Kushner: ‘There may be no solution’

IF Jared Kushner is the only person who can deliver Middle East peace – as his father-in-law Donald Trump said – he comes off as a reluctant saviour.

In a speech delivered Monday to a group of congressional interns and leaked to the media, Kushner expounded on the Trump administration’s efforts to achieve Israeli–Palestinian peace. What emerged was an outlook that at once was resolutely pro-Israel and sceptical of the chances of success.

“So what do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know,” Kushner said in his seven-

minute answer to an intern’s question in a recording obtained by Wired magazine. “And we’re trying to work with the parties very quietly to see if there’s a solution. And there may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the President asked us to focus on.”

In the speech, Kushner sounded unenthused to be handling the peace process. He opened his answer by saying “this is one of the ones I was asked to take on,” and became more pessimistic from there, criticising Israeli and Palestinian leaders for being mired in history and unable to let go of minor provocations.

“You know everyone finds an issue, that ‘you have to understand what they did then,’ and ‘you have to understand that they did this,’” Kushner said. “But how does that help us get peace? Let’s not focus on that. We don’t want a history lesson. We’ve read enough books.”

Reflecting on recent tensions, Kushner defended Israel’s decision to erect metal detectors at the Temple Mount as “not an irrational thing to do”.

And in recounting fatalities during the weekend of violence that followed the detectors’ placement, Kushner listed only the Israelis – including three members of an Israeli family stabbed to death in their home by a Palestinian terrorist – and did not mention the Palestinians.

BEN SALES – JTA

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