. From governance to faculty recruitment to scholarship and teaching, Qatar’s tentacles reach deep into the university.
“Qatar’s Multidimensional Takeover of Georgetown University,” a new Middle East Forum (MEF) report, demonstrates how this foreign power often hostile to the United States and its allies can shape the intellectual output of a major American university in order to undermine the policies and traditions on which it was founded. The school received almost $1 Billion from Qatar over 20 years for its Doha and Washington, D.C., campuses.
From Georgetown’s Board of Directors to numerous endowed chairs, research agendas, curricular development, and joint appointments with Georgetown University-Qatar’s (GU-Q) Qatar-funded campus in Doha, the Persian Gulf state’s petrodollars touch virtually every segment of the Jesuit school.
Anti-American/Western/Israel personnel in D.C. and Doha bear the mark of Qatari influence:
- Mehedi Hasan: Named a 2026 Politics Fellow at Georgetown’s Institute of Politics and Public Service, Hamas apologist Hasan referred to non-Muslims as “animals” and has a long history of making virulently anti-Israel remarks. MSNBC dismissed him in 2023 for anti-Israel remarks in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 attacks.
- Sheikh Abdulla bin Ali Al Thani: Son of the former Emir of Qatar, Ali bin Abdullah Al Thani serves on Georgetown’s Board of Directors, thereby ensuring the royal family’s influences extend to the highest echelons of GU’s governance.
- Fida Adely: The Clovis and Hala Salaam Maksoud Chair in Arab Studies (funded by Qatar’s U.S. embassy) and director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies serves on the viciously anti-Israel National Advisory Board of Faculty for Justice in Palestine and is a prominent supporter of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which aims to isolate Israel internationally.
- Irfan Nooruddin: The Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani Professor of Indian Politics at Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service (SFS), emphasizes “decentering the West” and advocates a “post-Western order.” The Stop Hindu Hate Advocacy Network labeled him a “Hindu hater” for his anti-Hindu statements and associations.
- Ian Almond: Professor of world literature at GU-Q is the 2025-2026 representative of GU-Q to the Main Campus Executive Faculty, the primary legislative body of GU’s D.C. campus. Almond publicly endorsed Hamas’s October 7, 2023, atrocities, stating “I don’t blame Hamas for this” and “it didn’t start on Oct. 7.” He refers to Israel as a “gangster state” and endorsed the vandalism of Palestine Action, a U.K.-designated terrorist organization.
“Qatar has proved highly adept at compromising individuals and institutions with cold hard cash,” said Winfield Myers, director of MEF’s Campus Watch project. “But with Georgetown, it found a recipient already eager to do Doha’s bidding to advance Islamist goals at home and abroad. It was a natural fit.”
“Georgetown is Ground Zero for foreign influence peddling in American higher education,” said MEF executive director Gregg Roman. “It has not only abandoned its mission to educate future generations of diplomats and scholars to represent U.S. interests at home and abroad, but is working actively to undermine the foundations of American government and policy. No doubt they’re eager to get the money, but at base this evinces an ideological hostility to Western civilization.”
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For immediate release
For more information, contact:
Gregg Roman
roman@meforum.org
+1 (215) 546 5406
