Jared Kushner on Gaza: ‘Waterfront Property Could Be Very Valuable’

Ryan Bort
·2 min read
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Donald Trump tasked his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner with bringing peace to the Middle East. It didn’t quite work out, as Israel has spent the past few months leveling the Gaza Strip in a relentless offensive that has left over 30,000 Palestinians dead, countless displaced, and a famine looming as Israel has cut off humanitarian aid to the region. The brutal campaign began in response to an attack by Hamas on Oct. 7 that killed 1,139 Israelis.

Kushner, a real-estate developer who had zero diplomacy or foreign policy experience when the former president tapped him for the role, spoke about the ongoing conflict in Gaza during an interview at Harvard earlier this month. “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … if people would focus on building up livelihoods,” he said, adding that Israel should “do its best” to “move the people out and then clean it up.”

Kushner’s comments were reported by The Guardian on Tuesday.

Kushner said that he would “move” those in Gaza to the desert in southern Israel, and that “with diplomacy” they could be moved into Egypt. The interviewer seemed surprised at the idea that Gazans could be relocated to southern Israel. “I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now and I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: What would I do if I was there?” Kushner replied.

Kushner also claimed that Israel “has gone way more out of their way than a lot of other countries would to protect civilians from casualties.”

Israel hasn’t been doing a very good job of protecting civilians from casualties, and the idea they’ve been concerned with this at all is dubious to say the least. The Washington Post reported on Monday that Biden officials were speaking at the White House in late October about how Israel was bombing buildings in Gaza without credible evidence they were military targets.

When he isn’t pontificating from Miami Beach on how Israel can “finish the job” and clean out Gaza, Kushner has been busy striking real estate deals as Trump — whose first administration he served in as a diplomat — runs to reclaim the White House. The New York Times reported last week that Kushner is closing in on major development deals in Albania and Serbia, and that it appears the agreements originated through relationships he developed through his capacity as a government official.

He’s certainly his father-in-law’s son-in-law, both in terms of using his position in public service to enrich himself, and in his views on the war in the Middle East. “You have to finish the problem,” Trump told Fox News earlier this month about what Israel needs to do in Gaza.

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