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jared kushner
By Criminalizing UNRWA, Israel Is Delegitimizing the United Nations
Israel's banning of UNRWA should represent an opportunity for those concerned about the standing of the U.N. to remind Israel that U.N. members who have no respect for international law deserve to be delegitimized themselves.
Nov 10, 2024
On October 28, the Israeli Knesset passed a second reading of two bills that effectively ban the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) from carrying out "any activity" in Israel and occupied Palestine.
Simply put, the decision is catastrophic, because UNRWA is the main international body responsible for the welfare of millions of Palestinians throughout the occupied territories, and throughout much of the region.
Israel followed its decision by attacking and damaging an UNRWA office in the Nur Shams refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. It was the Israeli government's way of demonstrating its seriousness regarding the matter.
A key player in the war on UNRWA was Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President, and now President-elect, Donald Trump.
This is not the first time that Israel has pursued an anti-UNRWA agenda and, contrary to claims by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israel officials, the decision is not linked to the current genocidal war on Gaza, or the unfounded claims that UNRWA supports "terrorism."
An independent review commissioned by the U.N. revealed that Israel "made public claims that a significant number of UNRWA employees are members of terrorist organizations," but that it "has yet to provide supporting evidence of this."
Israeli claims, however, did a great deal of damage to the organization, as 13 countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, and Italy, withheld badly needed funds which were helping Gaza stave off a horrific famine.
Eventually, most of these countries reinstated their financial support, though without apologizing to the Palestinians who were adversely impacted by these countries' initial, unfair decision.
Unrepenting, Israel continued to unleash its relentless war on the organization. "UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable," Netanyahu said in a statement on October 28.
The anti-UNRWA rhetoric remains functional for Israel. Amplified by the ever-willing U.S. mainstream media, Israel has managed to keep UNRWA's name in the news, always associating it with "supporting terrorism." So, when the Israeli Knesset voted for the anti-UNRWA bills, mainstream media conveyed the news as if they were the only rational conclusion to an essentially fabricated story.
Israel's problem with UNRWA has little to do with the organization itself, but with its underlying political representation as a U.N. entity whose mission is predicated on providing "assistance and protection to Palestine refugees."
UNRWA was established in 1949 by the U.N. General Assembly Resolution 302 (IV). It began its operations on May 1, 1950, and with time, it became central to the survival of a large number of Palestinian refugee communities in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.
Many have rightly criticized the U.N. for failing to supplement UNRWA's humanitarian mandate with a political equivalent that would ultimately help Palestinians achieve their Right of Return in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194. For Israel, however, UNRWA remained problematic.
According to Tel Aviv's thinking, UNRWA's existence is a constant reminder that there is a distinct group of people called Palestinian refugees. And though UNRWA is not a political organization, the Palestinian refugee crisis and all related U.N. resolutions that emphasize the "inalienable" rights of these refugees are very political.
Taking advantage of the initial, albeit brief, sympathy with Israel worldwide, and the massive campaign of misinformation emanating from Israel and its allies, Netanyahu used October 7 as an opportunity to further demonize UNRWA. However, his campaign had started much earlier.
A key player in the war on UNRWA was Jared Kushner, son-in-law of former U.S. President, and now President-elect, Donald Trump. Kushner, who invested much time in helping Israel defeat the Palestinians once and for all, made UNRWA a key point in his plan. He vowed to carry out "sincere effort to disrupt" the work of the organization, a leaked email revealed.
Due to international rejection and solidarity, Kushner ultimately failed. Even the withholding of funds by the U.S. administration did not force the organization to shut down, although it did negatively impact the lives of millions of Palestinians.
The ongoing war on Gaza and the push to annex large parts of the West Bank represented a golden opportunity for Netanyahu and his extremist government to increase the pressure on UNRWA. They have been enabled by unconditional U.S. support, and the willingness of various Western governments to recklessly act upon Israel's false claims regarding the U.N. organization.
By allowing Israel to delegitimize the very organization responsible for enforcing international law, the U.N.'s crisis becomes much deeper.
The impassioned plea on October 30 by U.N. Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese reflects the frustration felt by many U.N.-affiliated officials regarding the growing irrelevance of the U.N.
In her speech, Albanese pointed out that, if the U.N.'s failures continue, its impact will become even "more and more irrelevant to the rest of the world," especially during these times of turmoil.
This irrelevance is already being felt by millions of Palestinians, mainly in Gaza, but also in the West Bank. Though Palestinians continue to withstand and reject and resist Israeli aggression, they are fed up with an international system that seems to offer them only words, but little action.
Israel's banning of UNRWA should represent an opportunity for those concerned about the standing of the United Nations, to remind Israel that U.N. members who have no respect for international law deserve to be delegitimized. This time, words must be accompanied by action. Nothing else will suffice.
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Wyden Probes 'Deeply Concerning' Kushner Firm Payments From Gulf Monarchies
The Senate Finance Committee chair accused the former Trump adviser of "creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks."
