Hady Amr

Hady Amr

Hady Amr is "Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs" within the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs under Joe Biden. He previously served as a fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and "helped coordinate numerous assistance programs" in the Middle East during the Arab Spring.

Hady Amr "served in the U.S. Department of State from 2013-2017, most recently as deputy special envoy for Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations."

Bio

From the State Department:

Hady Amr currently serves as the Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs within the Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. Prior to this position, Special Representative Amr served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs from January 2021 to November 2022, and previously served at the State Department from 2013-2017 on Secretary of State John Kerry’s team working on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. From 2010-2013, he served as Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) where he helped coordinate numerous assistance programs across the region during the Arab uprisings. He also previously held positions at the U.S. Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security. During his career, he worked for or advised various international organizations including the World Bank and the World Economic Forum. Immediately prior to January 2021, he was a scholar with both the Brookings Institution and the Center for a New American Security where he focused on U.S. foreign policy across the Middle East and on human development in the region. He earned a Master’s degree in economics and international affairs from Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Tufts University.

From the Center for New American Security:

"Hady Amr is a former Adjunct Senior Fellow in the Middle East Security Program at the Center for New American Security. He is a foreign policy and economic development expert with extensive U.S. government and international experience covering the Levant, the Gulf, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Arab human development.

From 2013-2017, Mr. Amr served at the State Department on Secretary Kerry’s small team supporting the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, most recently as Deputy Special Envoy focusing on Gaza and economics.

From 2010-2013, Mr. Amr served as Deputy Assistant Administrator for the Middle East at USAID, where he assumed a leadership role managing the U.S. government’s development response to the Arab uprisings while also overseeing ongoing programming.

His U.S. Government service also includes time spent as a senior advisor at the Department of Homeland Security working on countering violent extremism, and at the Department of Defense as a defense fellow during the Clinton administration where he helped establish the Near East South Asia Center for Strategic Studies at National Defense University.

From 2006-2010, Mr. Amr was at the Brookings Institution as a scholar and as the founding director of the Brookings Doha Center where he built the center from the ground up, managed the Center’s research program, and helped build an advisory council which included former foreign ministers. He retains an affiliation with Brookings as a nonresident senior fellow.

During his career, he has also worked for or advised various international institutions on key human development, institution-building and public-private partnership issues including the World Bank, the World Economic Forum, the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe and various United Nations agencies.

He has also served on various distinguished boards. In 2002, he was appointed by Virginia Governor Mark Warner to the Virginia Public Schools Authority where he oversaw the issuance of billions of dollars in school bonds in the AAA-rated state, and was reappointed by Governor Tim Kaine, serving until 2010.

Mr. Amr earned his master’s degree in economics and international affairs from Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and his bachelor’s degree in economics from Tufts University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Outside of CNAS, Mr. Amr is providing outside informal counsel exclusively to the Biden campaign for President.

Apologist for UNRWA

On September 4, 2018, Hady Amr wrote an OpEd published at The Hill criticizing the Trump State Department's move defund the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which "has long supported Hamas and other Palestinian terrorist groups."

Excerpt:

"But should we really be surprised? We already know that Trump’s actions have been antithetical to refugees at home and abroad, and we also know that in a global economy of over $100 trillion dollars, a meager $300 million cut by the U.S. should be able to be covered by another country.

That’s true on both counts, but in that truth lies the problem: the problem for America, for Palestinians and even for Israelis. What is also true is that Trump’s action is based on such a fundamentally flawed misunderstanding of the situation that it may have the opposite of its intended effect.

But before we get to that, let’s look at the immediate impact: UNWRA, which provides vital life-saving services, health care and education to stateless refugees in the Middle East, is now scrambling for funds.

These funds go toward a modern, secular education for 500,000 boys and girls; vaccinations and health clinics that provide services to over 3 million refugees and a basic level of dignity for millions who otherwise would lead lives of despair.

While some donors like Canada, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have stepped in to offset part of what the U.S. is cutting, UNWRA will still have to reduce services.

Notably, in January, 2024, the Biden Administration pulled funds from UNRWA after "allegations that 12 of its staff were involved in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks against Israel".