Thankfully in the US Academia's case there's not even an attempt to hide it:
"The numbers are staggering. According to a 2022 study from the National Association of Scholars, Qatar today is the largest foreign donor to American universities. The study found that between 2001 and 2021, the petrostate donated a whopping $4.7 billion to U.S. colleges."
One might expect that scholarly institutions that have benefited from this autocracy’s money would rethink their partnership after Qatar’s foreign minister said...
Surely a scholarly institution changing their policies based on what someone says would be wokist deplatforming cancel culture and not supported at all by such a libertarian bastion.
What always surprises me is the small sums involved in corruptions in EU.
> Their suspected paymasters in Qatar, Morocco and Mauritania spent around €4 million for the work
Don't worry they do and it sometimes just take a few well placed gifts to the right person to get a shift in your direction. Brussels is filled to the brim with lobbyists from all kind of companies or "trade associations". I don't know about the U.S. way to do that but I pretty much expect them to not be far from politicians either.
From the US perspective I remember being mildly shocked Sarkozy went down over "just" ~20mil. But here, 4! At these prices a big chunk of HN could own an MEP.
EU-skeptic politicians are regularly accused of being antidemocratic… I suppose that is true if you define the demos as Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani?
Do you have any examples of this to hand? The opposite is true in the UK in my experience. One of the main arguments proposed for leaving the EU was that the EU is undemocratic.
Yes but it's by consent from Israel and the US, i.e. they would rather have the lines of communication open via a functioning state than via some shady Muslim Brotherhood branches in some lawless zone. Hamas leaders live just a few miles from the US airbase in Qatar. Also, it's unclear how much power do the "remotely based diplomats" of Hamas actually have on the situation on the ground. Imagine you're a general in Al-Qassam, do you really take everything that Haniyeh says without questions?
People support Palestinians' right to self-determination, and not being genocided by apartheid Israel. They don't support Hamas. This conflation is all too common and convenient.
"The numbers are staggering. According to a 2022 study from the National Association of Scholars, Qatar today is the largest foreign donor to American universities. The study found that between 2001 and 2021, the petrostate donated a whopping $4.7 billion to U.S. colleges."
https://www.thefp.com/p/qatars-war-for-young-american-minds