Daily Kickoff
👋 Good Tuesday morning!
Weeks ahead of President Joe Biden’s anticipated trip to the Middle East, the White House is elevating Hady Amr, who has served as deputy assistant secretary of state for Israeli and Palestinian affairs since January 2021, to the role of special envoy to the Palestinians.
Amr’s promotion comes as part of an effort by the administration to reset its relationship with Palestinian Authority leadership. Former President Donald Trump withdrew U.S. aid to the PA and shuttered the Jerusalem consulate that primarily served the Palestinians.
The Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s David Makovsky told Jewish Insider that Amr’s move “fits the vibe of this administration, which is to see what is possible in the field of Palestinian economics amid too many political constraints on the ground for political negotiations.”
Makovsky noted that the move, which he called “a good use of Hady’s talents,” will “free [Amr] from daily bureaucratic responsibilities.” And, Makovsky added, “amid deadlock between the U.S. and Israel over the idea of a U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, it provides an address for Palestinian affairs in Washington.”
The Biden administration has held off on plans to reopen the Jerusalem consulate, in part due to the lack of support from the Israeli government, which would have to greenlight any such move. The Israel Policy Forum’s chief policy officer, Michael Koplow, called Amr’s promotion “a strong signal that we intend to continue rebuilding the relationship and working with the Palestinian Authority to the extent that is allowed under U.S. law in the absence of cooperation from the Israeli government on reopening the Jerusalem consulate.”
Koplow suggested the PA “view this as a signal of a continuing U.S. commitment to solidify and routinize the diplomatic relationship, which is better for them than an alternative where the U.S. does little beyond repeatedly restating a desire to reopen the consulate.”
Still, skepticism remains about the degree to which Amr — or anyone serving in such a role — will be effective. “Hady is a nice man, but the problem with Israeli-Palestinian peace has nothing to do with the lack of a sufficiently elevated U.S. official,” American Enterprise Institute Senior Fellow Danielle Pletka told JI. “If peace processors were the missing link, we’d have had peace years ago. The problem is the Palestinians are not a ready partner for peace, and the Israelis are doing just fine without it.”
The personnel changes are happening on both sides of the Atlantic. Keren Hajioff, who previously served as Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s spokesperson for international media, has been tapped to be his senior advisor for foreign affairs.
perfect landing
In a first, Israel participates in Global Aerospace Summit in Abu Dhabi

Drawing executives from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Airbus Defence and Space and Saab, the Global Aerospace Summit brings together industry leaders from around the world eager to foster cross-border cooperation and partnerships, Rebecca Anne Proctor reports for The Circuit. At last week’s conference, a three-day event held at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the participation of one major aerospace company made summit history — for the first time, Israel’s leading aviation manufacturer, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), took part in the conference.
Abraham Accords benefit: The presence of IAI, which produces aerial and aeronautic systems for both military and civilian use, broke new ground for Israel nearly two years after it signed normalization agreements with the UAE and several other Arab nations. “What is important is that we are in the UAE and this summit is a semi-historical event for us because we are attending it for the first time ever,” Sharon Biton, IAI’s vice president of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, told The Circuit.
Taking off: IAI was one of the sponsors for the Global Aerospace Summit. With 15,000 employees, including 6,000 engineers, the company, according to Biton, is the largest high-tech firm in the Middle East. A leader in both the defense and commercial markets delivering state-of-the-art technologies in air, space, naval, cyber and homeland defense, IAI is fully owned by the Israeli government. It designs, produces, develops and maintains civil aircraft, drones, fighter aircraft, missile, avionics and space-based systems. In 2021, IAI reported annual sales of approximately $4.5 billion with an order backlog of $13.4 billion.
Making space: While IAI was the only Israeli company with a physical booth at the summit, several other Israeli individuals from the industry were present and participated in various panels, including one on “Cybersecurity in the Aerospace Sector,” which examined the most significant cyber security challenges facing the aerospace sector. It was led by Mohamed Al Kuwaiti, the head of cyber security for the UAE government, with speakers including Yigal Unna, former director general of the Israel National Cyber Directorate, and IAI’s Esti Peshin, the company’s vice president and general manager of its cyber division.
Want more stories like this? Read and subscribe to The Circuit’s newsletter.
Bonus: Israeli Economy and Industry Minister Orna Barbivay and UAE Minister of State for Foreign Trade Dr. Thani Al Zeyoudi signed a free trade agreement today. “Right now, we’re talking about trade – exports and imports,” said Sabah al-Binali, executive chairman of OurCrowd Arabia, a unit of the Israel crowdfunding platform, OurCrowd. ”The next step after that is that they expect to see more and more private joint ventures between the two markets, and we will hit full potential to the north of everything else once we see companies that have shareholders and executives that are both Israeli and Emirati working together.”