Jared Kushner tells it straight on Gaza and Iran at FII Conference
By Ray Hanania
Miami, Fl – President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, a Special Peace Envoy for Gaza and Ukraine, acknowledged during a presentation at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Priority Summit in Miami Thursday, that he has been criticized by all sides for his efforts in Ukraine and especially in Gaza.
He’s been accused of engaging Gaza in an effort to expel the Palestinian population and redevelop the coastal land strip for profit, showing now sympathy for the Palestinian there while celebrating the release of the Israeli hostages.
But during the panel, Kushner showed another side detailing progress he and Special Gaza Envoy Steve Witkoff have made towards bringing humanitarian aid and security to Gaza’s Palestinians, and is in the final stages of negotiations with Hamas.
“You know, there’s so much hatred and emotion and distrust when you’re ending a war that you can’t just, you know, like a light switch, turn it on and off. So, we started focusing on how do we deal with the massive humanitarian issue that was occurring in Gaza; you know, two million people there.” Kushner said during a one-on-one panel interview with FII Chairman Richard Attias.
“A lot of these people who are suffering the consequences had no stake in the decisions. They don’t know why, and they’ve just been taught one side of the story. So, I find that the number one thing is just sitting with people and listening, asking questions.”
The key, he said, is to speak with all sides, build trust, and to be curious “to try and find your own truth.”
“Obviously, you have to listen to different people. You have to read. You have to research. But I think the first stage in all deals is just trying to really get a fair understanding of what the issues are and try not to just have one perspective, but to understand all perspectives,” Kushner said noting it is difficult to get past the anger and emotions to connect with people while seeking a path to end conflicts.
“I think the process of doing that, showing people that you’re not just trying to tell them what it should be or lecture them, I think, builds trust. And I think that, you know, the relationships I’ve been able to build in the government side and then the business side, and then use those relationships that I’ve been able to build now, you know, work again towards peace in the Middle East … I know firsthand how lonely it is to be in those jobs and how, how hard it is when everyone’s, you know, rooting against your success.”
Kushner offered praise for Tom Fletcher, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, on famine in Gaza, saying, “We’ve been able to work with the United Nations. I give Tom Fletcher a lot of credit. We’ve, uh, put in more, uh, humanitarian aid into a, a war zone than I think has ever been done in history.”
In a speech in August 2025, Fletcher declared the world needs to recognize “there is a Famine in Gaza,” emphasizing “we could have prevented it.”
The founder and CEO of Affinity Partners, a Miami-based private equity firm launched in 2021 after previously serving as a senior advisor in the first Trump administration, Kushner today manages more than $4.6 billion in assets, including investments in tech, fitness, and international real estate. He emphasized that seeking advancements in business is far different than seeking peace between two warring peoples.
“So, I think peace is not that different than business … But I will talk about how it is different. Both are puzzles … I think the challenges in government are much larger, and they have different dynamics, meaning that in business, most people are usually motivated by financial outcomes. So there’s like a common language that people are talking,” Kushner explained.
“When you think about Israel and Gaza, you think about how, sometimes twenty years ago or seventy years ago … people are sitting there suffering the consequences of those decisions from many years earlier.”
Kushner said one of his priorities is working with the Palestinian government in Gaza to establish a police force there, and a Sovereign Fund with the help of the Saudi Government to rebuild Gaza.
“We’re building a Palestinian police force. Right now we have over, I think, about two hundred thousand applicants for it, and I think over like seventy thousand that passed our vetting,” Kushner explained, noting that he, Witkoff, and others are “just businessmen who are risking their lives to go in and really do a public service in that area.”
“Our goal is just to really help them, and I think we want to see this region built for at least in Gaza, we want to see it built for the people of Gaza,” Kushner said.
Kushner said he is in “the final stages of negotiations with Hamas on the demilitarization, where they basically agreed in principle to follow through.”
Kushner praised efforts by the Saudis, Qatar, Egypt, Turkey, and many others, and he described himself as being “just a volunteer.”
After discussing similar efforts to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, Kushner shrugged, “Nobody in sports is rooting for the referee. You have people who are rooting for one team. You have people rooting for the other team. And so, when things leak out, that causes a lot of chaos.”
Kushner declined a requests for an interview afterwards.
A version of this story appeared in the Arab News.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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