After October 7, many Jews looked at what was happening in the West and asked how the reaction had turned against Israel so quickly.

Hamas had just murdered about 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped roughly 250. Israeli families were still identifying bodies and looking for the missing. Yet within days, protests against Israel were spreading across Western cities and university campuses. Students were already using the language of colonialism, apartheid, genocide and resistance. Some defended Hamas as a liberation movement. Others tore down posters of kidnapped Israeli children.

I wanted to understand where this came from.

People do not suddenly adopt the same political language, the same historical claims and the same moral framework within a few days. Something had already been built before October 7.

The more I researched, the more I came back to Qatar.

Then I came across Sheikha Moza bint Nasser.

Most Jews have probably never heard her name. They should.

Sheikha Moza is the wife of Qatar’s former emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and the mother of the current emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. She co-founded Qatar Foundation in 1995 and remains its chairperson.

For almost three decades, she has helped build the polished, respected side of Qatar’s influence in the West through education, philanthropy, culture and international institutions.

At the same time, Qatar became deeply connected to Hamas, gave senior Hamas leaders a home in Doha, funded Al Jazeera and supported an Islamist political environment closely connected to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Once I started looking at the whole picture, I stopped treating these as separate subjects.

Qatar Understood How Influence Works

Qatar is a tiny country with enormous wealth.

It used that wealth intelligently.

Qatar developed a close military relationship with the United States, invested heavily in Western businesses and real estate, bought global prestige through sports and built relationships with elite universities.

Sheikha Moza helped lead the educational side of that strategy.

Through Qatar Foundation and Education City, major American universities established operations in Doha, including Georgetown, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon and Weill Cornell Medicine.

Qatar also became one of the largest foreign financial sources connected to American higher education.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, American universities reported more than $1.1 billion in gifts and contracts from Qatari sources in 2025 alone.

I often see this money described simply as donations.

That description misses the larger relationship.

Qatar built long-term financial and institutional connections with universities that educate future journalists, diplomats, lawyers, academics and political leaders.

You do not need to call a professor and dictate a lesson plan to influence an institution.

You can fund programs, host campuses, sponsor research, build partnerships, develop professional networks and become financially useful to the people running the institution.

Over time, you gain access and credibility.

Sheikha Moza helped Qatar build both.

Her Own Words Tell Us What She Believes

On November 15, 2023, about five weeks after the October 7 massacre, Sheikha Moza spoke at the “United for Peace in Palestine” summit in Istanbul.

She accused Israel of spreading “fabricated narratives” and called for those narratives to be challenged through media, culture, intellectual work and official channels.

Then she spoke about antisemitism.

She........

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