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href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/jared-kushner-probed-over-israel-contacts">https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/jared-kushner-probed-over-israel-contacts</a></font>
<h1 id="reader-title">Jared Kushner probed over Israel contacts</h1>
<p class="node__submitted"> <span class="field field-author"><a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah">Ali
Abunimah</a></span> <span class="field field-blog">-</span>
<span class="field field-publication-date"><span
class="date-display-single"
content="2017-11-22T19:10:00+00:00">22 November 2017</span></span>
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<p>Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly probing
Jared Kushner’s contacts with Israeli officials last
year as Israel tried to derail a UN Security Council
vote on its West Bank settlements.</p>
<p>Kushner is Donald Trump’s son-in-law, a senior
adviser and fixer. Former FBI director Mueller was
appointed by the Department of Justice in May to lead
a broad investigation sparked by allegations of ties
between the Trump campaign and Russia.</p>
<p><a
href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/special-counsel-mueller-probes-jared-kushners-contact-with-foreign-leaders-1511306515"><em>The
Wall Street Journal’s</em> revelation</a> of the
probe into Kushner’s contacts with Israel comes as
details emerge of an imminent Trump “peace plan” that
would railroad Palestinians into surrendering their
rights in exchange for a state in name only.</p>
<p>According to the newspaper, Mueller’s “investigators
have asked witnesses questions” about the involvement
of Kushner “in a controversy over a UN resolution”
passed before Trump took office that condemned
Israel’s settlements, all of which are illegal under
international law.</p>
<p>Trump had posted his opposition to the resolution on
social media and called the Egyptian dictator <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/abdulfattah-al-sisi">Abdulfattah
al-Sisi</a>, whose diplomats were sponsoring the
resolution, to press him to pull it.</p>
<p>Despite these efforts, the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/us-lets-security-council-pass-resolution-against-israeli-settlements">resolution
passed</a> on 23 December, after several other
Security Council members stepped in to sponsor it, and
the Obama administration – in a rare US move –
declined to cast a veto.</p>
<p>According to the <em>Journal</em>, Israel had
reached out to senior Trump associates, including
Kushner and <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/steve-bannon">Steve
Bannon</a>, in an effort to thwart the vote.</p>
<p>“The motivation for the Mueller team’s questions
about the UN is unclear,” the <em>Journal</em>
states, but they are part of an examination of
Kushner’s “interactions with foreign leaders during
the presidential transition.”</p>
<p>The newspaper points to the 1799 Logan Act that “bars
Americans from communicating with a foreign government
to influence the government’s actions related to a
dispute with the US,” but notes that no one has ever
been successfully prosecuted under it.</p>
<p>Kushner is no impartial observer. His <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/kushner-family-foundation">family’s
foundation</a> has donated money to support Israeli
settlements.</p>
<p>What will be interesting to watch is whether
Kushner’s role in Trump’s efforts to derail
international condemnation of Israel’s settlements
will attract the same obsessive attention from liberal
politicians and pundits who have jumped on every
“Russiagate” allegation of “collusion” no matter how <a
href="https://soundcloud.com/moderaterebelsradio/russiagate-democrats-episode-1">dubious</a>
or <a
href="https://www.thenation.com/article/russiagate-is-more-fiction-than-fact/">fictional</a>.</p>
<h2>“Ultimate deal”</h2>
<p>On Wednesday, <a
href="http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/trump-ultimate-deal-borders-palestine-state-no-talk-israel-saudi-no%20talks-jerusalem-1510521541"><em>Middle
East Eye</em> published</a> what it said were
exclusive details of Trump’s “ultimate deal” peace
plan reportedly to be unveiled early next year.</p>
<p>Citing a “Western diplomat” close to the US team
preparing the proposal, <em>Middle East Eye</em>
describes a rehash of Israeli-inspired plans to give
Palestinians what amounts to limited self-rule on a
few scattered plots of land – akin to the <a
href="http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/homelands">bantustans</a>
apartheid South Africa tried to establish to deflect
calls for full rights for Black South Africans.</p>
<p>The US plan would call for a “Palestinian state” in
the Gaza Strip and a few enclaves in the West Bank but
key issues including the status of Jerusalem and the
right of return for Palestinian refugees would be
postponed.</p>
<p>So-called “final negotiations” would then be led by
Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>Kushner reportedly visited Saudi Arabia to brief
