Video Of Jared Kushner Touting Gaza's 'Waterfront Property' Resurfaces After Trump Unveils Plan To 'Own' Gaza

After President Donald Trump proposed the U.S. occupy Gaza, a 2024 video of his son-in-law and former adviser Jared Kushner talking about developing Gaza's "waterfront property" resurfaced online.

During a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump suggested that the U.S. could "take over" and "own" the war-torn territory.

Trump said the U.S. would "take over the Gaza Strip" in a "long-term ownership position" and "level it out and create an economic development that will supply unlimited numbers of jobs and housing for the people of the area." He said this could become "the Riviera of the Middle East" with "representatives from all over the world" living there.

However, Trump also proposed relocating some of Gaza’s estimated two million residents, suggesting they could be moved to Jordan or Egypt if those countries would "open their hearts and give us the kind of land that we need to get this done."

Trump's announcement brought renewed attention to remarks Kushner—a property developer who is married to Trump's daughter Ivanka—made during an appearance in February 2024 before the Middle East Initiative, a program of Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Speaking to the faculty chair of the Middle East Initiative, Professor Tarek Masoud, Kushner said:

“Gaza’s waterfront property could be very valuable to—if people would focus on building up livelihoods. You think of all this money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that could have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done?"

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

"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 move people in there. I know that won't be the popular thing to do but I think that would be a better option to do so you can go in and finish the job."

You can hear what he said in the video below.

According to Puck senior correspondent Tara Palmeri, who cited an unnamed source, Kushner was "behind" Trump’s proposal for the U.S. to take control of Gaza.

That's notable because Kushner served as a senior foreign policy adviser during Trump’s first presidency and was responsible for drafting a Middle East peace plan. Critics argued that the plan, which facilitated Israel’s normalization agreements with Gulf states, sidestepped key questions about the future of the Palestinian people.

Many have sounded the alarm while condemning Kushner, Trump, and the administration for entertaining the proposal.

Any effort by the Trump administration to advance the president’s proposal for U.S. control over Gaza, including the displacement of its residents, would likely face strong opposition from the broader Arab world.

Trump may also encounter obstacles in Congress, where the GOP’s narrow majority in both the House and Senate means that a small faction of Republican dissenters could derail his plans.

In response to Trump's comments on the future of the Gaza Strip, a group that was instrumental in his voter outreach to the Arab American community is rebranding itself. Bishara Bahbah, chairman of the organization formerly known as Arab Americans for Trump, told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday that the group will now be called Arab Americans for Peace.

Bahbah said "obviously we’re completely opposed to the idea of the transfer of Palestinians from anywhere in Historic Palestine," adding that "we did not want to be behind the curve in terms of pushing for peace, because that has been our objective from the very beginning.”