The Kushner Plan

There is chaos in Gaza — people are starving, they’re being bombed and shot, and the US has so far been disgustingly passive about it all. We need positive ideas and new tactics to change the situation, so let’s get advice from…Donald Trump’s son-in-law? I admit, Jared Kushner is looking at Israel through a different lens.

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 normalisation deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable … if people would focus on building up livelihoods, Kushner told his interviewer, the faculty chair of the Middle East Initiative, Prof Tarek Masoud. Kushner also lamented all the money that had gone into the territory’s tunnel network and munitions instead of education and innovation.

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, Kushner said. But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.

Masoud replied that there was “a lot to talk about there”.

Jesus. Exactly what you’d expect from a developer and slumlord — every piece of land is a property to be seized and exploited. Gaza is a chunk of ocean front without casinos and high rise hotels, let’s fix it!

He doesn’t seem to have put much thought into the people who live there. You know, the ones who had other things to do with their money than pay out exorbitant rents to a landlord.

Kushner also said he thinks Israel should move civilians from Gaza to the Negev desert in southern Israel.

He said that if he were in charge of Israel his number one priority would be getting civilians out of the southern 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.

He reiterated the point a little later, saying: I do think right now opening up the Negev, creating a secure area there, moving the civilians out, and then going in and finishing the job would be the right move.

Finish the job? Finish what job? The extermination of the Palestinians? Sure, just bulldoze a patch of desert and move them there. This is insane.

I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now, Kushner said. And I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: what would I do if I was there?

I’m thinking: why the hell was Jared Fucking Kushner, that incompetent hack, invited to Harvard to opine on Israel?