Tucker Carlson, Rob Malley and Bill Gates walk into a Gulf hotel. 

It’s not the beginning of a joke, but rather, part of the speaker lineup at the Doha Forum over the weekend in Qatar.

As we’ve written about frequently over the last year, Doha has gone to great efforts to establish itself as a critical cog in the wheel of a functioning global society. Nowhere were the fruits of that labor on display more than at the two-day Doha Forum, held at the glitzy Sheraton Grand Doha Hotel.

Alongside traditional conference-circuit speakers — among them former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Microsoft founder Gates, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker and Heritage Foundation senior fellow Victoria Coates — were more controversial voices. 

Those voices include Carlson as well as Malley, the former Iran envoy who was suspended and had his clearance revoked for his alleged mishandling of classified documents; and Trita Parsi, the executive vice president of the Quincy Institute, which was a co-sponsor of the forum, who has in the past faced accusations of operating as an unregistered foreign agent for Iran.

The only public panel at the forum focused on Gaza was sponsored by Malley’s International Crisis Group, which came under fire after reports in 2023 that it had been infiltrated by an Iranian influence operation.

In Doha, Carlson, a last-minute addition to the forum’s lineup, sat in conversation with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, a 20-minute conversation that preceded a sit-down between Donald Trump Jr. and investor Omeed Malik.

When discussing efforts to rebuild Gaza, Carlson suggested that Qatar should refrain from helping “rebuild a region that has been destroyed by a country [Israel] that has also bombed” them. Carlson also mocked Americans and lawmakers who have called out Qatar as a “terror state” or terror “financier,” despite Doha’s well-documented involvement with the Muslim Brotherhood and harboring of Hamas. 

The interview with the Qatari prime minister provided Carlson with another prominent perch from which to spread falsehoods. In one instance, Carlson insisted that aside fromPresident Donald Trump, “no American president has ever sided with an Arab state over Israel.” Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman responded on X that U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia during the Reagan administration and the Suez crisis during the Eisenhower administration were among examples where the U.S. sided against Israel.

In response to Carlson promoting the statement on social media, Friedman, who served in Trump’s first administration, called it “demonstrably false,” and asked Carlson, “What is it about the facts that offends you so deeply?” 

But the platforming of extreme voices at the Doha Forum went beyond Carlson. Neil Patel, co-founder and CEO of Tucker Carlson Network, who spoke during a session on “Media Power and the Search for Truth,” received very little questioning on Carlson’s promotion and platforming of antisemitism. When asked about being “under attack” for bringing in “all sorts of voices” — a subtle nod to Carlson’s platforming of neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes — Patel refrained from mentioning Fuentes by name. Instead, he encouraged open discussion, adding that there needs to be a “free market of ideas.”

Such a “free market of ideas” has allowed, in an age of digital manipulation and engagement farming, antisemitism to permeate political discourse.

Patel shared the stage with Nika Soon-Shiong, the millennial activist and publisher of the far-left Drop Site News, which traffics in distorted claims and half-truths (one so severe that last week a Palestinian diplomat condemned its reporting as “propaganda”).

If the appearances of Carlson, Soon-Shiong, et al watered down the perceived seriousness of the conference, the decision by business executives and current and former government officials to attend gave Doha added legitimacy.

As one longtime attendee of the Forum wrote on X, “[N]ever has Qatar displayed its immense convening power more effectively than this year.”

In an era in which American political figures face blowback for appearing at conferences that also platform extremist voices — such as Rep. Ro Khanna’s (D-CA) appearance this fall at Arabcon, where other speakers downplayed the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks — more mainstream speakers at the Doha Forum faced no such condemnation, and legitimized the conference and its organizers in the process.

That lack of condemnation underscores the degree to which Qatar’s strategy of infiltrating virtually every element of Western society — from media to sports to academia to government — has rendered it a powerful and at times dangerous force, and one that forces for Western values and democracy are unwilling to challenge or confront.

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-Israel think tank in Washington that has pushed sympathetic positions on Iran, is sponsoring a panel discussion at the Doha Forum in the Qatari capital on Saturday — further underscoring how the two-day conference is including a range of extreme voices amid more centrist and mainstream figures.

The panel, billed as “Iran and the Changing Regional Security Environment,” will prominently feature former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who has used antisemitic rhetoric and was called the “propaganda arm” of the Iranian regime by officials in the first Trump administration, in a talk with Trita Parsi, executive vice president of Quincy and the founder of the National Iranian American Council, a pro-Iran lobbying group. 

