Doha 2036: In The Footsteps Of The Nazi Olympiad?

This seems to be Qatar’s moment. The tiny (only 12% of the country’s three million residents are Qatari citizens) but super-wealthy emirate seems to be everywhere. Qatar was and remains not only the great patron of the Taliban in Afghanistan but also of Hamas in Gaza. Qatar is also deeply involved (along with its close ally Turkey) in propping up the new Islamist government in Syria, but also the army (SAF) regime and its Islamist allies in Sudan. An August 2025 Africa Confidential report noted that the Qatar was not only deeply involved in Sudan but that “it will continue to play a role – as it has for the Trump administration, in Afghanistan, Gaza, Syria, Congo-Kinshasa and Rwanda.”[1] The list of states where Qatar exercises considerable influence is even longer.

Qatar is also extremely active in the West, not only supporting various Islamist causes and organizations but also reportedly supporting both New York City’s Socialist mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani and his mother Mira Nair’s film projects.[2] Qatar is also reportedly[3] involved in the eponymous Qatargate bribery scandal at the European Parliament and is one of the top five foreign donors to American universities.[4] Qatar’s big bucks stretch not only to supporting Hamas but may have even reached senior aides to Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu himself, Hamas’s ostensibly most bitter enemy.[5]

Not satisfied with resting on its considerable laurels, Qatar is making a serious bid for the 2036 Summer Olympic Games, competing (so far) with bids from Ahmedabad (in India), Istanbul, Nusantara (in Indonesia) and Santiago, Chile.[6] Should Doha succeed with its bid, it would be the first Arab and first Muslim majority venue to host these games. It would also be the centenary of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the infamous Nazi Olympics.[7]

It would not be the second time that an authoritarian regime has held the greatest of supporting events. The Soviet Union held the Summer Olympics in Moscow in 1980 while Communist China had the Beijing Summer Olympics of 2008. The Islamist regime in Doha would be the fourth authoritarian regime to have secured such a dubious honor.

Qatar has already accomplished much in the field of sport, hosting the 2006 Asian Games, the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the 2023 AFC Asian Cup, and the 2024 World Aquatics Championships. Doha is also scheduled to host the 2030 Asian Games. Qatar is considered a strong candidate to host the 2036 Olympics, despite considerable substantiated claims that Qatar (and Russia) had brazenly bribed FIFA voters to secure the 2022 and 2018 World Cup.[8] Qatar was also one of the countries that helped France with securing the safety of the 2024 Paris Olympics.[9]

Qatar is already expressing the usual diplomatic discourse. The Qatari organizing committee promised to “engage national stakeholders and international partners to shape a proposal that is technically strong, socially inclusive and globally relevant.”[10] In 1936, Hitler described his Olympics as a “sportive, knightly battle [that] awakens the best human characteristics. It doesn’t separate, but unites the combatants in understanding and respect. It also helps to connect the countries in the spirit of peace.”[11]

Some might think the Nazi-Islamist comparison an exaggeration. But there is no doubt that Qatar’s biggest sporting event to date, the 2022 FIFA World Cup was mired in controversy. Not only because of the selection process corruption charges, but also because of Qatar’s poor treatment of migrant workers who built the FIFA sites and Qatar’s notorious propaganda and censorship regime. Western activists and media focused on a variety of other topics when it came to Qatar – “women’s issues, alcohol consumption, and the rights of the LGBTQ community.”[12]

But while corruption and local labor rights are not insignificant, the astonishing thing was that decision-makers seemed to have ignored something much more destructive and palpable: Qatar’s longstanding support for terrorism, intolerance and extremism.[13] This is a country whose media outlets have successively served as the leading propagandists for Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Hamas.[14] In addition to the field of propaganda, Qatar – through various other proxies – is a leading proponent of religious extremism (Islamism and jihadism) in not only the Muslim world but throughout the West.[15]

And Qatar’s support for terror has not been limited merely to the media and clerics, but extended to actual terrorists, such as Al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, a former Qatari government employee who was once protected in Doha from American justice.[16] Not so surprising then that Qatar’s leading and most consequential Islamist authority ever – the Egyptian cleric who was given Qatari citizenship and appointed a prominent advisor to its emirs – Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi openly praised the “punishment” of Jews meted out at the hands of Hitler, the host of the 1936 Olympics. He also adds: “Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers” – that is, the Muslims.[17]

In its ideological zeal to promote their aggressive intolerant version of Political Islam – which we usually call Islamism or the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood – Qatar is deeply committed to an expanding ideology clearly on the march. In this they do resemble Nazi Germany in 1936 – a young regime bursting with hateful zeal – more than the Soviet or Chinese Olympics. Both of those authoritarian regimes were mature once they hosted the Olympics, with far less revolutionary fervor than they had at the beginning (the Soviet Union only had a decade of existence left). The Beijing regime is still a Communist one but its ideology today leans more towards advancing Chinese Supremacy than the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.

