Jared Kushner speaks at the Knesset on Oct. 11, 2021. Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP via Getty Images

By Jacob Kornbluh March 19, 2024

Jared Kushner, the son-in-law and adviser of former President Donald Trump, suggested in a recent interview that Israel should temporarily settle displaced Palestinians from Gaza in Israel’s Negev desert to minimize casualties in a planned ground operation against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

“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,” Kushner said in a 90-minute panel conversation last month at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He added that “Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable” to address the humanitarian crisis. 

A video of Kushner’s remarks was published online last week and first reported by The Guardian on Tuesday. 

President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu openly feuded last week over the promised Israeli military operation in the Egyptian border city of Rafah. The two leaders spoke on the phone on Monday and agreed to have interagency teams examine alternatives to protect the more than a million displaced residents of Gaza who are sheltering there. Netanyahu maintained on Tuesday that Israel is “determined” to press ahead with the offensive.

Kushner admitted that he hasn’t spoken to the Israeli government about his suggestion to move Palestinians to southern Israel, where the Oct. 7 Hamas attack took place. “I’m sitting in Miami Beach right now,” Kushner told the moderator, Professor Tarek Masoud, Harvard’s Middle East Initiative faculty chair. “And I’m looking at the situation and I’m thinking: what would I do if I was there?”

He added that the U.S. government and its allies in the region could have done more to deal with the refugee crisis and find a solution. But if that’s not a viable option,” Kushner said, “I think from Israel’s perspective it’s just something that should be strongly considered.”

Kushner, who was instrumental in establishing the 2020 Abraham Accords which normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations, has said he has no intention of serving in a potential second Trump administration, citing his dedication to his business and real estate ventures. “I’ve been very clear that my desire at this phase in my life is to focus on my firm,” Kushner said during a panel discussion at the Axios BFD conference in Miami two days before his Harvard talk. “I’ve really enjoyed the opportunity as a family to be out of the spotlight,” adding, though, that “nothing in my life has gone according to the plans.”

Trump himself has remained mum on how he would handle the Gaza conflict. “I think you have to finish it up and do it quickly and get back to the world of peace,” Trump said in an interview on Fox News Sunday, when asked what his advice to Netanyahu would be. 

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