Qatar eyes NYC Hall: Jew-hating, Hamas-loving emirate sends millions to Mamdani’s mom
Qatar, the Jew-hating and Hamas-loving uber-wealthy emirate that’s been buying US influence for years, may be preparing to call in the chips it’s put down on New York City, should anti-Israel socialist Zohran Mamdani win City Hall in November’s election.
Not only have members of the Qatari elite been lavishing millions on the film-making enterprises of Mira Nair, Mamdani’s mother, but the sister of the ruling emir has been pumping Mamdani’s candidacy on social media, according reports in the NY Post and Jewish Insider.
Sheikha Al-Mayassa bint Hamad Al-Thani, sister to ruling emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and state-funded cultural institutions she controls have been surging cash to Nair at least since 2009. As reported on page 2 of this week’s Jewish Star, Qatar plays a long game in its influence peddling.
“They are buying somebody who is willing to be bought and at the time of their choosing they will ask for what they want,” explained Danielle Pletka, a foreign policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute, of Nair’s Qatar ties. “They need a rainbow coalition of people who will support the ideology they promote — sometimes it will be Islamism, sometimes it will be antisemitism, sometimes it will be anti-Israel.”
Among several examples cited by the Post, Doha Film Institute paid the entire $15 million budget of one of Nair’s first films, “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” which had previously struggled to obtain financing, the Post said. It tells the story of a Pakistani immigrant who suffers mistreatment at the hands of US authorities after 9/11.
Since mid-June, Sheikha Al-Thani has been promoting Mamdani’s mayoral candidacy on social media, boosting news of favorable polling on Instagram and posting fire emojis under a TikTok video of him embracing Nair.
The filmmaker did not respond to repeated requests for comment, nor did the Qatari entities that have financed her work.
Critics have called Qatar “America’s ultimate ‘frenemy’,” as it provides support to anti-US Islamist organizations while simultaneously hosting an American airbase.
Jonathan Schanzer, executive director of Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, called it “both arsonist and firefighter” — backing destabilizing organizations like Hamas and the Taliban, then offering itself as a mediator with the groups on behalf of the West, including in hostage negotiations.
Schanzer said it was concerning only “one degree of separation” may exist between the emirate’s ruling elite the mayor of America’s biggest city, given how the Qataris have used their country’s vast wealth to bribe ex-New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez and figures in the European Parliament.
The Post noted that “there is no publicly available evidence of a direct relationship between Mamdani and the Qatari regime. The assemblyman maintained he had never traveled to Qatar, nor received direct financial assistance from the country’s institutions.
“But his campaign declined to answer whether he had received such assistance from his mother, or whether he had had contact with the sheikha, and would not directly condemn the Al-Thani family’s rule — only attesting to ‘his belief in universal human rights and the freedom to advocate for justice everywhere’.”
“The attempt to weaponize his mother’s career against him is an insult to voters who care about actual issues, not manufactured distractions,” Mamdani campaign spokeswoman Dora Pekec told the Post.
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