Jason Greenblatt, Trump Organization Lawyer, Named Point Man for Mideast Peace

Jason Greenblatt Image by Courtesy of InspireConversation.com

By Forward Staff December 23, 2016

Longtime Trump Organization legal advisor Jason Dov Greenblatt was named special representative for international negotiations to President-elect Donald Trump, The Wall Street Journal reports.

Greenblatt, an Orthodox Jew, has been at the Trump Organization for 20 years.

He will spearhead Trump policy on Israeli-Palestinian issues, trade and Cuba, CNN reported](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/23/politics/trump-appoints-his-business-attorney-to-manage-international-crises/)

Like many other Trump appointees, Greenblatt’s foreign affairs credentials are slim. He was an adjunct professor of management at Yeshiva University from January 2015 until May 2016. He studied law at New York University and got his BA in English from Yeshiva University. He has self-published three travel books, including one about a family trip to Israel.

In April Greenblatt told the JTA he stays informed about Israel via email alerts, American Israel Public Affairs Committee materials and a weekly radio program featuring Malcolm Hoenlein, the CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

He added that his last contact with Palestinians was when he served as a guard at a West Bank settlement yeshiva in the 1980s.

He suggested at the time that the U.S. could create safe havens for Syrian civilians fleeing civil war by “borrowing land” in neighboring Turkey and Jordan.

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