The Biden administration is tapping for a top intelligence post a Palestinian-American who spent years at the forefront of efforts to boycott Israel and danced in front of a banner calling Israel an apartheid state.
The selection of Maher Bitar to be the senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council is already generating concerns that he will use the post to diminish intelligence sharing between the United States and Israel.
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."
Bitar, a former Obama White House staffer and general counsel for Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, will in his new job play a key role in coordinating the various U.S. intelligence agencies and have a window into America's most sensitive intelligence and covert operations.
A leading Republican lawmaker and former Trump administration officials are criticizing Bitar's elevation to the council's top echelons, expressing concerns that his anti-Israel activism will influence his treatment of sensitive intelligence information. Bitar's past endorsement of BDS also runs counter to the Biden administration's promise to reject the movement. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Biden's nominee to be the United Nations ambassador, said in her Wednesday confirmation hearing that BDS is "unacceptable" and "verges on anti-Semitism."
"U.S. and Israeli intelligence cooperation has repeatedly saved American lives and advanced U.S. national security. Maher Bitar is a long-time Boycott, Divest, and Sanction activist who has called for the abandonment of Israel," Rep. Michael McCaul (Texas), the lead Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon. "Appointing him for an integral role on the National Security Council is a slap in the face to our important ally Israel, and it sends a terrible message to the rest of the world. I strongly urge the Biden administration to quickly retreat from this dangerous decision and to appoint someone who is better aligned with our allies and less divisive."
In October 2009, Bitar gave a speech on internet activism to the pro-BDS Friends of Sabeel North America conference. He is also credited with assembling a 2008 magazine published by the BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, a group that backs BDS and supports the Palestinian "right of return," which would flood Israel with refugees from around the Middle East. In that publication, the authors discuss "Palestine's Ongoing Nakba," a term that refers to Israel's 1948 establishment as a "disaster."
https://freebeacon.com/biden-administration/biden-taps-anti-israel-bds-activist-for-top-white-house-intel-job/
