Why is Kushner eyeing 'beachfront property' in Gaza's ruined landscape

By Iqbal Jassat

Former US President Donald Trump's son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, who is known to be a close ally of both Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) and war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu, let the cat slip out of the bag in a recent interview.

Speaking to Harvard’s Middle East Initiative faculty chair, Prof. Tarek Masoud, Kushner lauded the “very valuable” potential of the Gaza Strip’s “waterfront property” and suggested Israel should remove civilians while it “cleans up” the territory.

According to a report in the Guardian, the former real estate dealer, married to Trump’s eldest daughter Ivanka, made the comments in an interview at Harvard University on March 8.

As if echoing Netanyahu’s grand plan of ethnic cleansing Gaza's 2.3 million population, Kushner said “It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel’s perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up."

Without any hint of empathy for the suffering and devastation inflicted on the Palestinians which has outraged the world, Kushner advanced his idea that Israel should move civilians from Gaza to the Negev desert in southern occupied territories.

As the executioner of Trump's much-hyped "normalization" project, his comments carried a tone of a cold calculated plot to eradicate the presence of Palestinians in their own territory.

As per the Guardian account of the interview, Kushner said that if he were in charge of Israel, his number one priority would be getting civilians out of the southern Gaza city of Rafah, and that “with diplomacy” it could be possible to get them into Egypt.

“But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” he said. “I think that’s a better option, so you can go in and finish the job.”

The report pointed out that Kushner's suggestion drew a startled response from the interviewer, who was clearly taken aback by the former White House adviser's proposal.

“Is that something that they’re talking about in Israel?” Masoud asked.

“I mean, that’s the first I’ve really heard of somebody, aside from President Sisi [Egypt’s leader], suggesting that Gazans trying to flee the fighting could take refuge in the Negev. Are people in Israel seriously talking about that possibility?”

In response to another question about whether Palestinians should have their own state, Kushner dismissed it as "a super bad idea" that "would essentially be rewarding an act of terror".

Patrick Wintour, the Guardian's diplomatic editor who compiled the report on Kushner's interview, reminded us that as a senior foreign policy adviser under Trump’s presidency, Kushner was tasked with preparing a plan for the West Bank.

"His remarks at Harvard gave a hint of the kind of Middle East policy that could be pursued in the event that Trump returns to the White House, including a search for a normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel".

Given his close association with the settler colonial regime, it is indisputable that Kushner has a vested interest in Netanyahu’s ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing in Gaza.

Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss revealed way back in 2016 that Kushner's family foundations gave $325,860 to the Friends of the Israeli Defense Forces, an influential pro-Israel lobby group in the US, during that period.

The Seryl and Charles Kushner Family Foundation gave the Zionist lobby group over $200,000 in the years 2010 and 2011. A second family foundation, the Charles Kushner Companies Foundation, also made gifts to the FIDF.

Not surprising at all given that Kushner serves on the board of the Zionist lobby group.

Haaretz and the Washington Post also reported back then that the Kushner Family Foundation had given nearly $60,000 to settlement organizations between 2011 and 2013.

What is apparent from his history of association with Israel’s illegal settlement projects as well as his funding of the Israeli occupation forces, Kushner's intentions are known to all.

As Weiss pointed out, support for an occupying army that has committed genocidal crimes does not speak to Kushner's impartiality.

Not that impartiality has ever been a criterion for US mediators or the US State Department, but this has been borne out for decades and is in sharp focus today with the hypocrisy and double standards of the Joe Biden Administration.

Most of the world is aware that Biden has thrice vetoed UN Security Council resolutions calling for an immediate ceasefire in the besieged Palestinian territory where nearly 32,000 Palestinians, 70 percent of them children and women, have been killed since October 7

Also known is the fact that an airbridge of unlimited supply of weapons from the US to Israel has been in operation in addition to financial aid running into billions of dollars.

Critics of both Trump and Biden have justifiably claimed that Washington is deeply vested in keeping its Zionist colony alive at all costs, including at the expense of the lives of Palestinians.

Iqbal Jassat is an executive member of Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV)

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