The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP) is an Israeli-funded American non-profit organization that produces academic research, seminars, and conferences to study antisemitism. In recent years, it's research has focused specifically on allegations of antisemitism on university campuses.
Harvard professors Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse were co-chairs of ISGAP's international board. The executive committee of its International Academic Board of Advisors included former Canadian Minister of Justice Irwin Cotler and historian Irving Abella. [1] ISGAP's chairman is Natan Sharansky. [2] Its managing director is Sima Vaknin-Gil, lieutenant colonel and former chief censor of the Israeli Defense Forces. [3]
ISGAP was founded in 2004 by Charles Asher Small from Tel Aviv University [4] as a non-profit organization to produce and support academic research, seminars, and conferences to study antisemitism. [1]
In 2006, Small and ISGAP founded the Yale Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism (YIISA), the first university-based institute dedicated to the study of antisemitism in North America, at Yale University. [5]
In August 2020, ISGAP suspended its operations for 48 hours in solidarity with African Americans during the George Floyd protests. [2]
ISGAP's flagship program is a two-week conference of more than 80 scholars of antisemitism, approximately 80% of whom are not Jewish. In 2019, the conference was held at Oxford University. [1]
In November 2023, ISGAP and the Network Contagion Research Institute published a study entitled "The Corruption of the American Mind". The study alleged $13 billion in undisclosed foreign funding from Qatar and other countries to over 100 American universities to a 300% increase in antisemitism on campuses. [6] [7] [8] In December 2023, ISGAP produced a report called "Networks of Hate: Qatari Paymasters, Soft Power and the Manipulation of Democracy", describing how billions of US dollars were transferred from Qatari state-owned NGO’s, such as the Qatar Foundation, to US institutions without reporting to the Department of Education or the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA). [9]
In 2024, ISGAP met regularly with leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties to urge investigations of pro-Palestinian demonstrations in American universities. [3] In February 2024, ISGAP produced "Hijacking Higher Education, Qatar, The Muslim Brotherhood, and Texas A&M Buying Nuclear Research and Student Information (Volume II)", which alleged that Texas A&M and its Qatar campus had received over $1 billion USD from the Qatar Foundation, and alleged an undisclosed connection between Texas A&M faculty members and nuclear research. [10] In March 2024, ISGAP produced produced a similar report relating to Cornell University which claimed to trace the flow of $1.95 billion USD from Qatar to Cornell University between 2001 and 2023, along with $7.9 billion USD to the Sidra Hospital of the Cornell Weill School of Medicine – Qatar. [11] In May 2024, ISGAP produced a report [12] about Students for Justice in Palestine, alleging that SJP was directly connected to the ideology of terrorist groups and the Muslim Brotherhood. [13]
In June 2024, ISGAP produced reports about funding of campus activities at Columbia and Yale universities, [14] alleging that anti-Zionist faculty had promulgated antisemitic rhetoric and activities on campus. The first report noted that over 100 Columbia faculty members endorsed Students for Justice in Palestine. The report quoted one Columbia professor who described the October 7 attacks as "awesome" and "astounding". [15] The second report [16] alleged that Yale received $15 million from Qatar between 2012 and 2023 while reporting only $284,668. [17]
In November 2024, ISGAP published a report alleging that the ANC was approximately $30 million in debt before bringing its case against Israel; the ANC subsequently received a sudden influx of unidentified cash after a series of meetings with Hamas, Iranian, and Qatari leaders; and ANC leaders refused to disclose the source of the funds, which provided approximately $30 million. [18] [19]
In 2019, the ISGAP received a grant of US$1.3 million, to be distributed over three years, from the Israeli government. [1] In 2020, The Forward reported that almost 80% of the ISGAP's funding in 2018, totaling $445,000, had come from the government of Israel, income which the think tank did not divulge. [20]
Foreign relations of Qatar is conducted through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Arab states were among the first to recognize Qatar, and the country gained admittance to the United Nations and the Arab League after achieving independence in 1971. The country was an early member of OPEC and a founding member of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Diplomatic missions to Qatar are based in its capital, Doha.
New antisemitism is the concept that a new form of antisemitism developed in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, typically manifesting itself as anti-Zionism. The concept is included in some definitions of antisemitism, such as the working definition of antisemitism and the 3D test of antisemitism. The concept dates to the early 1970s.
Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani is Emir of Qatar, reigning since 2013.
Charles Asher Small is a Canadian intellectual, the founder and director of the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy the first international interdisciplinary research center dedicated to studying antisemitism with a contemporary focus.
