Texas A&M and the Israeli disinfo campaign to smear Qatar for mediating a Gaza ceasefire

This week, Texas A&M University abruptly announced that it would be closing its Qatar campus  (TAMUQ) in 2028.

The sudden decision to end the relationship, which dates back to 2003, is deeply entwined with Qatar's active role in seeking a diplomatic resolution to the war in Gaza.

With Qatar at the forefront of efforts to secure an end to Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza,  neoconservatives and Netanyahu acolytes who oppose diplomacy seek to scupper it by attempting to smear and delegitimize Qatar as a ‘terror-supporter’.

Such anti-Qatar disinformation is not new, but TAMUQ’s closure is the latest in a long line of lobbying seeking to punish Qatar for its role as regional mediator.

It’s also a manifestation of perennial right-wing fears about potential dwindling support for Israel’s occupation and settler-colonialism on US campuses.

"Literally overnight, the university had taken the decision to disrupt the education and careers of hundreds of its students and faculty. Such is the power of disinformation and pro-Israel lobbying in the US"

The closure

On 9th February, students and faculty woke up to the news that TAMUQ’s eight board of Regents - the men appointed to make decisions on governance - voted to shut down their school. Many attended a town hall the next day wearing black.

Literally overnight, the university had taken the decision to disrupt the education and careers of hundreds of its students and faculty. Such is the power of disinformation and pro-Israel lobbying in the US.

None of the meetings at the end of the 2023 among the regents even mentioned the word Qatar. Faculty expressed shock, believing that the meeting was scheduled to be a discussion on the issue, not a vote. But it was a fait accompli.

No adequate explanation was given to students, faculty and staff. Reasons varied from “It’s a long way from Texas”  to “we are worried about instability in the region”.

None of the excuses seemed plausible. TAMUQ was established in 2003, the same year the US invaded Iraq and two years after it had invaded Afghanistan in the War on Terror, undermining the second explanation. As for the first: well, Texas A&M discussed opening a campus in Nazareth, Israel as recently as 2015.

After 7wks of Israel’s war on Gaza during which the self-proclaimed “most moral army in the world” has eviscerated the lives of over 14,000 Palestinians, Hamas is still upheld as the villain of choice. And propaganda is partly to blame, writes @talrooq: https://t.co/vG5EnQOKyr

— The New Arab (@The_NewArab) November 28, 2023

The disinformation campaign

The meeting of the board of regents came quickly after a disinformation campaign targeting TAMUQ. The campaign was initiated by a report form the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

The report falsely and scurrilously warned that, “Qatar's substantial ownership of nuclear research and sensitive weapon development rights at the university,” are a “serious potential threat to US national security.”

The report’s nonsensical claims were denied repeatedly by Texas A&M officials. Indeed, the pitch of the claims was so absurd that President Mark Welsh even described them as “insanity”, “irresponsible”, and speculated as to whether this was part of a deliberate campaign.

It was certainly a deliberate campaign. This all a well-trodden path of the disinformation ecosystem: a dubious report from a real organisation provides fodder for questionable journalism to engage in sensationalist claims.

The report was quickly picked up by people with a track record of writing anti-Qatar articles. One of the most shared articles was by Eli Lake for The Free Press titled, ‘How Texas A&M’s Deal with Qatar ‘Puts American Security at Risk’’ about “The troubling ties between one of America’s top nuclear engineering colleges and the state that harbours Hamas”.

Eli Lake had also written something with a similar tack in October, titled ‘Qatar’s War for Young American Minds’. The absurdly titled piece played on imperialist tropes of the deceitful foreigner corrupting the mind of the youth.

A previous report by the ISGAP and the National Contagion Research Council (NCRI) has been the basis of false claims about Qatar’s funding of US higher education making the rounds on Wikipedia.

It also wasn’t the first time The Free Press had run pieces based on reports by ISGAP targeting Qatar. Founder Bari Weiss, once described in the New Yorker as an “unhinged Zionist”, wrote a piece trying to attribute the tensions on American campuses to funding from Middle Eastern countries.

"Qatar is being punished for opposing genocide in Palestine, and for trying to bring about a diplomatic solution to the war on Gaza"

The anti-Qatar influence industry

Articles attacking Qatar from neoconservatives and pro-Israel writers are not new, and nor is the influence industry that gets paid good money to try and create those narratives.

Indeed, from 2014 through to 2020 and even beyond, Qatar’s GCC neighbours of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and even Egypt were all involved in disinformation campaigns against the country. Many of these involved contracting Western PR and consultancy firms.

Most of these campaigns followed the same predictable formula, trying to link Qatar to Islamist terrorism, whether Hamas or Hezbollah.

According to the Intercept and the New York Times, in 2014, Camstoll, an American consulting firm staffed with former treasury officials, was contracted by the UAE and paid millions of dollars to attack Qatar.

Camstoll’s approach was to target pro-Israel journalists to write anti-Qatar stories and spread misinformation. Among these was Eli Lake who met with representatives from Camstoll 15 times.

Other journalists that joined in the TAMUQ bashing include Benjamin Weinthal, a journalist and member of the pro-Israel think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who has previously been caught on camera admitting that he exaggerates accusations of anti-Semitism when attacking critics of Israeli policies.

Similarly, Middle East Forum, a right-wing think tank known for its Islamophobic activism, bragged about the closure of TAMUQ. Hardly surprising, given that it launched a campaign to divest from Qatar in October.

The same people, same outlets, with the same narratives; an influence campaign. An analysis of X posts shows that the only people who really picked up the TAMUQ nuclear story were Israeli media or right-wing outlets.

The political pressure

The decision to close TAMUQ is also steeped in right-wing politics in Texas. The board of regents who voted abruptly to cut the relationship with Qatar is appointed for a six year term by the governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, who also happens to be an ardent supporter of Israel. So much so, he even went to Israel immediately after the October 7th attacks.

Under Abbott, Texas has enacted laws that essentially ban the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a law later watered down due it being an affront to free speech and the US constitution. Abbott famously stated, “Anti-Israel policies are anti-Texas policies,” and “Anybody who is an enemy of Israel is an enemy of Texas”.

Indeed, Qatar has been playing a leading role in mediating for peace amid the current war, one supported resolutely by the US government.

Qatar is being punished for opposing genocide in Palestine, and for trying to bring about a diplomatic solution to the war on Gaza.

Any legitimacy afforded to Qatar by way of its ties to the US, including any partnerships with US universities, is targeted to turn Qatar into a pariah.

Whether the disinformation campaign has made a significant difference in Qatar’s role as mediator is not yet clear, but TAMUQ was always going to be the lowest hanging fruit in the pro-Israel lobby’s attempt to tarnish Qatar and those working towards justice in Palestine.

Marc Owen Jones is an Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at HBKU and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at Democracy for the Arab World Now and the Middle East Council for Global Affairs.

Follow him on Twitter: @marcowenjones 

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.