USAID spends millions of dollars to promote excellence in teaching and other programs at Palestinian Arab universities. But Qassem sees a dark side:
America requires the recipients of aid not to have been previously arrested by the Zionist occupation, and not to be affiliated with, Palestinian resistance groups. The aid is meant to favor negotiations with the Zionists, and the search for a peaceful solution; it is in favor of two-state solution; and even more dangerous it supports normalization with the Zionists, [for example] with scientific cooperation...the universities that [receive aid from the] U.S. must normalize relations with the Zionist entity, and participate in many activities with the Zionist universities and academics.USAID funds dozens of projects in the territories, at a cost of some $200 million a year.
Last year a PalArab newspaper accused USAID of being a spy agency and accused it of similar crimes that Professor Qassem is accusing it of, even saying that the only people who receive USAID funding after the terrorists are weeded out are those who have abandoned their national heritage.