Jared Kushner and the age of modern buccaneering
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The classic 17th-century buccaneer was not a simple pirate; he was a hybrid figure who operated in the grey area between state-sanctioned privateering and outright piracy. He used his connections with powerful governments to secure a “Letter of Marque” that legitimised his plunder, all the while lining his pockets. This government-issued license authorised privateers to attack and capture vessels of a rival nation, distinguishing legal privateering from piracy. Financial incentives also meant that privateers kept a large portion of the seized goods as compensation for their efforts, with portions going to the government that issued the commission. This form of state-sanctioned warfare, which blurred the lines between privateering and piracy was abolished internationally in 1856. And now it is back, dressed in a corporate suit and incarnated by Jared Kushner et al.
Just as the ancient buccaneer hid behind the flag of a nation to plunder, so Kushner and his ilk hide behind the flags of diplomacy and “economic development” to do the same. In recent years, Kushner, the deal-maker son-in-law of the American president, has made an entrance into the world of diplomacy and neo-colonial administration by actively meddling in Palestine and Middle Eastern politics.
As his father-in-law’s chief advisor, Kushner oversaw Trump’s ludicrously monikered “Deal of the Century,” announced in January 2020 and then followed by the so-called “Abraham Accords” in September 2020, which bypassed the central issues of the Palestinian-Israeli ‘conflict’. In an early interview during Trump’s first administration, Kushner explained his qualifications in this area: he had been “studying [the Middle East] now for three years: I’ve read 25 books on it, I’ve spoken to every leader in the region, I’ve spoken to everyone who’s been involved in this.” In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal (14 March, 2021) Kushner characterised the Arab-Israeli ‘conflict’ as a “real-estate dispute”. The limitations of his understanding of the roots of the conflict are clearly discernible here, including in the claim that “Arab leaders refused to accept the creation of the state of Israel and spent 70 years vilifying it and using it to divert attention from domestic shortcomings.”
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With no experience and a pronounced lack of grounding in the region’s historical and political complexities, Kushner owes his position entirely to nepotism, which has given him a diplomatic cover to attain “deal making” under the guise of diplomacy and peace, thus converting political access and diplomatic power into billions of dollars in Saudi-UAE-and Qatar-based branches of Sovereign Funds Affinity Partners, his private equity firm. Blatant 21stcentury buccaneering in all its glory.
Fast forward to August 2025 and POTUS indicated that he had to bring in his son-in-law because no one can match his intelligence. Kushner’s “second coming” only became public knowledge when he (along with Tony Blair and others) attended an August White House meeting to plan for post-war governance and “redevelopment” of Gaza, when the president announced: “I put Jared on it because he’s a very smart person and he knows the region, knows the people, knows a lot of the players.” In a New York Times interview, repeating his previously held views that he was “not quite interested in history,” and making it clear he saw himself and Witkoff, the Middle East envoys as “deal guys,” veterans of the New York real-estate scene who understood what made people tick. Kushner announced: “A lot of people who do this are history professors, because they have a lot of experience, or diplomats. It’s just different being deal guys – just a different sport.” His only real knowledge comes from his father, Charles Kushner, who has decades-old close family ties with Netanyahu and has been a major donor to Right-wing pro-Israeli causes; a relationship so close that Netanyahu has stayed in the Kushner family home in New Jersey, according to the New York Times. One official commented that Kushner and Witkoff “stood shoulder to shoulder with Israel 100%”. Total and complete partiality. No questions asked.
Indeed, Kushner’s major imprint on Middle East policy since Trump’s second administration is his signature proposal that Gaza be “redeveloped” as a vast and “valuable waterfront” property, an idea that he first voiced at a Harvard event in 2024, in which he promoted “cleaning it up” and the forcible eviction of Palestinians.
Enormous conflict of interest and open corruption charges notwithstanding – and still with no formal role in the White House – Kushner took centre stage in getting the Gaza deal, which could bring him a huge bounty to “redevelop” Gaza. And lest Palestinians and other international observers declare anything other than undying gratitude to this hero of our times for his sacrifices in the cause of world peace, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt informed us earlier (in October) that “Jared is donating his energy and his time to our government, to the president of the United States, to secure world peace, and that is a very noble thing.”
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And now to the final scene in the act. In a ceremony announcing the inauguration of the new civil-military cooperation centre in Kiryat Gat, Kushner, standing at the command centre said he was looking forward to a “new Gaza, to give Palestinians living in Gaza a place to go, a place to get jobs, a place to live”. This elicited a fierce response from Joshua Liefer, the leading Haaretz writer, on 23 October 2025, in which he excoriated failed “occupation management”, the chimera of “economic peace”, and the patronising assumption that Palestinians can be “bought off” with these scraps. All of this, previously said and indeed reiterated on multiple occasions, will however presumably entirely bypass Kushner.
Kushner’s soulless public persona, a masterpiece of strangely immobile features, presents a smooth deadpan surface to the world, giving little hint of emotion. This eerie wax-work quality of otherworldly detachment is profoundly disquieting, suggesting not inner peace but a deep disconnect and the ability to discuss the fate of millions with the same detached focus as if reviewing a real estate portfolio.
In this new world, the language of “peace” and “ceasefire” is becoming ever more Orwellian, a “ceasefire” in which on one night alone in October more than 100 starved Palestinians – children, women and the elderly – were bombed and murdered in their tents, with hundreds more injured. A “peace” with a new “Yellow line” reminiscent of Oslo-style administrative divisions of areas A, B, and C, and a West-Bankification of Gaza or, more bluntly stated, bantustans. This will bring more than half the territory of the Gaza strip under full Israeli control, raising serious concerns that this new policy could become a permanent partition of the devasted enclave, with Israel remaining the occupying force, promising more violence, carnage, death and destruction and the absence of any measure of genuine self-determination for Palestinians.
The age of buccaneering is well and truly back, led by Jared Kushner and his international allies, including Tony Blair, Ron Dermer, Steve Witkoff et al. Their land and resource grabbing is not a secret – they speak of it openly. In the lexicon of the deal guy, peace is just another word for a very profitable acquisition. Plunder is now policy.
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This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
