Remember Bill Bennett, Ronald Reagan’s brainy and avuncular Education Secretary? He is now on Qatar’s payroll. He registered as a foreign agent on July 3, 2025.
First a tribute before the takedown. Misguided as Bennett’s decision is, he has been a friend of Israel for half a century. He came out early against a Palestinian Arab state. In 2012, he co-wrote a book about fighting Islamic terrorism.
During a 2024 interview on Fox News, Bennett called out dark money groups who funnel cash to campus Hamas supporters. Many recipients, he said, are professional, salaried agitators. Bennett correctly mentioned the Tides Foundation, George Soros, and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund as some of the funders. I found it odd then that he omitted Qatar whose tentacles reach even further.
And now this. Bill, what the heck are you thinking?
Other writers have already documented how Qatar supports and funds terror. I will amplify their work by pointing out that Since 2012, Qatar has directly paid Hamas about $2 billion. There is solid, on-record evidence that no small amount of this Qatari money went directly to Hamas’ military wing. Some of it even paid the salaries of terrorists responsible for the rape, kidnapping, and murder of Israelis on October 7, 2023.
Diary entries from Ismail Haniyeh (Hamas chief, killed in 2024) detail Qatari participation in Hamas’ offensive military budgeting in the run up to October 7. Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and his foreign minister were sometimes directly involved.
Hamas is just one branch of the insidious Muslim Brotherhood (MB). Even before October 7, Qatar’s ties to (and funding of) the MB and its violent offshoots went back decades. Despite some high-profile MB deportations in 2014 and 2021, Doha remains a hub for the MB. To this moment, Qatar continues to fund MB groups in its country and in Europe, Canada, and India. Incidentally, the U.S. State Department previously determined that Qatar financed al Qaeda branches in Syria and elsewhere.
Internally, Qatar persecutes its religious minorities, at least what’s left of them. They imprison, deport, and separate families who practice the Baha'is religion. Public non-Islamic worship is against the law. Hindus, who make up 15.9% of Qatar’s population, are not allowed to practice their religion, even in private Hindu temples. Christian converts from Islam are at least no longer subject to summary execution. However, today, they lose their children, are parted from their spouses, and their marriages are annulled.
Speaking of children, despite denials and lies, official Qatari school textbooks continue to vilify Jews and delegitimize Israel, according to a 2024 US State Department Report.
In diplomacy, nation states can be motivated by more than one thing at the same time. Qatar is home to the U.S.’s largest forward air base. That gives the tiny kingdom respect and standing across the Arab world. Due to the presence of the US air base, Qatar also enjoys America’s protection.
Yet Qatar still openly supports America’s enemies, funds them, and provides quarter to some of the most malevolent men on the planet.
With a past - and present - besotted by terror, dirty money, and blood, who can blame Qatar for launching the current charm offensive?
Nations act in their self-interest. It is therefore not surprising that Qatar is leveraging its petrodollars to buy US influence, US universities (scores of them), US think tanks (notably Brookings until recently), and even US presidents (Biden and Trump). It is working.
In March of 2022, Joe Biden, tone deaf to the Qatari complexities, designed Qatar a Major Non-NATO Ally (MNNA). That designation unlocks for Qatar access to some of our best weaponry, even some intelligence.
Biden’s brother, Jim, is about as transparent as mud. His ties to the Qatari royal family run deep. We will probably never know what the Qataris paid Biden & Company to for MNNA and the rehabilitation of their image.
President Donald Trump wins the award for the biggest Qatari dupe. In one of the most clearly obvious mistakes of his second term, Trump - once a Qatar skeptic - reversed himself. He then proceeded to accept “Qatar Force One” in May, a VIP-configured Boeing 747-8.
In April, the Trump Organization also announced a new luxury golf resort, marina, and beachfront villa complex to be built in Qatar. The $5.5 billion development will be developed in partnership with Qatari Diar, a state-owned real estate investment firm.
Perhaps he thinks the carrot is better than the stick in dealing with Qatar, but this is not what Trump supporters voted for.
With Trump scoring jets and beachfront property deals, Bennett perhaps felt that a little side hustle was a molehill compared to Trump’s mountain. I reached out to Bennett for this article but he did not respond in time for publication.
The author of the Book of Virtues knows better. Secretary Bennet: return Qatar’s blood-soaked money. You are better than that.
Rami Chris Robbins writes about Middle East issues, history and foreign policy.