During an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “America Reports” Thursday, Ofir Akunis, Israel’s Consul General in New York, pointed to Qatar’s influence on American college campuses as a contributing factor in the deadly shooting of two Israeli embassy staff members the previous day. Akunis accused Qatar of financing radical groups on U.S. campuses and urged the Gulf state to cease its funding if it truly wishes to play a constructive role in the region.
Akunis argued that the violence can be traced back to years of ideological indoctrination funded by Qatar across American higher education institutions. “I think that [it] is a result of…the brainwash[ing] of the Qataris among the universities and the campuses right here in the United States for the last twenty years, but especially since October 7,” he said.
He continued by denouncing Qatar’s contradictory behavior—on one hand, serving as a mediator in talks to free hostages held in Gaza, while on the other, allegedly bankrolling protests and movements sympathetic to terrorist causes. “I know that everybody in the United States already knows that they are supporting the pro-terrorist moves on the campuses and on the streets and amongst all the universities. So, they are playing a double game. And their double game is that they’re hosting the negotiation to release the hostages from the tunnels that they built [with] their own money under the Gaza Strip, it’s money from Qatar. It’s not from anywhere else around the world.”
Akunis emphasized that these anti-Israel demonstrations aren’t grassroots efforts but rather the result of strategic financial backing. “And now it’s another double game. Why? Because there are, beyond all these mobs, you cannot protest these days in our world without money, someone needs to give you money. I’m not saying that 100% [of] the money is from Qatar. But most of the money is from Qatar.”
He concluded with a direct appeal to Doha: “So, I’m calling from here to Qatar to stop their double game. If they want to negotiate with Israel, if they want to be part of the new Middle East, they are more than welcome, but they must stop all the money that they’re actually transfer[ing] every week, every month to the mobs here in the universities.”

{Matzav.com}