Backlash as Jared Kushner says Israel should move Palestinians out of Gaza ‘waterfront property’

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former Middle East adviser says Israel should ‘clean up’ parts of Gaza Strip that ‘could be very valuable’

Donald Trump’s son-in-law and former foreign policy adviser Jared Kushner sparked a backlash by claiming that Israel should "clean up" Gaza and move Palestinians to the Israeli Negev desert.

"Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable, if people would focus on building up livelihoods," Mr Kushner, who is a former property dealer married to Mr Trump’s daughter Ivanka, said in an interview last month at Harvard University.

"If you think about all the money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done," Mr Kushner told Harvard professor Tarek Masoud.

The interview was posted on the YouTube channel of the Middle East Initiative, a programme of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

Mr Kushner was appointed as a senior foreign policy adviser to Mr Trump when his father-in-law served as the 45th US president. He was tasked with preparing a peace plan for the Middle East which reportedly involved striking normalisation deals with Gulf nations.

Mr Kushner made the statement at the height of Israel's war against Hamas militants in Gaza, which has forced about 1.5 million Palestinians to flee from the north of the Strip to the southern town of Rafah.

Palestinians line up for free food in Rafah, Gaza Strip (AP)

More than 31,000 Palestinians have been killed, 40 per cent of them children, and 70,000 have sustained injuries in Israel's incessant retaliatory bombing of the Strip. Israel declared war on Hamas following the militant group’s 7 October attack in southern Israel where at least 1,200 civilians were killed and 253 abducted as hostages.

Mr Kushner suggested Israel should move Palestinians from Gaza to the southern Israeli desert of Negev. The businessman said if he were in charge of Israel, he would prioritise getting civilians out of Rafah and get them into Egypt "with diplomacy".

“But in addition to that, I would just bulldoze something in the Negev, 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.”

Mr Kushner’s interview on 15 February was briefly interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters who raised banners calling him a “nepo-genocider”.

"It's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up," Mr Kushner said.

"But I don't think that Israel has stated that they don't want the people to move back there afterwards."

“I think Israel's gone way more out of their way than a lot of other countries would, to try to protect civilians from casualties," he added.

While Mr Kushner’s Harvard interview took place last month, it was only widely reported in the media this week, prompting a backlash online, with people accusing him of advocating for “ethnic cleansing”.

“Donald Trump’s son-in-law proposed ethnically cleansing Palestinians out of Gaza, saying Israel should clean up’ the strip,” wrote journalist Ben Norton. “He then salivated over the ‘very valuable’ potential of Gaza’s ‘waterfront property’,” Norton added.

Political commentator Ron Filipkowski quipped on X that the “best thing about protesting Biden by not voting for him in 2024 is that Jared gets to build condos in Kushnerstan in 2025, formerly known as Gaza”.

“Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner openly advocates for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza: Saying Israel should bulldoze an area of the Negev desert and deport 2.2 million Palestinians there… ,” added Palestinian foreign policy analyst and professor Rula Jebreal.

Mr Kushner on Tuesday responded to "those dishonestly using selected parts" of his remarks.

He shared a video of the entire interaction, saying he stood by his comments "and believe the Palestinian people's lives will improve ONLY when the international community and their citizenry start demanding accountability from their leadership".

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday agreed to send a team of officials to Washington to discuss a prospective Rafah ground operation with the Joe Biden administration, following a phone call between both leaders.

Mr Trump, who will lock horns with Mr Biden in this year’s presidential elections, claimed that Jewish people who vote for Democrats “hate Israel” and hate “their religion”.

The Republican leader in Florida claimed that “the Democrats have been very, very opposed to Jewish people”, drawing instant backlash from the White House.

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said the comments were “vile and unhinged antisemitic rhetoric” without mentioning Mr Trump by name.

Mr Biden’s campaign said: “The only person who should be ashamed here is Donald Trump.”