Jun 12, 2024
U.S. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden on Wednesday announced a new probe into Trump-era White House adviser Jared Kushner's private investment firm Affinity Partners, 99% of whose $3 billion under management comes from foreign sources, mainly the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf dictatorships.
"It is deeply concerning that several Middle Eastern governments are using funds managed by Affinity as a means to pay tens of millions of dollars in fees every year to former President [Donald] Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, creating significant conflicts of interest and potential counterintelligence risks," Wyden (D-Ore.) wrote in a letter to Lauren Key, Affinity's chief financial officer.
"These arrangements also raise concerns that Affinity's exclusively foreign-funded private investment funds are being exploited as a loophole by Mr. Kushner and other former U.S. government officials as a means to avoid complying with the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other U.S. laws requiring U.S. persons to disclose payments from foreign governments," the senator said.
Wyden pointed out that almost all of the money under management by Affinity comes from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Qatar:
The largest source of funding for Affinity appears to be a $2 billion investment from the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF)... made in June 2021, shortly after Mr. Kushner left the White House. The remaining $1 billion is split between sovereign wealth funds owned by the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Qatar; Terry Gou, a Taiwanese billionaire and politician who is the founder of the world's largest electronics manufacturer; and another investor whose identity has not been publicly reported.
Wyden said the Saudi PIF buy-in "raises concerns that the investment was a reward for official actions Kushner took to benefit the Saudi government, including preventing accountability for the Saudi government ordering the brutal murder" of journalist and permanent U.S. resident Jamal Khashoggi.
"Private investment funds that take money exclusively from foreign politically exposed investors present heightened national security and other risks," Wyden's letter asserts. "From a national security perspective, the U.S. government has recently highlighted how the opacity and lightly regulated status of private funds can present risk to national security."
Wyden is asking Key to list all of Affinity's clients, how much they've invested, and their annual rates of return. The senator is also seeking information about the company's employees; their roles, responsibilities, and compensation; and "whether the individual meets with or liaises directly with representatives of foreign sovereign wealth funds, including the Saudi PIF, as part of their professional responsibilities."
This isn't the first time that Wyden has questioned Kushner's business ties to Gulf dictatorships. In 2022, the senator sought details regarding possible Qatari involvement in a 2018 real estate deal in which Brookfield Asset Management, a Canadian firm, paid Kushner Companies for a 99-year-lease on 666 5th Avenue, one of the premier properties in the Kushner family portfolio.
Earlier this year, House Democrats led by Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) urged colleagues to hold hearings over Kushner's "apparent influence peddling and quid pro quos" during the period in which he led critical foreign policy negotiations including over the Abraham Accords agreements between Israel and several Middle Eastern and North African nations.
During his White House tenure, Kushner faced repeated calls to resign as Trump's senior adviser, mostly over concerns about possible conflicts of interest related to his business dealings.
Kushner
said earlier this year that he will not accept any official administration position if Trump—the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, despite his recent felony conviction and dozens of pending federal and state criminal charges—is reelected.
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Trump Son-in-Law Jared Kushner Calls for Ethnic Cleansing of Gaza to 'Finish the Job'
Kushner, who served as a key Middle East adviser to Trump, said that Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable" and urged Israel to "clean it up."
Mar 19, 2024
Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former president and presumptive 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump, said in a recent interview that if he were in charge of Israeli policy, he would push Gaza civilians into Egypt or Israel's Negev desert—a proposal that critics denounced as ethnic cleansing.
"You want to get as many civilians out of Rafah as possible," Kushner told the faculty chair of Harvard University's Middle East Initiative, Tarek Masoud, in a March 8 interview that was first reported widely on Tuesday. "I think that you want to try to clear that out. I know that with diplomacy maybe you get them into Egypt."
"I know that that's been refused, but [with] the right diplomacy I think it would be possible," Kushner added. "But in addition to that, the thing that I would try to do if I was Israel right now is I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, I would try to move people in there. I know that won't be the popular thing to do, but I think that that's a better option to do so you can go in and finish the job."
Kushner played a central role in crafting Trump's Middle East policy during his first four years in the White House, and the former president's son-in-law's remarks provided a potential glimpse of how the U.S. would approach Gaza if Trump wins another term in November.
Earlier this month, Trump said he wants Israel to "finish the problem" in Gaza—a remark that Kushner echoed just three days later in his March 8 interview.
In addition to advocating the removal of civilians from Rafah—which is currently packed with more than 1.5 million people, including hundreds of thousands of children—Kushner said Gaza's "waterfront property could be very valuable."
"It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel's perspective I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up," Kushner said.
Just days after the @ADL’s @JGreenblattADL gave him an award for “his record of policy work,” Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner openly advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza: https://t.co/VFhidPf60W
— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) March 19, 2024
Kushner responded flippantly to concerns that if Gazans were forced out of their territory, the Israeli government wouldn't let them return—something that top Israeli officials have publicly advocated.
"Maybe," he said, "but I'm not sure there's much left of Gaza at this point."
Kushner also claimed that Israel has gone "way more out of its way" than other countries would to protect civilians—despite the
abundance of evidence to the contrary.
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