Return of Jared Kushner: Netanyahu's friend and Gulf business ally reappears for Gaza talks

Among Hamas officials, Qatari and Egyptian diplomats, and a Turkish spy chief huddling for Gaza peace talks in Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh resort is a key American interlocutor: US President Donald Trump's son-in-law.

Jared Kushner has no official title in the Trump administration, but his involvement is being read as a sign of Trump's seriousness about reaching a deal to end Israel's war on Gaza.

Kushner and US envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump's billionaire friend, are expected to arrive in Egypt on Wednesday. Israeli media reported that Trump has instructed them not to leave Egypt without a deal.

"This is a good thing since it makes a ceasefire more achievable and Gaza's ethnic cleansing less viable," Rob Geist Pinfold, an expert on international security at King's College London, told Middle East Eye.

"Kushner and Witkoff have a larger-than-life role in the administration, especially given Trump's disregard for traditional policy. Their arrival signals Trump is serious about a ceasefire," Pinfold added.

Indeed, brokering an end to the war and a framework for a new government in Gaza among the Middle East's movers and shakers is the kind of job professional diplomats and think tankers spend their entire careers chasing.

Kushner's role in the talks underscores how Trump has come to rely on a small coterie of advisers who are either family or friends. Kushner's negotiating partner, Witkoff, fits the bill, as does Tom Barrack, another Trump friend who is the US ambassador to Turkey and overall envoy to Syria and Lebanon.

The talks in Sharm El-Sheikh herald a return to Middle East diplomacy for Kushner, who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka.

From 'The Deal of the Century' to private equity

Kushner was a key Middle East adviser to Trump during his first administration and architect of the so-called "Deal of the Century", a failed bid to end the Israeli-Palestinian impasse.

When Trump left the White House, Kushner launched Affinity Partners, a private equity fund that blended Kushner's taste for exotic properties, adventure and geopolitics. One of its main projects is a plan to build a $1.4bn luxury resort on Sazan, Albania's only island in the Mediterranean and a former military base.

'Kushner's involvement will boost the confidence of the Gulf and their reputation as Trump whisperers'

- Rob Geist Pinfold, King's College London

Kushner's fund is powered by cash from oil-rich Gulf states.

Saudi Arabia is Affinity Partners' main backer, with its sovereign wealth fund providing it with $2bn. As of December last year, the UAE and Qatar have also contributed a combined $1.5bn to the fund.

Experts say Kushner savvily tapped the ties he built in Gulf countries while serving as Trump's adviser to build Affinity Partners' war chest.

Kushner formed a particularly close bond with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman - to the point that the two men would play video games together when Kushner visited the Gulf country, a US official told MEE. Trump's son-in-law would bypass intermediaries to chat with the Saudi ruler directly on WhatsApp.

Kushner also became a protege of sorts to Yousef al-Otaiba, the UAE's powerful ambassador in Washington. Otaiba was a student of a former CIA official and later US ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner. When Kushner came to Washington, Otaiba took him under his wing, schooling him on how he saw the Middle East.

Even after leaving the White House following the election of Joe Biden, Kushner was courted by Gulf states. Kushner and his family were guests in a prominent VIP box when Qatar hosted the 2022 World Cup.

'Very valuable'

When Kushner began his White House role, the little experience he had in the Middle East was based on religious Zionism through his synagogue. Kushner was raised in an Orthodox Jewish household, and Trump's daughter Ivanka converted to Judaism after marrying him.

The 44-year-old hails from a family of Jewish New Jersey real estate developers known for their cut-throat ways. Kushner's father, the current US ambassador to France, once hired a prostitute to seduce his brother-in-law in a motel in an attempt to blackmail him. He served two years in prison for tax evasion and witness tampering, but was later pardoned by Trump.

'Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable'

- Jared Kushner

The Kushner family is especially close with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. So close in fact that Netanyahu once slept in Jared Kushner's bedroom at the family house in New Jersey decades ago when he was visiting the US, the New York Times reported previously.

Kushner's involvement in the talks is likely to raise concerns among Palestinians.

Kushner loathed the Palestinian Authority during the first Trump administration, and former officials repeatedly accused him of trying to sabotage US cooperation with the organisation.

The failed "Deal of the Century" envisioned Israel annexing 30 percent of the occupied West Bank and a Palestinian pseudo-state being fashioned with no genuine security guarantees. The plan tried to entice the Palestinian Authority by offering $50bn in economic aid, but was rejected.

When Trump called for the US to take over the Gaza Strip and turn it into a Middle East Riviera with the Palestinians forcibly displaced, many Arab officials in the region and analysts saw Kushner's hand at work.

In February 2024, Kushner gave a talk at Harvard where he advocated for the forced displacement of Palestinians and highlighted the destroyed enclave's real estate potential.

"Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable," he said. "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."

Later, when Trump unveiled his "Riviera" plan, a little known professor of economics at George Washington University who penned a paper calling for Palestinians to be forcibly displaced to Egypt said he was contacted by Kushner's associates about his ideas.

Gulf confidence boost

Fast forward to October 2025, and Trump's new plan specifically rules out Israel annexing the occupied West Bank or forcibly displacing Palestinians from Gaza. Experts say those were two key concessions to Arab states - including in the oil-rich Gulf - who Trump needs to bring on board to make a ceasefire in Gaza and reconstruction a reality.

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In a sense, Kushner may not have an official title, but he never really left his father-in-law's side.

He attended key meetings at the White House when the Trump administration was drafting a new plan for the Gaza Strip. During the UN General Assembly he was filmed walking out of talks with Netanyahu at the Israeli leader's New York hotel.

While Arab and Muslim states were upset about many of the concessions the 20-point Trump plan appeared to give Israel, some diplomats say that it is a starting point, and that negotiations in Sharm El-Sheikh will establish key details like Israel's full withdrawal from Gaza.

That is why despite Kushner's closeness to Netanyahu and previous comments in support of forced displacement, some experts believe his more recent coziness to the rich Arabian Gulf could be the driving force in the Sharm El-Sheikh talks.

"The new Trump plan has Gulf fingerprints all over it," Pinfold said. "Kushner's involvement demonstrates GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] buy-in since he is very much the administration official closest to the Gulf. Kushner's involvement will boost the confidence of the Gulf and their reputation as Trump whisperers."