The new US-Middle East peace envoy will be a 30-year-old White House administrative assistant, President Donald Trump announced yesterday.

Avi Berkowitz, an assistant to White House senior advisor and Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, will inherit the role from Jason Greenblatt, formerly Mr Trump’s real estate lawyer, after Mr Greenblatt announced yesterday he would step down.

Mr Berkowitz, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 2016, has no foreign policy experience. He joined the Trump campaign in 2016 and has since served as Mr Kushner’s right-hand-man in the administration.

A 2017 Business Insider profile of Mr Berkowitz quoted former White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks as saying his main duties were “daily logistics like getting coffee and coordinating meetings.”

A former employer said on Twitter Mr Berkowitz was “not very impressive and needed significant hand-holding to handle even simple assignments. But Mideast peace? I’m sure he’s got this!” Another Arab states expert described him as “a glorified intern”.

The appointment “demonstrates a lack of seriousness” in the administration’s approach to the peace plan and Mr Kushner’s complete dominance over the process, former Middle East advisor to the US defence department Jasmine El-Gamal told The Telegraph. “They are not even pretending otherwise by hiring a qualified person as an envoy.”