A.M. Qattan Foundation is a cultural and educational nonprofit that is dedicated to promoting liberal democratic values in the Middle East. It operates in both the United Kingdom and the Palestinian territories.

It was founded in the UK in 1993 and has a branch in the Palestinian territories that handles most of its operations. ¹

Activities

A.M. Qattan Foundation advocates for the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its tenets about the free and equal dignity and rights of all people. It promotes pluralist systems that foster free speech and free thought, the “production of knowledge” and practices that support it, and the defense of human rights doctrines, which it terms the “courage to be just.” ²

A.M. Qattan is a cultural and educational nonprofit organization. It has a Palestinian audio-visual program, a children’s library, a cultural center in Gaza City, and a program for educational research and development for Palestinian school teachers. In 2008, the foundation launched the Mosaic Rooms in London, a showcase for contemporary art from the Arab world. ³

Qattan publishes both short and long-form literature on the politics of the Middle East, strategies for teaching the English language, and the history of Jerusalem and the Israel-Palestine region. For example, Qattan publications have argued that “Jerusalem can be seen as both a ‘place’ and an ‘idea’. At times, the idea surpasses the place, dominates the interpretations, and becomes the place’s essence.” ⁴

Additionally, Qattan hosts a website for a children’s center in Gaza that links to other internal web pages including a library database of children’s books, a “Season’s Activities” page available only in Arabic, and a page for clubs. ⁵

On March 6, 2018, A.M Qattan Foundation founder and chairman Omar Al-Qattan gave an interview with Alliance Magazine to discuss the work of the foundation, claiming that he had a focus on building, “progressive institutions and helping progressive movements to think about a just and equitable future. ⁶ When discussing Gaza and the Hamas government, Al-Qattan commented, “I don’t believe that the Islamist experiment has much left in it, but it might be very destructive in its death throes and the damage might be generational. It’s not only the fault of Hamas or Fatah. We should blame Israel and the occupation, too, but we also need to go back to our moral failures.” ⁷ He continued by stating, “Our standards of education and our sense of social solidarity has collapsed. Instead, we have a hapless ‘government’ in the West Bank, with no strategy and no idea what it’s doing and an equally hapless and repressive ‘regime’ in Gaza.” ⁸ In the case of Palestinian philanthropy efforts, he argued, “Much of the pro-Palestinian lobby has been captivated by religious groups, and I think that’s historically been a catastrophe because many of them have become associated with extremism, often (though not always) through no fault of their own.” ⁹

Funding

A.M. Qattan Foundation’s major source of funding is the Al-Qattan Charitable Trust (QCT). ¹⁰ It has received funding from the Ford Foundation. ¹¹ Its other donors have included American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), Anna Lindh Foundation, European Union, the Centre for Culture and Development, Goethe Institut, Hani Qaddumi Scholarship Foundation, International Development and Relief Foundation, the Power of International Education, Institut Francais Jersualem, the Government of the Netherlands, the Representative Office of Norway to the Palestinian Authority, the Norwegian Refugee Council, PalTel Group Foundation, Save the Children, Sweden Sverige, the University of Gothenburg, United Palestinian Appeal, UNICEF, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). ¹²

In 2019, Qattan received approximately £13.9 million (about $17.3 million USD), of which £13.5 million (about $16.8 million USD) came from “donations and legacies.” It had £7 million (about $8.7 million USD) in expenses, and finished the year with £43 million (about $53.5 million USD) in net assets. ¹³

Leadership

A.M. Qattan Foundation was founded by Abdel Mohsin Al-Qattan, an educational specialist and construction magnate from Jaffa, a city in British-administered Mandatory Palestine that later became part of Israel. He was involved in Palestinian and Arab politics throughout his life. He supported the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in its early days in Kuwait and was elected speaker of the Palestine National Council (PNC) in 1969 but resigned a few days later. He remained a member of the organization until resigning in 1990. He and his friend Edward Said, a left-wing postcolonial academic, resigned their memberships in protest of the PLO’s support of then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. ¹⁴

Omar Al-Qattan is the chairman of the board and a founding member of the foundation. Omar is a filmmaker, Islamic cultural philanthropist, and the chair of the Al-Hani Construction and Trading Company in Kuwait, which constructs, among other projects, cultural centers and libraries. ¹⁵

As of 2023, other trustee members include Dr. Najwa Al-Qattan, professor of Middle Eastern history at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles; Nadia Hijab, a Palestinian journalist; Abla Maayah, a certified auditor and managing partner at Maavah and Co Accounting Firm; Raef Zreik, a Palestinian lawyer and academic; Khalil Hindi, professor of Management Science at the Olayan School of Business, American University of Beirut; Khaled Fahmy, an Arabic Studies professor at University of Cambridge; and Mezna Qato, a University of Cambridge historian. ¹⁶

1. “About the Foundation.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/about/about.
2. “About the Foundation.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/about/about.
3. “Omar Al-Qattan.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/about/our-team/omar-al-qattan.
4. “Jerusalem the Homeland and Spirit.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/resources/publication/jerusalem-homeland-and-spirit.
5. “Child Centre – Gaza.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qcc.
6. Keidan, Charles. “Interview: Omar Al-Qattan.” Alliance Magazine, March 6, 2018. https://www.alliancemagazine.org/interview/interview-omar-al-qattan/
7. Keidan, Charles. “Interview: Omar Al-Qattan.” Alliance Magazine, March 6, 2018. https://www.alliancemagazine.org/interview/interview-omar-al-qattan/
8. Keidan, Charles. “Interview: Omar Al-Qattan.” Alliance Magazine, March 6, 2018. https://www.alliancemagazine.org/interview/interview-omar-al-qattan/
9. Keidan, Charles. “Interview: Omar Al-Qattan.” Alliance Magazine, March 6, 2018. https://www.alliancemagazine.org/interview/interview-omar-al-qattan/
10. “Co-funding Partners.” A.M. Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/partners/co-funding-partners.
11. Return of Organization Exempt from Income Tax (Form 990). Ford Foundation. 2013. Part XV, Section 3 – Grants and Contributions.
12. “Co-funding Partners.” A.M. Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/partners/co-funding-partners.
13. “Trustees Report and Financial Statements 2019.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. Page 44. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/resources/audited-financial-statements/trustees-report-and-financial-statements-2019.
14. “Abdel Mohsin Al-Qattan, Founder.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/about/abdel-mohsin-al-qattan.
15. “Omar Al-Qattan.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/about/our-team/omar-al-qattan.
16. ^[1] “Board of Trustees.” Qattan Foundation. Accessed March 5, 2023. http://qattanfoundation.org/en/qattan/about/our-team/board-trustees.