Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) President Morton A. Klein released the following statement:

President Biden’s elevation of anti-Israel, pro-terrorist Hady Amr to the position of “Special Envoy to the Palestinians” is yet another outrage from an administration that is filled with antisemitic, Israelophobic appointees. Hady Amr is notorious for writing “I was inspired by the Palestinian intifada” (the terror wars in which Palestinian Arab terrorists murdered or maimed 10,000 Jews); falsely accusing Israel of “ethnic cleansing”; calling for a deal with Hamas; and working as the anti-Israel Middle East Justice Network’s national coordinator; etc. (See, e.g., “The Problem With Hady Amr,” by Daniel Greenfield, JNS, Feb. 4, 2021; and ZOA’s “Biden Appointments Watch.”)

It is bad enough that Biden previously appointed Hady Amr to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs at the Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. The timing of Amr’s promotion is particularly galling: Journalist Daniel Greenfield noted that elevating Hady Amr to this new position rewarded the terrorists “after a wave of violence that saw repeated murders of Israelis, with guns and axes.” (See, “Biden Appoints Supporter of ‘Intifada’ as ‘Ambassador’ to PLO in Israel,” by Daniel Greenfield, Frontpage Mag, May 31, 2022.)

The fact that Hady Amr’s “inspiration” is the Intifada terror wars to murder Jews should have been enough to exclude him from any public office. But our in-depth examination of Hady Amr’s record shows even more reasons why his appointment is dangerous and inappropriate:

• In a 2019 article, Hady Amr accused Israel’s prime minister of being “petty” and “insulting” when Israel properly enforced Israel’s law barring entry of promoters of anti-Israel boycotts, by barring the entry of Jew-hating BDS-promoters Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Essentially, Hady Amr demanded that Israel must give Israel-haters a platform to wage further economic warfare against the Jewish state. Tlaib’s and Omar’s proposed propaganda visit was entitled, “U.S. Congressional Delegation to [the non-existent] Palestine,” had a totally anti-Israel itinerary, and was sponsored by Miftah, which accused Jews of drinking Christian blood. As then-U.S. Ambassador to Israel notes in his book, Sledgehammer, “Israel had every right not to be a punching bag.” (p. 169-171)

• In the same 2019 article, Hady Amr stated: “We should insist that when members of Congress travel to the Holy Land, they should generally spend equal amounts of time with Israelis and Palestinians.” There is of course, no reason for Congress members who need to meet with Israel officials, tech companies, military experts, etc. to waste “equal time” meeting with “Palestinian” propagandists, as Hady Amr insists. Hady Amr’s demand is as ridiculous as demanding that foreign legislators visiting the United States must spend “equal time” with members of U.S. territories or specific U.S. religious groups.

• In a December 2017 article entitled “Jerusalem: After 30 Years of Hope and Failure, What’s Next for Israel/Palestine?,” Hady Amr condemned President Trump for recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and directing the embassy move, in accordance with U.S. law. (Note that Hady Amr calls Israel the non-existent name “Israel/Palestine.”) Amr demanded “new and dramatic steps” to enhance the Palestinian Authority terror regime’s strategy of dividing Jerusalem and obtaining eastern Jerusalem.

• In the same 2017 article, Hady Amr again promoted the outrage that the 1987 Intifada – murder of Jews – was inspiring.

• In another 2017 article a week later, Hady Amr condemned and insulted Ambassador Nikki Haley, Pres. Trump, Vice Pres. Mike Pence and Senior Advisor Jared Kushner, as having an “utter lack of comprehension of the situation” because they supported President Trump’s decision to keep his promise to move the U.S. embassy to the Jewish people’s eternal capital, Jerusalem. Hady Amr particularly attacked Ambassador Nikki Haley for saying, “I strongly believe this is going to move the ball forward for the peace process.” Of course, Amb. Haley was proven right and Hady Amr was proven wrong: moving the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem was one of the steps that ultimately led to the groundbreaking Abraham Accords.

• In yet another December 2017 article, Hady Amr displayed his “utter lack of comprehension of the situation” by asserting that Gaza can be “fixed” by having Hamas and the Palestinian Authority (PA) (Fatah) combine forces to promote a Palestinian [terror] state. Reconciling rival terror groups – even if it were possible – would of course not bring peace.

Amr’s article also proposed that Hamas fighters would agree to transfer their weapons to the PA, and the PA would hire the Hamas fighters to become the Gazan branch of the Palestinian police force. Transferring weapons from one terror group to another would not stop Palestinian terrorists’ merciless attacks on innocent Jews, and would continue the PA’s and Hamas’ violations of the Palestinian weapons prohibitions/limitations in the Oslo Accords. (See, e.g., Oslo II, Article XIV, para. 4.)

Moreover, renaming Hamas members “Palestinian police” would not quell violence. Unfortunately, current PA police officers have doubled as terrorists. For instance, PA police opened fire on Jewish worshippers and killed an Israeli praying at Joseph’s Tomb.  

Hady Amr apparently also forgot that Hamas threw Fatah members off of 15-story buildings, mutilated their bodies, and dragged Fatah officials out of houses and executed them, in order for Hamas to take over Gaza. (See, e.g., “Gaza Fighting Descends into New Brutality,” by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Reuters, June 12, 2007.) The PA has returned the favor by torturing and killing Hamas members.

• In a January 2020 article, Hady Amr condemned Trump’s Vision for Peace and insisted that any peace plan must meet the PA’s one-sided, maximal, impossible, dangerous demands. Amr insisted, among other things, that any peace plan must: (1) require Israel to withdraw to the pre-1967 armistice lines, which would leave Israel with indefensible “Auschwitz” borders and subject Israel’s population centers to constant terror attacks from a Palestinian-Fatah-Hamas-Iranian proxy terror state on Israel’s longest border; (2) divide Jerusalem and make eastern Jerusalem (where the Jewish people’s holiest sites are located) the capital of the Palestinian Arab terror state; (3) allow land swaps “only if the Palestinian state can remain contiguous and viable”: this would result in non-contiguous Israeli towns, placing Jews in grave danger; (4) not allow Israel to retain the Jordan Valley, despite the fact that it is essential for Israel’s security; and (5) have a “just” solution for “millions” of phony Palestinian refugees (and nothing for the much larger number of Jewish refugees from Arab lands).

Moreover, Hady Amr’s peace plan “musts” required nothing from the Palestinian Arabs. There was no requirement that the PA stop paying terrorists to murder Jews, or stop its anti-Jewish incitement in schools, textbooks, sports clubs, camps, mosques, street-names, media, etc.