An interesting footnote: Biden's top intelligence advisor is of Palestinian origin

After publishing my last article summarising why it seems likely that the United States covertly approved South Africa’s ICJ application, I discovered through a chance conversation that Joe Biden’s top intelligence and defence advisor since early 2024, Maher Bitar, is of Palestinian origin. Strangely, this has not been widely reported: in fact, the vast majority of mainstream media outlets don’t seem to have reported it at all. Most coverage has come from right-wing, pro-Israel publications, one of which concluded its analysis by asking: “Is Biden turning his back on Israel?”.

Maher Bitar got his undergraduate degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service: a notionally academic institution which appears to produce a higher percentage of spies and agents for US intelligence services than any other single academic institution. His family are reportedly Melkite Christians from Palestine though he was born in the United States. The Melkite church in the United States has endorsed a ‘two state solution’ in Palestine.

In his official biography Bitar is described as “the White House’s senior-most official responsible for coordinating U.S. Government intelligence and defense policy”. He previously worked, under Barack Obama, for the US National Security Council as its ‘Director for Israel and Palestinian Affairs’.

In an article he wrote as a first year undergraduate, he argued that Palestinian Christians [such as himself] had a pivotal role in bringing the conflict to a resolution:

[Palestinian Christians] bear a heavy burden of being vital to helping shift the stagnant debate from its dangerously oversimplified and polarized religious undertones to a more manageable political struggle that can be resolved at the negotiating table

For those familiar with common biographies of Western intelligence agents, almost everything about Bitar’s background suggests that he was probably recruited by the CIA during his undergraduate days, or even before. (If true that would mean he was working for the CIA while he was at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency…).

Bitar’s position and background on its own constitutes suggestive additional information on the US’s likely strategy in relation to Palestine. Coming from a Palestinian Christian family, Bitar is likely to be very hostile towards Hamas. Yet he is also likely to see Israel’s occupation and use of force against Palestinians (as an entire group) in a negative light.¹ And that is quite consistent with the double game I described in previous articles, in which the US is covertly supporting efforts to hold Israeli leaders accountable for war crimes while nevertheless continuing its public, over stance of support - including through the provision of weapons and military support of various kinds.

1. There is not a lot of information in the public domain about Bitar’s family and why they left Palestine, which makes these inferences more speculative than usual. It is also possible that Bitar holds a general hostility towards Palestinians still in Palestine and he was only infiltrating the pro-Palestine groups he joined. However, the speculation about his outlook in the article reflects, I think, what is most probable.