The Biden administration likely will appoint US Deputy Assistant Secretary for Israeli and Palestinian Affairs Hady Amr as the US consul-general to the Palestinians, multiple diplomatic sources said Monday.
Amr would work out of a reestablished US Consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced last month. Former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would oppose a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem, which is sovereign Israeli land.
Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has an opinion on the matter but would not make any statements on it without coordinating with Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, a source close to Bennett said. Lapid was just assuming office and needed time to formulate policy, his spokesman said.
The State Department would not confirm or deny Amr’s appointment or whether the issue of a consulate to the Palestinians in Jerusalem came up in Blinken’s congratulatory phone call with Lapid on Sunday night.
Amr is thought to be one of the main engines behind the Biden administration’s planned unconditional restoration of aid to the Palestinians via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and NGOs.
Last month, the Biden administration dispatched Amr to the region to encourage de-escalation between Israel and Hamas during Operation Guardian of the Walls.
He met with Defense Minister Benny Gantz, among other Israeli officials, as well as prominent Arab-Israelis.
Amr is the only Biden administration appointee focused on Israeli-Palestinian issues. The administration has yet to announce an ambassador to Israel or an envoy for peace talks, which many presidents appoint.
Amr was a policy analyst and economist who worked in the Clinton and Obama administrations, as well as the World Bank and World Economic Forum. He was the founding director of the Brookings Institution’s Doha Center in Qatar in 2008.
In the Obama administration, Amr worked on allowing 3G Internet networks in Gaza and getting humanitarian aid into Gaza during Operation Protective Edge in 2014.
Amr is seeking an incremental approach to improve the situation in the region because the Biden administration does not view an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement happening in the near future, Axios reported earlier this year. Israeli officials who have worked with Amr described him as pragmatic and focused on humanitarian issues.
But Amr has also faced criticism from pro-Israel voices, based on his writing from the early 2000s. He warned that Arabs “will never forget what the Israeli people... have done to Palestinian children. And there will be thousands who will seek to avenge these brutal murders of innocents.” He accused Israel of having a “crude objective of disgrace and revenge that has little to do with security.”
Another criticism has been of his leading the Doha Center, which is backed by Qatar, a leading supporter of Hamas.