Crown Prince <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/mohammad-bin-salman">Mohammad
bin Salman</a> – commonly known as MBS – and to ask
for Saudi help to pressure Palestinian Authority
leader Mahmoud Abbas to accept the plan.</p>
<p>Earlier this month MBS summoned Abbas to Riyadh. <a
href="http://www.electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/can-trump-and-saudi-arabia-force-palestinian-surrender">According
to Israeli media reports</a>, the Saudi autocrat
told the PA leader to accept the upcoming Trump peace
plan or resign.</p>
<p>Unnamed Palestinian officials told <em>Middle East
Eye</em> that MBS offered to nearly triple Saudi
Arabia’s monthly payments to the PA to $20 million if
Abbas accepts it.</p>
<h2>Obsession with Iran</h2>
<p>The report confirms the motive of the Saudi interest
in promoting the plan – and it has nothing to do with
securing Palestinian rights.</p>
<p>“MBS is very enthusiastic about the plan,” the
Western diplomat told <em>Middle East Eye</em>, “and
he is eager to see a peace deal between the
Palestinians and Israel first, then between Israel and
the Arab countries, as a first step in forming a
coalition between Saudi Arabia and Israel to counter
the Iranian threat.”</p>
<p>“This is Netanyahu’s plan and he sold it the US team
and they are trying to sell it to the Palestinians and
Arabs,” according to a Palestinian official quoted by
<em>Middle East Eye</em>.</p>
<p>Saudi Arabia has <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/tags/saudi-israeli-relations">long
been flirting</a> with Israel in a low-key manner,
but the two states are now increasingly open about
their alliance.</p>
<p>In an <a
href="https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.823163">unprecedented
interview</a> with Saudi media last week, Israeli
military chief Gadi Eizenkot expressed his country’s
willingness to share intelligence with Saudi Arabia –
something that has undoubtedly already been going on.</p>
<p>Eizenkot also described Saudi Arabia and its allies
as “moderate.”</p>
<p>The Saudi regime is returning the favor.</p>
<p>Muhammad bin Abdul Karim Issa, the former Saudi
justice minister and a close ally of MBS, <a
href="https://www.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2017/11/21/saudi-official-denounces-violence-against-israel-as-un-islamic">reportedly
told Israeli media</a> that violence against Israel
– presumably including Palestinian resistance to
military occupation – is “un-Islamic.”</p>
<p>In June, the Saudi foreign minister <a
href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-gulf-qatar-saudi/saudi-minister-says-qatar-must-end-support-for-hamas-muslim-brotherhood-idUKKBN18X2CV">demanded</a>
that Qatar stop supporting the Palestinian resistance
group Hamas.</p>
<h2>Saudi schemes backfiring</h2>
<p>While embracing Israel appears to be a key strategy
in pursuit of Saudi Arabia’s obsession with
confronting Iran, the kingdom’s regional schemes have
had a tendency to go disastrously awry, as The
Electronic Intifada’s Omar Karmi noted in a <a
href="http://www.electronicintifada.net/blogs/omar-karmi/can-trump-and-saudi-arabia-force-palestinian-surrender">recent
analysis</a>: these include the years-long proxy war
in Syria that resulted in massive destruction and
fatalities but failed to remove its president, Bashar
al-Assad; the Saudi-led war on Yemen that has
succeeded only in killing and injuring tens of
thousands of civilians and bringing millions to the
brink of famine; and the <a
href="https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-backs-saudi-arabia-confrontation-qatar">effort
to isolate Qatar</a>, which has not brought Riyadh’s
Gulf neighbor to heel.</p>
<p>The latest Saudi power play to weaken the Lebanese
resistance and political movement Hizballah by forcing
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Saad Hariri to resign also
appears to have backfired.</p>
<p>After a bizarre episode in which he appeared to be
held captive by the Saudis, before traveling to <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-crisis-egypt/lebanons-hariri-holds-talks-with-egypt-president-sisi-in-cairo-idUSKBN1DL22U?il=0">Paris
and Cairo</a>, Hariri finally returned to Beirut on
Wednesday.</p>
<p>There he promptly <a
href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-lebanon-politics/lebanons-pm-hariri-shelves-resignation-easing-crisis-idUSKBN1DM0IP">rescinded
his resignation</a> after meeting with Lebanese
President Michel Aoun.</p>
<p>The US <a
href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/11/palestinians-suspend-ties-plo-office-closed-171118170345048.html">threats
this week</a> to close the Palestinian Authority’s
“embassy” in Washington appear to be part of efforts
to pressure Palestinians into accepting Trump’s plan.</p>
<p>But the bullying and bribes by the US-Saudi-Israeli
axis aren’t going to be any more successful on the
Palestinian front either.</p>
<p>Even the pliant PA leadership will have no choice but
to reject a plan that seeks only to liquidate the
Palestinian cause in order to remove all obstacles to
Israel’s full integration into the region.</p>
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