At Harvard in 2024, Jared Kushner told us about Trump’s plans for Gaza
On Tuesday, February 4th, President Trump said, “The U.S. will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it, too.” He continued by promising to turn Gaza into, “the Riviera of the Middle East.”
The only thing shocking about his comments is that anyone is shocked by them. Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, talked about this a year ago in an interview at Harvard University on February 15, 2024. The interview was even posted on the YouTube channel of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government Middle East Initiative. The Guardian reported on this on March 19, 2024.
In brief, these are some of Kushner’s remarks in that interview:
- Gaza has “very valuable” potential as “waterfront property.”
- He recommended Israel should relocate Gaza’s residents to “clean up” the strip.
- “I would just bulldoze something in the Negev [desert], 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.”
- Then he repeated this last statement about the Negev desert in Southern Israel a second time when he said, “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 [in Gaza] would be the right move.”
- When asked whether Palestinians should have a state of their own, Kushner said that was “a super bad idea.”
The president’s plans for Gaza have been in the works for a long time. It seems that for many it was lost in the shuffle, which is this administration’s strategy: Flood the airwaves with so many issues that the majority of the world either a.) can’t keep up or b.) gives up because they’re exhausted.
The barrage of headlines is relentless. We must be relentless, too.