A contract between an “Islamophobia” initiative at Georgetown University and Hamas-allied Qatar, where Georgetown operates a satellite campus, includes a clause that requires Georgetown to consult with a Qatari government group when selecting “speakers” and “themes” for events in Washington, D.C., documents released by the House Education Committee and reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
The contract outlines a $630,000 grant from Qatar’s foreign ministry to Georgetown’s Bridge Initiative, a “multi-year research project on Islamophobia housed in Georgetown University.” Signed by Georgetown’s vice president of advancement in June 2024, the contract indicates Qatar will make three payments of $210,000 to the Bridge Initiative between 2024 and 2026. In order to receive the money, Georgetown agreed to “consult” with a Qatari group, the “Islam and Muslims Initiative,” when choosing “themes and speakers” for Islamophobia-related “conferences” and “events.”
Georgetown’s Bridge Initiative has hosted, promoted, or defended several figures whom the regime in Qatar has also boosted. They include Bridge Initiative advisory board member Dalia Mogahed and anti-Israel cleric Omar Suleiman, both of whom have promoted terrorism against the Jewish state, as well as Brooklyn imam Siraj Wahhaj, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
“The University’s Bridge Initiative is committed, annually and throughout the duration of this Agreement, to organizing international conferences on the Globalization of Islamophobia and similar themes for the purpose of furthering and disseminating research on this topic,” the contract states. “During that process, it will consult with the Islam and Muslims Initiative, which is supported by the Ministry, and consider recommendations regarding sessions, themes, and speakers.” The contract stipulates that “these events and activities” should be hosted “in Washington, D.C., in the United States of America.”
The contract—released by the House Education Committee in a March report, “How Campuses Became Hotbeds: The Rise of Radical Antisemitism on College Campuses”—provides the latest window into the control Qatar exerts over American universities as it showers them with cash, as well as its efforts to influence the conversation in the nation’s capital.
The Gulf monarchy became the largest foreign funder of U.S. higher education in 2022. It has increased its giving since then, providing $1.2 billion to U.S. universities in 2025, according to Department of Education disclosures.
Much of that money comes through Qatar’s contracts with American universities, including Georgetown and Northwestern University, that operate satellite campuses in Doha. Those contracts require both Georgetown and Northwestern “to abide by the ‘applicable laws and regulations of the State of Qatar’ and ‘respect the cultural, religious and social customs of the State of Qatar,'” according to the House report. Qatar’s penal code criminalizes criticism of its government and flag and bans the posting of online content that the Qatari regime deems harmful. In the wake of the Oct. 7 terror attack, the regime also demanded that American universities operating in Doha “be aligned and in touch” when it came to their official communications, the Free Beacon reported.
While it’s unclear exactly which events the Bridge Initiative contract with Qatar refers to, Georgetown has promoted people who have explicitly promoted terrorism. Those people are also featured in Qatar’s Islam and Muslims Initiative’s online videos, a Free Beacon review found.
The Islam and Muslims Initiative, for example, produced an educational series on Islam and Islamophobia featuring the anti-Israel cleric Suleiman, who has called for an “intifada” against the Jewish state and argued that homosexuality is a “disease” that will “destroy your children.” The Bridge Initiative has promoted Suleiman in its daily newsletter, “Today in Islamophobia.” Last June, it named an essay from Suleiman calling to abolish ICE its “recommended read of the day.” About a year later, in April, it promoted an NPR interview with Suleiman on “the recent rise of Islamophobia and the impact it’s having on the Muslim community in the U.S.,” describing him as a “renowned Islamic scholar.”
Another controversial U.S. imam, Wahhaj, who leads Brooklyn’s At-Taqwa mosque and was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, delivered a July 2024 talk on “Embracing Islam” hosted by the Islam and Muslims Initiative at the National Museum of Qatar. The Bridge Initiative defended Wahhaj last October from what it called “‘Islamophobic’ attacks” after he met with New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani at his mosque. It quoted the former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan to argue that “‘Unindicted co-conspirator’ is a bullshit term with no real legal meaning.”
Qatar’s Islam and Muslims Initiative also hosted Mogahed, a member of the Bridge Initiative’s advisory board and an Institute for Social Policy and Understanding scholar, for a July 2024 talk on “the Islamic spiritual tradition on how to grow through adversity.” Mogahed has argued that Hamas is allowed to terrorize Israel under international law because Palestinians are “living under occupation.”
“It has been firmly established that resistance, including struggle against a colonial occupation force, is not only acknowledged under international law but explicitly endorsed,” Mogahed wrote three months after Oct. 7 in a since-deleted X post. “International humanitarian law further solidifies this principle by expressly embracing acts of resistance for national liberation. … As an occupied population, Palestinians inherently possess the right to resist.”
Neither Georgetown University nor the Bridge Initiative responded to requests for comment.
Little is known about the Islam and Muslims Initiative, the Qatari group that Georgetown is required to “consult with.” Based in Doha, the group describes itself as “an international platform that connects Muslims and non-Muslims in the realms of religion, politics, media, academia, and civil society.” It is a “strategic partner” of the Qatar Foundation’s QatarDebate Center, according to a 2023 article in the Qatar Tribune, though it has not posted to its Instagram account since November 2024, and its website appears to be defunct.
An archived version of the site shows that the Bridge Initiative sponsored a March 2023 Islam and Muslims Initiative conference on “Countering Islamophobia” alongside Qatar’s state-run media outlet, Al Jazeera. The conference, held at the National Museum of Qatar, featured John Esposito, the founding director of Georgetown’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which sits within the university’s prestigious School of Foreign Service and is known for hosting scholars sympathetic to Islamism.
Esposito himself has a long history of defending terrorist groups and collaborating with jihadist figures. In a 2000 interview with the Middle East Affairs Journal, for example, he hedged when asked whether Hamas was a terrorist organization.
“One can’t make a clear statement about Hamas,” he said. “One has to distinguish between Hamas in general and the action of its military wing, and then one has also to talk about specific actions. Some actions by the military wing of Hamas can be seen as acts of resistance, but other actions are acts of retaliation, particularly when they target civilians.”
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