The Ugly Truth About Qatari Money
Qatar's wealth buys influence, but behind the scenes, it's funding terrorism, exploiting workers, and manipulating Western institutions. The shocking reality of its global influence is more dangerous than you think.
Adam Starzynski
Apr 7, 2025 - 8:56 PM
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Qatar: The Mirage of Modernity
A country built by outsiders for the benefit of the few. Approximately 3 million people reside in Qatar as of 2025, but only about 360,000 of these residents are actual citizens. Most are foreign-paid workers building the hotels, airports, and infrastructure needed for Qatar’s long-term prosperity, and these people have no rights to a share in the wealth that Qatar is generating.
In Europe, this would constitute a human rights travesty. We boycott other nations for far less. However, the Qatari government has discovered that they can bribe NGOs and politicians with suitcases of cash to keep quiet and maintain Western support. A few examples below.
Qatargate: Corruption in Broad Daylight
In the run-up to the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Greek Member of Parliament (MEP) and Vice-President of the European Parliament, Eva Kaili, led the opposition to a resolution critical of Qatar’s human rights record, attempting to broker a deal that would allow Qatari citizens visa-free travel to the EU. “I alone said that Qatar is a front-runner in labor rights,” claimed Eva Kaili. “Still, some here are calling to discriminate them.”
Around this time, Kaili received a WhatsApp message from Qatar’s NATO envoy: “My dear, my ministry doesn’t want paragraph A about FIFA and Qatar. Please do your best to remove it via voting before noon or during the voting.”
Not long after, Kaili was arrested while attempting to conceal a suitcase full of cash in her Brussels apartment - money that had been given to her lover, Francesco Giorgi, an assistant at the European Parliament, by the Qatari government to influence the Parliament’s decisions. The pair had even written the Qatari minister’s speech to the chamber. In the resulting Qatargate scandal, over €1.5 million in cash was recovered in a series of raids in Brussels and Italy.
Lobbyists, unionists, NGO directors, and political operators were receiving hundreds of thousands of euros to parrot Doha’s line in the heart of European democracy.
Education City: Western Brands, Wahhabi Rules
Take Education City, Qatar’s flagship project to bring elite Western universities to Doha. Cornell, Georgetown, Northwestern, Carnegie Mellon, Virginia Commonwealth, and others have all franchised their names to campuses in Qatar with the condition that students receive degrees identical to those granted in the United States. But can standards of education truly thrive in a country that adheres to fundamentalist Wahhabi Islam?
Qatar claims these institutions have complete academic freedom. Yet books have been banned, professors censored, and Qatari money has flooded American universities, with more than $5.6 billion going to 61 U.S. institutions since 2007.
Meanwhile, the Qatari-backed network Al Jazeera gives sympathetic coverage to students openly backing Hamas. In contrast, Jewish students are threatened, and terrorist organizations are normalized on campuses awash in Qatari cash. Incidents of antisemitism are over three times higher at universities receiving Qatari funding than at those that do not. Harvard’s president was recently forced to resign under this very cloud.
Gas, Gold, and the Mirage of Progress
The country’s entire modern history is built not on compromise or openness but on control and domination. Until the 20th century, Qatar was little more than a sun-scorched outpost of pearl divers and traders. It became a British protectorate in 1916 and only gained independence in 1971. That same year, vast natural gas reserves were discovered beneath its desert - reserves that would catapult the country to unimaginable wealth once technology caught up.
Today, Qatar has one of the highest GDPs per capita in the world, at approximately $71,650 in 2025 but it’s not a society of shared prosperity. Qatari citizens pay no income tax. They receive free land, interest-free loans, free electricity and water, and fully funded healthcare and education even if they choose to study abroad. Foreigners, who make up 85% to 90% of the population, do not have such rights. Citizenship is nearly impossible to obtain. Rights are reserved for the few.
Businesses in many sectors traditionally require at least 51% ownership by a Qatari national or sponsor, unless an exemption is granted. This means that foreign entrepreneurs who take on the work and risks may have to relinquish majority ownership and control in these areas, potentially affecting their profits and decision-making authority.
Unholy Alliance of Radicalisms
Western partnerships with Qatar are not advancing democracy. Instead, they are forging an unholy alliance between two forms of radicalism. One is the radicalism of purity — an uncompromising ideology. The other is the radicalism of a culture so fearful of being labeled bigoted or exclusionary that it passively welcomes its own undoing.
Qatar maintains friendly relations with Iran, Russia, and Hamas. It hosted Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, in Doha from 2016 until his death in 2024. The country provides Hamas with $30 million monthly. While Qatar funds groups hostile to the West, it also hosts Al Udeid, the largest U.S. airbase in the Middle East and 60% of the operating costs are covered by Qatar.
The West may frame this as strategic cooperation, but the question remains: is Qatar funding the majority of our fight against extremism, or are we inadvertently financing much of their opposition to us?
What Are We Selling?
This isn’t just about Qatar. It’s about us — about how easily our institutions, values, and freedoms can be bought. About how we have sold access to our politics, media, and education to a regime that fundamentally opposes everything we stand for. Qatar’s wealth rises from the desert sands without ever having to reconcile with civil society, pluralism, or human rights. If we don’t stop selling off our civilization piece by piece, we will soon wake up in a world that is no longer ours.
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Adam Starzynski
Journalist | Foreign Policy Analyst