Parsi, a fierce detractor of Israel, has previously faced accusations of operating as an undisclosed foreign agent for the Islamic Republic, which he has denied.

“On June 13, 2025, Israel initiated a war against Iran that lasted twelve days and that also brought the U.S. into direct confrontation with Iran for the first time,” reads a blurb describing the discussion. “This unprecedented event shattered the regional balance and compelled nations to rethink their security strategies. This session will examine the current state of regional affairs, assess its impact on diplomatic and security alignments, and explore potential pathways toward de-escalation and stability.”

The seemingly neutral tone of the summary is belied by omissions such as Iran’s sponsorship of regional terror proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah, among other rhetorical elisions that more broadly highlight Qatar’s own carefully managed approach to diplomatic engagement — which critics have cast as a two-faced effort to play both sides of opposing parties.

To that end, the oil-rich Gulf state, a major U.S. ally that has drawn scrutiny for hosting Hamas leaders and for its ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, has attracted a wide assortment of speakers and partners to its annual forum in Doha, touted as a “global platform for dialogue” relating to “critical challenges facing our world.”

Its stated theme this year, according to a press release, is “Justice in Action: Beyond Promises to Progress.”

“As a convener of diverse voices, Doha Forum stands as a leading platform to explore how diplomacy, development, and humanitarian action can intersect to deliver measurable, inclusive progress,” Mubarak Ajlan Al-Kuwari, the event’s executive director, said in an announcement on Thursday.

In addition to Iran-friendly groups and figures like Parsi and the International Crisis Group, formerly led by Rob Malley — the controversial Iran envoy in the Biden administration — the summit is elevating figures who have embraced hostile views on Israel or promoted antisemic tropes. Most notably, Tucker Carlson, who has invited several antisemites to join his podcast for friendly or credulous interviews, will sit for a conversation on Sunday with Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

At the same time, the Gulf confab, which extends through the weekend, is also featuring a variety of establishment-oriented participants, obscuring the extremism and fringe positions of other guests set to receive equal or even more prominent billing at the event. 

Alongside Carlson, the forum, co-sponsored by CNN, the Atlantic Council and other mainstream institutions, includes a more traditional roster of speakers such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, philanthropist Bill Gates and several world leaders.

Among the most high-profile speakers at this weekend’s Doha Forum in the Qatari capital are Tucker Carlson, his business partner Neil Patel and investor Omeed Malik — a lineup raising eyebrows given Carlson’s recent track record of credulously hosting antisemitic and Holocaust-denying guests on his right-wing podcast. 

The conference, which is partnered with a panoply of elite institutions from CNN to the Atlantic Council, will bring together Trump administration officials, ambassadors, politicians and philanthropists alongside figures who hold fringe or hostile views of Israel and U.S. Middle East policy.

The forum’s layout elevates voices aligned with Doha’s regional agenda while pairing them with Western political, philanthropic and corporate leaders — a mix that lends legitimacy to speakers with out-of-the-mainstream views.

Carlson — who launched the Tucker Carlson Network in 2023 with co-founder and CEO Patel after being fired from Fox News — has been one of the leading right-wing voices who is “elevating antisemitic ideas on the American right,” in the characterization of conservative Washington Post columnist Jason Willick. Earlier this year, Carlson came under fire for holding a friendly interview with neo-Nazi commentator Nick Fuentes.

His interview on the Doha Forum stage on Sunday will take place in conversation with the Qatari prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, an indication of his prominence at the confab.

Malik is an Iranian-American investor whose firm, 1789 Capital, was a major early backer of Carlson’s media venture. Malik is scheduled to speak alongside Donald Trump Jr., who is a partner of the company, after Carlson’s appearance.

Meanwhile, Patel will be speaking during a session called, “What Happens Now? Media Power and the Search for Truth in the Age of Distrust,” standing in stark contrast to accusations by Carlson’s critics that the podcaster often promotes unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. 

Beyond the Carlson orbit, the Doha Forum speaker list includes appearances by other leading anti-Israel voices including former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, sanctioned U.N. special rapporteur Francesca Albanese and former Iran envoy Rob Malley, who had his security clearance suspended in 2023 amid allegations of mishandling classified information.

Those voices will be mixed with a more traditional cast of guests, including former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack, U.S. Ambassador to NATO Matthew Whitaker and Heritage Foundation senior fellow Victoria Coates.

The conference will feature several panels focused on Israel, including one titled “The Gaza Reckoning: Reassessing Global Responsibilities and Pathways to Peace.”