Maher Bitar

Maher Bitar

Maher Bitar (2nd from left) at 2008 World Economic Forum

Maher al-Bitar is Senior Director for Intelligence on the National Security Council (NSC) under Joe Biden. He "played a key role during the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump".

Maher Bitar has worked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) "while the group was [allegedly] providing material support to terrorism".,

Maher Bitar is "a Palestinian-American attorney who served on President Barack Obama’s National Security Council as Director for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs and as deputy to Samantha Power".

National Security Council

Maher Bitar was in 2021 picked by President Joe Biden as the Senior Director for Intelligence on the National Security Council.

In his new position, Bitar will coordinate intelligence between the White House and the intelligence community, receiving material from intelligence agencies, informing the intelligence community of White House policy, and deciding who gets access to secret information. The office also contains some of the most classified information around.

The job of Senior Director for Intelligence at the National Security Council is supposed to go to an intelligence professional.

Adam Schiff’s top legal adviser

According to Natasha Bertrand of Politico in an article dated Jauary 21, 2024 titled "He helped Adam Schiff impeach Trump. Now he’s joining Biden’s NSC." Maher Bitar served as Adam Schiff’s "top legal adviser" and "is close with national security adviser Jake Sullivan". He also served as the general counsel for House Intelligence Committee Democrats.

"Adam Schiff’s top legal adviser is joining President Joe Biden’s National Security Council as its senior director for intelligence, a key role that serves as the day-to-day connective tissue between the intelligence community and the White House.

Maher Bitar, who has served as the general counsel for House Intelligence Committee Democrats since 2017 and played a key role during the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump, is set to begin in the new job in the coming days, said two people familiar with the move. His official title will be senior director for intelligence programs.

The hiring will mark a return for Bitar to the NSC. He served as its director for Israeli and Palestinian affairs during the Obama administration and as a deputy to Samantha Power while she was at the NSC. He also worked as a foreign affairs officer at the State Department. Bitar is close with national security adviser Jake Sullivan from their time together at the State Department, said another person familiar with their relationship.

“I am thrilled to see him in his new post, though we will certainly miss him on the committee,” Schiff told POLITICO. Schiff described Bitar as a “superb choice” for the role, adding that he has an “extraordinary” breadth of talent and expertise when it comes to the intelligence community and understands the challenges it faces after being “battered” by Trump for four years. “I can’t think of anyone more suited to the role than Maher,” Schiff said.

[...]

"Bitar served as a senior member of the House impeachment team during Trump’s first impeachment, alongside Dan Goldman who worked as the impeachment manager’s top lawyer. Goldman called Bitar “a brilliant lawyer” and said his experience on the committee would give the new NSC insight into the changes in the intelligence community over the last four years...

World Economic Forum

Middle East World Economic Forum 2008 Maher Bitar

Maher Bitar took part in the 2008 World Economic Forum's "World Economic Forum on the Middle East: Learning from the Future".,

Student Activism

2006 yearbook picture from Georgetown University

From JNS Wire dated February 11, 2021:,

As a student, Mr. Bitar brought the BDS movement to Georgetown University, and he still sits of the Executive Board of Students for Justice in Palestine. After receiving his law degree from Georgetown, he went on to Oxford where he received his master's degree in refugee issues. His thesis was on the "Nakba", the Arabic word for catastrophe, describing the very founding of the state of Israel in 1948. Note this is not about the disputed territory of 1967. It is about the very existence of the state of Israel."

Maher Bitar was profiled at the Washington Free Beacon January 27, 2021:

"Bitar spent years leading anti-Israel organizations that promote the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which wages economic warfare on Israel. In college, he was a leader in Students for Justice in Palestine, a pro-BDS campus group known for bullying Jewish students. A 2006 yearbook picture from Georgetown University, where Bitar attended school, shows him posing before a sign that reads "Divest from Israel Apartheid."

2006: Georgetown University's Students for Justice in Palestine Conference

From January 13, 2006 by Stephen Santulli of the Georgetown University newspaper:

Palestine Solidarity Movement held its fifth annual conference on campus next month, despite heated criticism from some civil and religious groups that charge that the group promotes extreme anti-Israeli views .

The conference, which will be hosted by Georgetown’s Students for Justice in Palestine, will be held from Feb. 17-19 2006 and is expected to draw around 700 participants from as many as 100 universities across the country, said PSM spokesperson Nadeem Muaddi. Details regarding the schedule of speakers and events have yet to be released.

“The university administration has been extremely helpful and supportive in ensuring we are able to run an effective and safe conference,” SJP said in a statement released by its executive board.

But since the announcement of the impending conference, several religious and political groups have objected to what they say are PSM’s extreme views. PSM, among other things, fails to condemn terrorism and denies Israel’s right to statehood, the groups alleged in letters sent to University President John J. DeGioia and some members of the university community

Maher Bitar (SFS ’06) and Bayann Hamid (SFS ’07), who sit on SJP’s executive board, denied charges that PSM has supported Palestinian terrorist organizations like Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

“We support democratic and nonviolent means,” Hamid said.

Muaddi also said that PSM does not support violence in the Middle East and does not challenge Israel’s right to exist. However, he did say that PSM is critical of certain Israeli policies, including its establishment of settlements in the Gaza Strip and its construction of the West Bank barrier.

“What Israel is doing is, one, immoral, and, two, in violation of international laws,” Muaddi said.

Another issue that has provoked criticism is PSM’s advocacy of university divestment from Israel, which Muaddi defined as encouraging schools with a “business or military relationship with the state of Israel” to withdraw their investments.

Maher and Hamid said they are mindful of security concerns and are in contact with university safety officials. They said that they do not expect any counter-programming.

The announcement of the conference came a little more than a month after administrators at the Georgetown’s Marriott Conference Center rejected a bid to hold an anti-terrorism conference by the pro-Israel group America’s Truth Forum, formerly the We the People’s Truth Forum, after officials cited financial concerns over potential protests that the conference might have caused.

Smulson said that the rejection of the conference was not inconsistent with the Speech and Expression Policy. “The decision regarding the We the People’s Truth Forum was made by Marriott, as it runs the hotel and conference center, not by Georgetown University.”

Bitar dismissed criticisms voiced by some of the critics that the PSM conference was part of a larger bias against Israel by Georgetown. Some have suggested that the approval of the PSM conference, in concert with other recent events such as the $20-million donation to Georgetown by Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, has suggested such a bias.