No, Jared Kushner Is Not Eyeing Beachfront Property in Gaza

Is there any end to the list of random comments that news outlets will take out of context to make trouble for President Trump? In the latest example, remarks pertaining to Gaza that Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s former White House adviser and his son-in-law, made at a Harvard event last month were plucked out of context to create the misperception that Mr. Kushner might like to add the Gazan shore to his real estate portfolio. On Tuesday, Britain’s left-leaning Guardian newspaper was the first to cherry-pick some of Mr. Kushner’s comments, but other newspapers were quick to pile on. The Daily Mail reported that “Jared Kushner praises ‘very valuable’ potential of Gaza’s ‘waterfront properties’ — as Trump’s son-in-law suggests Israel ought to ‘move people out and then clean it up.’”Yet that is only a tiny part of what Mr. Kushner actually said in the interview dated February 15 and posted earlier this month on the YouTube channel of the Middle East Initiative, a program of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. He also said that “Gaza’s waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods. If you think about all the money that’s gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?”“It’s a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel’s perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up,” Mr. Kushner added. “But I don’t think that Israel has stated that they don’t want the people to move back there afterwards.”Responding Tuesday on X to “those dishonestly using selected parts” of his remarks, Mr. Kushner posted a video of the entire interaction, saying he stood by his comments and believes “the Palestinian people’s lives will improve only when the international community and their citizenry start demanding accountability from their leadership.”In the interview last month, Mr. Kushner also suggested that getting civilians out of Rafah and potentially into Egypt might be possible “with the right diplomacy,” also positing a plan for the Negev desert in southern Israel. He suggested that he “would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there,” adding: “I know that won’t be the popular thing to do, but I think that’s a better option to do, so you can go in and finish the job.”“I think Israel’s gone way more out of their way than a lot of other countries would, to try to protect civilians from casualties,” Mr. Kushner said.The debate over the Israel-Hamas war has developed into an issue in this year’s presidential election, drawing dividing lines between Presidents Biden and Trump, as well as within the parties.Asked in an interview Monday about Democrats’ growing criticism of Prime Minister Netanyahu over his handling of the war in Gaza, Mr. Trump charged that Jews who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and hate “their religion,” igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.He doubled down on those remarks Tuesday, telling reporters in Florida that “the Democrats have been very, very opposed to Jewish people.” Senator Schumer, meanwhile, gave a speech from the Senate floor in which, he, among other things, called Mr. Trump’s comments “utterly disgusting and a textbook example of the kind of antisemitism facing Jews.”Not all those of the Jewish faith, of course, will find common cause with the senator’s vitriol.As for Mr. Kushner, he worked on a wide range of issues and policies in the Trump administration, including Middle East peace efforts. Noting that he is not interested in rejoining the White House if Mr. Trump — who last week became the presumptive GOP nominee — wins the 2024 presidential election, Mr. Kushner said last month that he was focused on his investment business and his living with his family in Florida out of the public eye.According to another post on X that Mr. Kushner made on March 15, Mr. Kushner’s real estate development company is currently working on projects in Albania and elsewhere in the Balkans.Mr. Netanyahu, in the meantime, has agreed to send a team of Israeli officials to Washington to discuss a prospective Rafah operation with Biden administration officials. The agreement to hold such talks came as Messrs. Biden and Netanyahu spoke Monday, their first interaction in more than a month, as the divide has grown between allies over Gaza.

No, Jared Kushner Is Not Eyeing Beachfront Property in Gaza

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