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Texas A&M pulls department out of Qatar, citing regional instability


DUBAI — Texas A&M College is shutting down its department in Qatar, citing “heightened regional instability” in an announcement from the college board. Qatar shortly issued a reply, calling the transfer “misguided” and “influenced by a disinformation marketing campaign.”

The college’s resolution comes because the struggle in Gaza has escalated tensions throughout the Center East, however it additionally follows elevated criticism of Qatar particularly for the nation’s ties to Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that Israel is at struggle with.

Qatari management says the US helps its resolution to host the Hamas political workplace in Doha and the Biden administration has praised its position as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, facilitating negotiations over the discharge of hostages. Throughout a pause in combating partially brokered by Qatar, Hamas launched some 100 hostages.

In Gaza struggle, Qatar revisits position as regional mediator

Teachers are an essential a part of Qatari ties with the US. A lot of U.S. universities, together with Georgetown and Northwestern, have campuses in Qatar’s Schooling Metropolis on the sting of the capital Doha.

The Qatari authorities pays a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} in operations prices to the colleges every year and in return the branches present elite larger schooling for a whole lot of Qatari college students in addition to others from across the area.

Qatar additionally hosts the biggest U.S. army facility within the Center East, Al Udeid Air Base, which might home greater than 10,000 U.S. army personnel.

Nonetheless, Qatar has acquired a gradual stream of criticism for its hyperlinks to Hamas in latest months from critics of the Biden administration in the US and from Israeli management. Most lately Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to as the nation “problematic” in a leaked audio recording.

Texas A&M College was attacked for its ties to Qatar in a January letter from an antisemitism watchdog group. The letter accused the college of involvement in a covert deal that gave Qatar management of nuclear weapons expertise and described Qatar as a rustic that helps Hamas and different armed teams.

“The misinformation marketing campaign had no bearing on Thursday’s resolution” to shutter the Qatar campus, college spokesman Mike Reilly stated in a written assertion. The dialogue about the way forward for the department “had begun earlier than false data was reported about Texas A&M and Qatar,” the assertion added.

College President Mark Welsh, who’s a retired Air Drive normal, issued a rebuttal of the accusations on the time calling them “merely improper” and “irresponsible.”

Texas A&M College has had a department in Qatar for over 20 years, throughout which era it has graduated over 1,500 engineering college students.

This week’s assertion from the college board stated the establishment started reviewing its resolution to have a “bodily presence in Qatar” in fall 2023 “because of the heightened instability within the Center East.”

The college department can be shuttered by 2028, the assertion stated, however a staff can be assembled to make sure college students can full their research.



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