Antisemitism at universities has been reported and supported since the medieval period and, more recently, resisted and studied. Antisemitism has been manifested in various policies and practices, such as restricting the admission of Jewish students by a Jewish quota, or ostracism, intimidation, or violence against Jewish students, as well as in the hiring, retention and treatment of Jewish faculty and staff. In some instances, universities have been accused of condoning the development of antisemitic cultures on campus.
The history of the Jews in Qatar is relatively limited unlike some of the neighboring countries in the Gulf of Persia.
Qatar and the United States are strategic allies. Qatar has been designated a major non-NATO ally by the United States. Qatar maintains and embassy in Washington, D.C. and the U.S. has an embassy in Doha.
Antisemitism has long existed in the United States. Most Jewish community relations agencies in the United States draw distinctions between antisemitism, which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors, and the security and status of American Jews, which are both measured by the occurrence of specific incidents. FBI data shows that in every year since 1991, Jews were the most frequent victims of religiously motivated hate crimes. The number of hate crimes against Jews may be underreported, as in the case for many other targeted groups.
The Qatar Investment Authority is Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The QIA was founded by the State of Qatar in 2005 to strengthen the country's economy by diversifying into new asset classes. In November 2024, the QIA had an estimated $526 billion of assets under management.
Nemat Talaat Shafik, Baroness Shafik, commonly known as Minouche Shafik, is a British-American academic and economist. She served as the president and vice chancellor of the London School of Economics from 2017 to 2023, and then as the 20th president of Columbia University from July 2023 to August 2024.
Ali Muhammad al-Sallabi, or al-Salabi is a Muslim historian, religious scholar and Islamist politician from Libya. He was arrested by the Gaddafi regime, then left Libya and studied Islam in Saudi Arabia and Sudan during the 1990s. He then studied in Qatar under Yusuf al-Qaradawi and returned to Libya during the 2011 overthrow of Gaddafi and distributed weapons, money, and aid to Islamist groups in the country. His actions were criticized by members of the internationally recognized Libyan government under the National Transitional Council who he in turn criticized as being secular.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law (LDB) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Kenneth L. Marcus in 2012 with the stated purpose of advancing the civil and human rights of the Jewish people and promoting justice for all peoples. LDB is active on American campuses, where it says it combats antisemitism and anti-Zionism.
Students for Justice in Palestine is a pro-Palestinian college student activism organization in the United States, Canada and New Zealand. Founded at the University of California in 2001, it has campaigned for boycott and divestment against corporations that deal with Israel and organized events about Israel's human rights violations. In 2011, The New York Times called it "the leading pro-Palestinian voice on campus". As of 2024, National SJP has over 350 chapters in North America.
The Qatar–Saudi Arabia diplomatic conflict refers to the ongoing struggle for regional influence between Qatar and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), both of which are members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It is sometimes called the New Arab Cold War. Bilateral relations have been especially strained since the beginning of the Arab Spring, that left a power vacuum both states sought to fill, with Qatar being supportive of the revolutionary wave and Saudi Arabia opposing it. Both states are allies of the United States, and have avoided direct conflict with one another.
The Lobby is a series of documentaries produced by Al Jazeera that investigate the influence of the Israel lobby in the United Kingdom and in the United States and their relationship to the BDS movement.
StopAntisemitism is a privately-funded American advocacy group focused on combating antisemitism by exposing individuals perceived by the group as antisemitic.
In the 21st century, Qatar and other authoritarian countries have increased financial involvement in a wide scope of institutions of higher education in the United States, through the granting of significant financial donations amounting to billions of dollars.
Qatar has been noted for its ability to use soft power to achieve its objectives by influencing other actor's choices and populations’ views towards it. Qatar's soft power is mostly manifested by Qatar's extensive sports and media network through government owned intermediaries such as Qatar Sports Investment, Al Jazeera, Qatar Airways, which critics argue serve in part to divert attention from Qatar's human rights violations, discrimination against the LGBT community and sponsorship of non-state militant groups.
Jews have faced antisemitism and discrimination in universities and campuses in the United States, from the founding of universities in the Thirteen Colonies until the present day in varying intensities. From the early 20th century, and until the 1960s, indirect quotas were placed on Jewish admissions, quotas were first placed on Jews by elite universities such Columbia, Harvard and Yale and were prevalent as late as the 1960s in universities such as Stanford. These quotas disappeared in the 1970s.
Antisemitism at Columbia University was prevalent in the first half of the 20th century and has resurged in recent years. In the early 21st century, discourse surrounding the Israeli–Palestinian conflict would sometimes lead to accusations of antisemitism, but these individual controversies were typically isolated.