Bishara Bahbah, a Palestinian-American academic and longtime advocate for Palestinian rights, has unexpectedly found himself at the heart of backchannel negotiations between Hamas and the US government amid Israel's war on Gaza.
Though he holds no official diplomatic post, Bahbah has emerged as a key point of contact between the two sides, helping to facilitate the recent release of US-Israeli captive Edan Alexander.
According to Bahbah, the role came to him "by chance" when, in April, he received a phone call from senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad, who asked him to relay a message to American officials.
"That's what I did," Bahbah told Israel's Channel 12 in an interview last week.
His involvement would help lead to more than a month of secret talks between Hamas and US envoy Steve Witkoff, resulting in Alexander's release on 12 May.
US President Donald Trump hailed the development as a "monumental" success, while Hamas reportedly hoped it would encourage Washington to pressure Israel into agreeing to a ceasefire.
Bahbah has since become Hamas's primary interlocutor in a series of unofficial negotiations involving the US, Israel, and the group's political leadership.
According to a Sunday report by Axios, Witkoff's continued contact with Hamas was still being conducted through Bahbah, under Trump's direct instruction.
A lifelong Palestinian advocate, now in Trump’s orbit
Born in 1958 in occupied East Jerusalem, Bahbah’s family fled to Jordan during the Nakba in 1948 and later resettled permanently in the United States in the 1970s.
After completing a PhD in finance at Harvard, where he would later teach and serve as associate director of the Middle East Institute, Bahbah began a career that straddled finance, political analysis, and Palestinian advocacy.
Despite building a life in the US, Bahbah has never wavered in his connection to his homeland.
"It will always be my home, no matter where I live," he told Arab News in a 2018 interview. "My children were born in the US, but I registered them with UNRWA. When I die, I want it to say we were Palestinian. That's our eternal right."
He was part of the Palestinian delegation to the 1992–1993 Arab-Israeli peace talks and has remained a vocal supporter of the two-state solution. However, in recent years, his political affiliations had shifted.
Once a Democrat voter, Bahbah broke with the party over former President Joe Biden's handling of the war on Gaza.
"I became a Republican. We’ve had enough of Joe Biden and his complicity in the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza," he said in a June 2024 interview with TRT World ahead of the US elections.
Frustrated with what he called "empty promises" by Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, Bahbah joined the Trump campaign in May 2024 after being invited to help form a political action committee, 'Arab Americans for a Better America'.
He later went on to establish and chair 'Arab Americans for Trump', a platform that helped boost Republican turnout in Arab-majority areas of Michigan, which was one of the key swing states in Trump's re-election.
Bahbah has worked closely with Trump's special envoy Richard Grenell and Lebanese-American businessman Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Donald Trump's daughter Tiffany, and a key liaison to Arab-American communities.
A critic from within
Although a staunch Trump supporter, Bahbah has not shied away from publicly criticising the president's policy proposals when they cross his red lines. He strongly opposed Trump's controversial statement on 5 February, in which the president suggested turning Gaza into a "Middle East Riviera" by expelling its population.
"The president’s ideas are completely unacceptable. Gaza belongs to the Palestinians - it’s not real estate to be bought or sold," Bahbah said in a post on X.
In response, he rebranded his organisation from 'Arab Americans for Trump' to 'Arab Americans for Peace', signalling a renewed emphasis on diplomatic resolution.
Still, Bahbah has maintained his ties with the Trump administration and continues to press for a ceasefire, the restoration of humanitarian aid, and a transition of governance in Gaza to the Palestinian Authority.
He was instrumental in drafting the letter of congratulations sent by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to Trump after his re-election, a gesture that led to the first direct phone call between the two leaders.
Bahbah also welcomed the 19 January ceasefire in Gaza, which he had helped broker informally, though it was ultimately broken by Israeli military action on 18 March.