Hagar Chemali

Hagar Hajjar Chemali (born Hagar Hadi Hajjar; September 4, 1981) is an American political satirist,^[1] writer, producer, television personality, and political commentator.^[2][3][4] Chemali has held senior national security and public affairs positions under the Barack Obama and George W. Bush administrations. She comments and writes on national security and foreign policy, and is regularly featured on MSNBC, CNN, Bloomberg, and BBC.^[5][6][7]

Early life and education[]

Chemali was born in Greenwich, Connecticut to Hadi and Mirella (née Joakim) Hajjar. Her father is a businessman originally from Lebanon. He was born into a prominent family and later kidnapped during the Lebanese Civil War due to political conflict. He is the owner of MIRTEX Trading Corp in the United States. Her mother received her bachelors degree in business from Saint Joseph University in Lebanon and graduated summa cum laude from Manhattanville College in the United States, receiving her master's degree. Her mother is an Art Historian who has won numerous awards for her photography.^[8][9]

Chemali studied Political Science at Barnard College, earning her bachelor’s degree in 2003. She attended Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs where she concentrated on International Security Policy with a focus on the Middle East. She graduated from Columbia with her Master of International Affairs in 2004. Chemali is a member of the Delta Gamma sorority.^[10][11]

Chemali’s great grand-uncle was the first president of Lebanon, Bechara el-Khoury. She is also related to artists Huguette Caland and Marie Hadad through her father.

Career[]

U.S. Government[]

In 2003, Chemali held an internship position at the United Nation’s Department for Political Affairs, working on the Iraq team and helping write the daily Iraq reports for the United Nations Security Council. She was later hired by the United States government as a Legislative Fellow for the Office of Congressman Christopher Shays in Connecticut, where she stayed until 2006.

Chemali joined the United States Department of the Treasury in 2006 as a Special Advisor to then Deputy Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes, Daniel Glaser. She became a Policy Advisor on the Middle East in 2007 where she remained until 2010. In this role, she focused on advancing counter-terrorism efforts and combatting the financial networks that supported terrorist groups. She organized a series of conferences bringing the U.S. and Middle Eastern private and public sectors together,^[12] and she also became an expert on Syria sanctions, which led to her next position at the White House.

Chemali held a number of senior policy-making and public affairs positions during Barack Obama’s presidency. In 2010, she became the Director for Syria and Lebanon at the National Security Council (NSC), where she worked on U.S. foreign policy toward Syria and Lebanon, including during the first year and a half of the Syria crisis. During this time, she helped craft the sanctions regime against the Syrian government and also drafted a number of the public statements on Syria. She has said later that she supported military intervention at the beginning of the Syria crisis.

At the end of 2012, Chemali returned to the Treasury Department and became a Senior Policy Advisor on Asia with the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes where she worked on encouraging countries in Asia to implement North Korea and Iran sanctions. In 2014, she became the Spokesperson for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence at the U.S. Treasury Department, during which she worked on public rollouts related to the Iran negotiations, Ukraine and Russia sanctions during Russia’s support for separatists in eastern Ukraine and its annexation of Crimea, the withdrawal of Cuba sanctions,^[13] and the counter-ISIS financing strategy.^[14][15] From 2015-2016, Chemali was the Spokesperson and Director of Communications for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations under President Obama, where she worked on human rights-related campaigns like the FreeThe20 campaign and efforts to raise attention to the plights of the global LGBTQ community.^[16][17][18]

In media[]

After leaving the U.S. Government in 2016, Chemali debuted on broadcast television as a political commentator speaking mostly as a foreign policy analyst.^[19] She's been seen predominately on MSNBC, as well as CNN, BBC, Bloomberg, and Fox News. She has also published several op-eds on various political topics with The Washington Post, CNN, and NBC Think, among other outlets.^[20][21][22]

Chemali founded Greenwich Media Strategies in 2016, where she provides strategic communications and media engagement consulting.^[23] In 2019, she became a Senior Nonresident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s GeoEconomics Center where she has written on human rights-related sanctions.^[24][25] In 2020, she launched a weekly world news show on YouTube called Oh My World!^[26]

Personal life[]

Hagar married private equity operating executive, Julien Chemali, in 2010.^[27] Together they have three children: son Alexander (born 2013), son Benjamin (born 2016), and daughter Emma (born 2020). Chemali is on the board of directors for the Greenwich United Way and the Serve America Movement (SAM),^[28] as well as her alma mater Greenwich Academy.^[29][30] She supports several charities and museums, financially and by volunteering. Chemali speaks English, French, Arabic, and Italian.^[31]

Further reading[]

• It’s Time to Get Serious About Sanctioning Global White Supremacist Groups at The Washington Post, May 11, 2020
• The UN is Noble, but Broken. And Russia’s Syria Vetoes Prove It at NBC News, September 25, 2019
• Why Syria’s Children Should be a Global Priority at CNN, September 1, 2016

References[]

External links[]

• Official website
• Hagar Chemali on YouTube
• Hagar Chemali on Instagram
• Hagar Chemali on Facebook
• Hagar Chemali on Twitter