The Qataris aren’t quite Nazis. Their worldview is not limited to antisemitism or anti-Americanism or anti-Western feeling. Their ideological framework may be extreme, but it can also be extremely pragmatic and flexible, as called for by circumstances. Yet the regime serves as the propagandists, donors, and supporters of the people who say that they openly want to follow in the footsteps of the Nazis themselves.[18] For Doha to host the 2036 Olympics a century after Hitler did would be the greatest of ironies, a black stain on the Olympics, and the epitome, the summit, of years of Qatari “sportswashing.”[19]

AUTHOR

YIGAL CARMON

Yigal Carmon is President of MEMRI. Alberto M. Fernandez is Vice President of MEMRI.

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SOURCES:

[1] Africa-confidential.com/article/id/15619/washington-revives-peace-push-after-a-year-of-drift, August 29, 2025.

[2] Nypost.com/2025/08/31/us-news/qatar-bankrolled-years-worth-of-films-by-zohran-mamdanis-mom/, August 31, 2025.

[3] Politico.eu/article/european-parliament-qatargate-corruption-scandal-leaked-documents-pier-antonio-panzeri-francesco-giorgi-eva-kaili/, December 4, 2023.

[4] Fdd.org/analysis/2025/04/02/qatars-footprint-in-the-american-higher-education-system/, April 2, 2025.

[5] Timesofisrael.com/police-issue-warrant-for-american-lobbyist-jay-footlik-over-qatargate-scandal/, August 28, 2025.

[6] Nytimes.com/athletic/6508282/2025/07/22/qatar-olympic-games-2036/, July 22, 2025.

[7] Ushmm.org/exhibition/olympics/?content=august_1936&lang=en.

[8] Bbc.com/sport/football/52197014, April 7, 2020.

[9] Qna.org.qa/en/news/news-details?id=0016-qatari-security-forces-participating-in-securing-paris-olympics-2024-arrive-in-paris&date=12/07/2024, July 12, 2024.

[10] Apnews.com/article/qatar-olympics-bid-2036-aebdc1f639366ae20dcbebdf69291762, July 23, 2025.

[11] Historycollection.com/a-look-inside-hitlers-1936-nazi-olympics-through-amazing-photographs/, July 24, 2018.

[12] Carnegieendowment.org/sada/2023/01/world-cup-in-qatar-human-rights-and-normalization?lang=en, January 26, 2023.

[13] MEMRI Daily Brief No. 685, The Qatar Monitor Project (QMP) – A New MEMRI Project In Defense Of The U.S. And Western World – UPDATED With Qatar Weekly Updates (QWU) Nos. 1-34, August 21, 2025.

[14] MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1527, Al-Jazeera Unmasked: Political Islam As A Media Arm Of The Qatari State, August 12, 2020.

[15] MEMRI Special Dispatch NO. 11978, Ali Al-Qaradaghi, Chair Of The International Union Of Muslim Scholars (IUMS) – Which Since Its Founding Has Incited To Terrorism And Jihad – Says In Interview: Qatar And Turkey Are Our Biggest Supporters And Funders; Unlike Some Arab Countries, The UN Has Not Classified Us As A Terrorist Organization And We Are Cooperating With It, May 14, 2025.

[16] MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1836, Qatar’s Support For Anti-U.S. Terrorist Activity And Attacks, May 12, 2025.

[17] MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1652, Al-Qaradawi: Qatar’s Islamist Empire Builder, October 3, 2022

[18] MEMRI Inquiry and Analysis No. 1849, From Lecture Halls To Online Epicenters Of Hate, The Resurgence Of Anti-Zionism Has Sanitized Antisemitism In German Universities Once Again, Echoing The Spread Of Nazi Propaganda In Academia In German History, June 19, 2025.

[19] Journalofdemocracy.org/how-qatar-became-a-world-leader-in-sportswashing, November 2022.

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.