When you take a deep dive into who is funding the massive number of anti-Israel protests on college campuses, you discover fairly quickly it’s not local students donating money from bake sales.
That’s what Students For Justice in Palestine would have us believe. They tell us that these tent cities sprang up from nowhere because the urge to do something about the Palestinians being killed in Gaza has opened the wallets of students and faculty.
Either these SFJP members are genius organizers and fundraisers, or the Hamas supporters are getting their money from somewhere else. It won’t surprise you it’s the latter.
In January, Donald Trump issued an executive order authorizing the deportation of foreign students engaged in anti-Semitic demonstrations on campuses across the country. Now, the administration is looking to build on that order by targeting those who fund the protests.
The money trail leads to Qatar, an Iranian ally and financial backer of Hamas, where several wealthy individuals have been funneling cash into the coffers of protest organizers from the start. Targeting these individuals could include revoking their U.S. visas, among other penalties.
“President Trump has made it a priority to ensure that Jewish students, indeed all students, feel safe and free from harassment on college campuses,” one senior U.S. official told the Washington Free Beacon. “To that end, his administration is taking a comprehensive approach, not just looking at the visas and green cards of student instigators, but also, for example, going after the people funding the protests, wherever they may be.”
The plans reflect a growing appetite inside the administration to hamstring Hamas’s allies in the United States by penalizing their most prolific funders, including several former Qatari officials known to maintain relations with the Iran-backed group. Iranian government actors have also funded anti-Israel protests in the United States, former director of national intelligence Avril Haines revealed last summer.
Some officials within the Biden administration discussed similar plans to cut off foreign funding or the protests, according to a former U.S. diplomat involved in the efforts both then and now, who said the administration shelved the plans so as not to upset Doha’s government as it mediated peace talks between Israel and Hamas.
Biden didn’t want to upset the terrorist-loving Qataris? How did we survive four years of that clown?
“This was on the menu when I was there, but the previous administration was a bit squeamish about taking extreme measures, like revoking visas,” said the diplomat. “But that’s not a problem in this administration, and we’re hearing they’re looking at all options—from sanctions on individuals to the revocation of visas.”
“You can’t get rid of anti-Semitism on campus without getting rid of the funding, and the funders are Qatar.”
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Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani is a prominent Qatari businessman and member of the Qatari royal family. He served as Doha’s prime minister from 2007 to 2013 and co-owns the Maybourne Beverly Hills, a swanky hotel in California. He’s been identified as one of the Qatari nationals donating large sums to the various protest groups in the U.S. This has resulted in pro-Israel protesters besieging his luxury hotel.
Beverly Hills-based rabbi Pini Dunner organized the protests in front of the Maybourne and had several meetings with members of Congress and the Trump administration.
“A number of those I spoke to revealed that their visas are being looked into, as well as their ability to conduct business in the United States,” Dunner told the Free Beacon. “U.S. lawmakers are not fools, and they will not allow this country to be made a fool of by these people any longer.”
The logic of Joe Biden avoiding giving offense to rich Qataris close to the government escapes me. History shows it didn’t help anyway and may have prolonged the war by emboldening Hamas to maintain a hard line in negotiations.
Cutting off the funding won’t stop the protests. However, the threat of visa revokement along with the funding cut may slow them down considerably.
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