Although Ivanka Trump’s husband will not have a formal role in the new Trump administration, he recently said, “I will give them my advice, I will help them in any way they need.” Affinity Partners, the investment firm that Kushner founded in 2021, certainly has experience with five-star real estate projects in war-torn countries.
Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and Middle East envoy in the Republican US president’s first term, has long seemed to have ambitions related to new developments in parts of Gaza. As The Telegraph described an event last year, Kushner seemed to see it all clearly as he discussed the future of Gaza in a speech at Harvard University in February of last year.
“I’m currently based in Miami Beach,” he said, referring to the offices of his new investment firm, Affinity Partners, in Florida, where numerous new skyscrapers and luxury hotels have sprung up over the past decade. Ivanka Trump’s husband noted that Gaza possesses “very valuable” coastal resources and could become a tourist hub if Gazans were to leave the area, at least temporarily, as he suggested at the time, The Guardian reports.
THE GAZA PLAN
After Donald Trump announced similarly outlandish plans to turn Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East,” the world was barely talking about anything else. Puzzled analysts wondered whether Trump, a braggart real estate entrepreneur, was simply dreaming up the deal of a lifetime or offering the crazy concept to distract the world’s media attention.
But Donald Trump’s own words – and his choice of top Middle East advisers – suggest months, if not years, of discussion, the conservative British daily writes. On Sunday, before boarding a flight to Washington, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised his military for “redrawing the map” of Gaza. On Monday morning, as they waited for Netanyahu, aides told Trump that rebuilding Gaza would take at least 15 years.
WHO IS STEVE STEVE WITKOFF?
U.S. officials have told the media that Trump’s plans appear to be based on ideas he has shared privately with several staffers in recent days. At the same time, Donald Trump is increasingly taking advice from Steve Witkoff, a close family friend and billionaire real estate developer. The 67-year-old succeeded Kushner as envoy to the Middle East, promising to talk, collaborate and share information with the younger man, according to friends.
And it was Trump’s golf partner who was sent to observe Gaza firsthand last week. Before the visit, he met with Prince Faisal bin Farhan al-Saud, Saudi Arabia’s foreign minister and secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in Riyadh. The central topic of discussion was Trump’s plan to secure a deal to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia, a major trophy he failed to secure with the Abraham Accords since his first term.
KUSHNER’S CHALLENGE
Like Kushner, Witkoff’s close friends told the Wall Street Journal last year that he too sees the Middle East’s endless problems as “a giant real estate deal.” Although Ivanka Trump’s husband will not have a formal role in the new Trump administration, he recently said, “I will give them my advice, I will help them in any way they need.” Affinity Partners, the investment firm that Kushner founded in 2021, certainly has experience with five-star real estate projects in war-torn countries.
But it is an understatement to say that Gaza will be a more difficult terrain for Trump and his band of fearless real estate tycoons. The question is whether Trump’s plan for Gaza could be similar, with the aim of later abandoning it and ensuring the normalization deal is realized. At the very least, as the Telegraph concludes, the chances of such a victory for the Trump administration are greater than the chances of a Trump Tower standing in Gaza in 15 years.
