Qatar is accused of using a state-led, non-profit organization to infiltrate the American education system by funding education programs and salaries across different schools and universities in the United States.
There are calls to investigate the Qatar Foundation, a state-owned, non-profit organization founded in 1995 by then-emir Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani and his second wife Moza bint Nasser Al-Missned, for spending at least $1.5 billion since 2012 to fund a wide range of educational initiatives at 28 universities across the United States as part of an effort to spread its influence in the country’s education system.
The foundation does this through its subsidiary, Qatar Foundation International (QFI) LLC, which was founded in Delaware in 2012 and serves as the foundation's US-based wing. The organization funds programs across universities to promote Qatari interests in the American education system and provides funding to teachers and educational programs in nearly two dozen K-12 schools nationwide. QFI LLC often funds Arabic programs for children.
“QFI grants for schools, students, and teachers support education in Arabic language and about the Arab world. They are designed to enable students to become engaged with 21st-century skills and global competency, and support programs that reach more than 3,200 students in the US and Europe,“ a spokesperson for the QFI LLC said.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Arabic is the second most popular foreign language to learn at American public schools after Spanish.
The QFI funds education programs and salaries for Arabic language teachers and conducts field trips for students, including visits to the House of Palestine Annual Culture Festival in San Diego, California.
Another flagship program of the QFI is an Arabic-language website called Al-Masdar. It describes itself as an “open-education resource library“ that “features a wealth of materials and resources for educators, including lesson plans, units, authentic materials, and more.“
QFI LLC also said al-Masdar “provides Arabic language and Arab culture teaching materials, opportunities, news, and events relevant to both teachers and students. Al-Masdar is a single source for teachers to create, publish, and collaborate with colleagues on materials developed for their classrooms.“
Al-Masdar supplies educational materials for Arabic-language learning programs to American high schools and universities. However, some of these lesson plans suggest fealty to Qatar and contain information that is severely biased towards Islam and Qatar and against Israel and non-Muslims.
The Lawfare Project, an American legal nonprofit that works to protect the human and civil rights of Jewish people worldwide, accused the Qatar Foundation of teaching about the Middle East in a biased way and suggested that Qatar’s activities in the United States through its nonprofits violate the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), which requires entities and people acting "as an agent of a foreign principal" to register with the American government and disclose foreign influence in the domestic political process.
“Qatar’s involvement through its agent, Qatar Foundation International (QFI), is substantial and significant. Students are learning about the Middle East in a biased way that emphasizes only the positive aspects of Islam while omitting a balanced discussion of other religions or belief systems, most notably Judaism,“ the Lawfare Project said in its statement on Qatari influence in American schools in May 2020.
“The Lawfare Project’s research suggests that the Foreign Agents Registration Act, 22 USC 611-621 (FARA), applies to Qatar’s activities and requires that the institutions and individuals benefiting from its funding register as agents of Qatar. The Lawfare Project has submitted a memorandum on this issue to the Department of State and is advocating that the government require these pernicious foreign influences to register as foreign agents,“ the group added.
