Kushner upbeat, undeterred in first public remarks on Middle East peace process

Shorter Jared Kushner: I’m still here.

On Sunday, the president’s son-in-law used his first-ever public remarks on the Middle East peace process to make a case for his own continued relevance in the Trump White House — even as the Russia probe and the more stringent reign of chief of staff John Kelly have seemingly pushed him to the margins.


“We do think it’s achievable,” Kushner said of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. His comments came during a 30-minute question-and-answer session with Haim Saban, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest pro-Israel donors, at the annual Saban Forum, held at the Willard InterContinental Washington Hotel.

Kushner’s much-anticipated appearance came amid new scrutiny of his role as the “very senior” transition official who instructed then-incoming national security adviser Michael Flynn to contact the Russian ambassador in late 2016 about a United Nations resolution concerning Israel. And it came days after The New York Times reported that Kelly has considered a West Wing reorganization that includes Kushner and his wife, Ivanka Trump, leaving the administration altogether by the year's end.

But his relaxed appearance — a blue blazer over a black sweater, with no tie — sent a clear message that Kushner is soldiering on, undeterred. His criminal attorney, Abbe Lowell, who is representing him in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation of potential Russian interference in the 2016 election, was in the audience for Kushner’s talk on Sunday. But other attendees said it was simply in Lowell’s off-the-clock capacity as a longtime figure in Washington’s power Jewish community, not as a legal representative.

Overseeing the Middle East peace process over the past year has been one of Kushner’s most ambitious portfolios — and one he has purposefully conducted quietly, without announcing any timeline for a deal, and even making secret, unannounced trips to countries in the region such as Saudi Arabia.

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Experts in the region eagerly awaited any updates during the public remarks from the seen-but-rarely-heard son-in-law of President Donald Trump. Kushner offered assurances that there was a concrete plan in the works but added little in terms of details. “We’ve been deliberate about not setting time frames,” he said.

“The president has a very long career of accomplishing things that a lot of people say weren’t possible,” Kushner told Saban during a skeptical grilling about how Trump could achieve a deal that has eluded all of his predecessors. “The most recent example of that was the election.”

That Trump shouldn’t be underestimated because he proved the skeptics wrong during the 2016 race was perhaps the most concrete reason Kushner articulated for his confidence in the Middle East peace project. He added that he saw a peace deal as key to larger regional conflicts, such as Iran’s growing nuclear ambitions and the threat of Islamic State militants, and he said “Israel is a much more natural ally today than they were 20 years ago because of Iran and ISIS extremism.”

“If we’re going to try and create more stability in the region as a whole, you have to solve this issue,” he said.

Saban, who was one of Hillary Clinton’s biggest campaign donors, thanked Kushner for his efforts to prompt Russia to intervene last year over a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. The Obama administration abstained from the vote, infuriating Israel. That intervention now has Kushner on Mueller’s hot seat after Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about it.

“You and your team were taking steps to try and get the United Nations Security Council to not go along with what ended up being an abstention,” Saban said. “As far as I know, there is nothing illegal there.”

Saban introduced Kushner as “a 36-year-old successful businessman who left it all behind to be of service to his country.” But later, he also expressed skepticism about the Kushner-led process.

“There’s not a Middle East macher in this group,” he said of Kushner’s small team, made up primarily of Trump loyalists with no diplomatic experience. “With all due respect, it’s a bunch of Orthodox Jews who have no idea about anything.”

Kushner defended his lead envoy, former Trump Organization real estate attorney Jason Greenblatt, arguing that “there’s no better real estate lawyer than Jason Greenblatt, who’s been working on it. There are a lot of real estate issues to it.”

If Kushner expressed confidence about his process in public, he has been less self-assured in private comments he has made in the past. “What do we offer that’s unique? I don’t know,” he told congressional interns last August, in an off-the-record talk that was later leaked to Wired. “There may be no solution, but it’s one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on.”

On Sunday, Kushner also insisted no final decision has been made on whether to recognize Jerusalem as the official capital of Israel and home of the U.S. embassy — a change in status that would mark the fulfillment of a Trump campaign promise. "He's still looking at a lot of different facts and then when he makes his decision,” Kushner said of the president, “he'll be the one to want to tell you, not me.”

Last week, administration officials said Trump had decided to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel but keep the embassy at its current location in Tel Aviv. Trump is expected to deliver a speech on the issue on Wednesday.

If Kushner’s public appearance on Sunday was light on details, experts in the region said they were impressed, nonetheless, with the seriousness of the mission.

“He conveyed a kind of competence,” said Dennis Ross, who served as President Bill Clinton’s Middle East envoy. “They clearly link this issue to a broader regional security. They see it in a region that is characterized by a lot of chaos, and as a critical element for trying to address that chaos.”

Ross added that “without getting into the details of what the plan is going to be, Kushner confirmed there’s a plan, and that they’re going to deal with the big issues. I left feeling more convinced the effort is truly a serious one.”

“They believe, fundamentally, that the previous administration made a mistake by revealing progress on the talks," added Omri Ceren, a senior adviser to The Israel Project, an advocacy group that works closely with the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs. "They have made a conscious decision they would not publicly discuss any progress they're making. That's one thing that he clarified.”

Indeed, Kushner channeled his father-in-law, commending the lack of media leaks surrounding the process, and assured the audience that the people who need to know what’s going on are in the loop — even if the general public is not.

“We know what’s in the plan, the Israelis know what discussions we’ve had with them,” he said. “We’re not going to disclose that today. I’m optimistic that there’s a lot of hope to bring a conclusion to this.”

