Hamad Amar

Amar was born on November 5, 1964, and trained as a lawyer.[1][2] A 2022 profile listed his residence as Shefa-Amr and described him as married with three children.[1] He served on the Shefa-Amr city council and worked as an aide to Avigdor Lieberman at the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of National Infrastructure.[2][7]

Amar founded the Druze Youth Movement and the Druze Scouts organization, and he also founded an association for martial arts.[2][8] In his maiden Knesset speech, he identified himself as the founder and chairman of the youth movement and explained that it provided supplementary education for Druze young people.[5] He called for greater support for youth movements, emphasizing civic values, volunteerism, tolerance, and helping others.[5]

Martial arts also formed part of his activities outside politics: he chaired the Israeli martial arts association and practiced karate.[1] A 2021 profile described a daily routine beginning with a 75-minute karate workout and reported that he was preparing for a seventh-degree examination.[8]

Amar first entered the Knesset following the February 10, 2009 election, having appeared eleventh on Yisrael Beiteinu’s candidate list; the party won 15 seats.[9] He was also elected to the 19th Knesset in 2013.[10] His parliamentary assignments included service on the Economic Affairs Committee and the Interior and Environment Protection Committee.[2] After the 2013 election he became a deputy Knesset speaker, a role he held again in the 20th and 23rd Knessets.[2]

In his maiden speech on March 18, 2009, Amar presented his election as an opportunity to address problems affecting Israeli citizens generally and the Druze community particularly.[5] He identified infrastructure, local-council finances, unemployment, industrial development, education, and youth programs as priorities, and said he intended to work with the Forum of Local Authorities Heads.[5] During a parliamentary exchange on council finances, he cited Peki’in’s deficit as NIS 33 million against an annual budget of NIS 30 million and put the combined debts and deficits of Druze local councils at more than NIS 400 million.[5]

Amar later told the Knesset that he had enacted a 2010 law requiring adequate Druze representation in government companies.[11] In criticizing its implementation, he said only six companies complied and that some companies employing more than 12,000 people had no Druze employees.[11] He called on the Israel Electric Corporation and relevant government bodies to reinstate workers and comply with the representation requirements.[11]

In 2012, Amar opposed clauses in a proposed planning-law reform during a joint session of the Interior and Environment Protection Committee and the Economic Affairs Committee, voting with the opposition.[12] Other MKs criticized the proposal as cumbersome and ineffective, harmful to the environment, and liable to encourage corruption and raise housing prices.[12]

For the March 17, 2015 election, Amar occupied sixth place on Yisrael Beiteinu’s list.[13] The party received 214,906 votes, or 5.1 percent of the total, and won six seats.[13] He again held sixth place in both the April and September 2019 elections.[4] When the party won only five seats in April, he failed to return to the Knesset; at that election, he was the only Yisrael Beiteinu member of the outgoing 20th Knesset who stood again.[4][14] The party’s rise to eight seats in September returned him to parliament as a member of the 22nd Knesset.[4]

Amar retained sixth place on the party list in 2020 and March 2021, when Yisrael Beiteinu won seven seats at each election.[15][16] He was included among its members of both the 23rd and 24th Knessets.[15][16] For the 2026 election to the 26th Knesset, he was placed seventh on the party’s slate.[17]

Amar was selected for a ministerial position in the Finance Ministry after fellow Yisrael Beiteinu MK Eli Avidar declined a ministerial post during the formation of the June 2021 government.[18] A roster of Israel’s 36th government, which served from June 13, 2021, to December 28, 2022, listed Amar as “Minister in the Ministry of Finance” and Avigdor Lieberman as Minister of Finance.[3]

In November 2021, Amar was leading a three-year, NIS 3 billion empowerment program for Druze and Circassian society covering 2021–2023.[6] Its proposed areas included education, planning and construction, infrastructure, subsidized plots for discharged soldiers, and a new locality.[6] Amar said the plan followed two years in which funding had not flowed to Druze local councils and was intended to support growth and prosperity.[6]

Discussing development difficulties in 2023, Amar identified shortages of state land, missing outline plans, and bureaucratic obstacles as barriers to carrying out projects.[19] He linked the lack of local employment sources to the absence of industrial zones and said NIS 120 million allocated for industrial zones under an earlier program had gone unused.[19] He also described neighborhood projects stalled by objections concerning sewage-system capacity, putting the cost of a new system at NIS 200 million.[19]

In March 2025, Amar received more than 150 Syrian Druze dignitaries during a two-day visit to Israel, the first such delegation to cross the border since 1974.[20] He described the meeting as a moving reunion between Druze communities separated by the border and said many visitors had immediate family on the Israeli side.[20]

In July 2025, amid intense fighting and reports of atrocities in southern Syria, Amar joined efforts to bring back Israeli Druze youths who had entered Syrian territory.[21][22] His office said he crossed with security personnel to persuade the youths to return and help restore calm and order.[21] Reports differed over how far he went: Ynetnews quoted Amar saying he entered Hader and remained from about 2 p.m. until 10 p.m., while The Times of Israel cited his spokesperson as saying he stayed near the border with security forces and their permission.[22][23]

Amar’s public record has combined parliamentary service with institution-building in the Druze community.[5][6] He founded and chaired the Druze Youth Movement, which he described as a supplementary-education framework promoting civic values and volunteerism.[5] His policy work included advocacy for adequate Druze representation in government companies.[11] As a minister, he led a NIS 3 billion development program for Druze and Circassian society.[6] His reception of Syrian Druze dignitaries in 2025 also reflected a cross-border communal role.[20]

In 2011, Amar sponsored a bill giving preference in government employment and services to people who had completed military or alternative national service.[24] Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein objected that it could discriminate against groups including Arabs and people with disabilities; Amar defended it as service-based rather than sector-based and argued that those unable to serve in the military should perform alternative service.[24] In support of the proposal, he claimed that close to 85 percent of young Druze performed some form of service, compared with less than two-thirds of the general population.[24]

In July 2018, Amar joined Druze MKs Akram Hasson and Salah Sa’ad in petitioning the High Court of Justice against the Nation-State Law, arguing that it discriminated against minorities.[25][26] Passed by a 62–55 Knesset vote, the law defined Israel as the national home of the Jewish people and assigned Arabic a “special” status.[25] Amar objected to the absence of an equality clause, invoking his military service and injury, his son’s service and officer training, and the Druze community’s decision to tie its fate to Israel when the Jewish community was still weak.[26]

Rejecting benefits as a substitute for amending the law, Amar said, “We won’t be bought with benefits,” and sought a guarantee of equality for minorities willing to fight for the state.[27] In August 2018, however, he accepted a compromise framework proposed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that envisaged recognition of the Druze and Circassian communities, support for their institutions and localities, recognition of service across communities, and a ministerial oversight committee.[28] Calling it a “historic framework” that “for the first time anchors my Israeli identity,” he identified Druze welfare as his overriding aim.[28] He also supported his party leader’s position that non-Jewish citizens should pledge loyalty to Israel to obtain citizenship.[14]

Amar’s ministerial designation prompted a separate legal dispute.[29] His 2021 appointment was described as an additional Finance Ministry role without statutory powers, with responsibilities dependent on his relationship with Lieberman.[7] During a 2022 committee discussion, Amar maintained that he had been sworn in as a minister in the Finance Ministry, while legal counsel regarded him as a minister without portfolio because legislation establishing an “additional minister” role had not passed its first reading.[29]