When Kushner met Mohammed; How Saudi prince charmed Jewish power-broker
Five key moments in the powerful relationship between Jewish son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump and Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia.
By JTAUpdated: OCTOBER 14, 2018 19:45US President Donald Trump, flanked by White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince and Minister of Defense Mohammed bin Salman at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (photo credit: JONATHAN ERNST / REUTERS)
WASHINGTON (JTA) – In March, Saudi Arabia was on the brink of a new age of modernity. At the epicenter of the transformation were Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser.Allegations this week that bin Salman – or MBS, as he is known, ordered the brazen murder of a dissident Saudi journalist in Istanbul, Turkey, have roiled the prince’s reputation as a modernizer.Where does that leave Kushner, who cultivated a close friendship with MBS in part to revive his plans for the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks? Does Kushner counsel the president to distance the United States from Saudi Arabia? Or does he wait out the storm and return to the bromance when things are quieter?Despite some favorable media coverage at the time of his last US visit in March, reports suggested – even before the disappearance in Istanbul last week of Jamal Khashoggi, a permanent resident of the US – that MBS’s reforms were more show than substance.Yes, women could drive, but the activists who helped bring about the change were languishing in jail. Yes, bin Salman seemed ready for closer relations with Israel, while also bombing Yemen into submission, with little regard for civilian casualties. And, yes, the extended Saudi royal family seemed on board with these changes.With the Khashoggi crisis in full bloom, the Trump administration is scrambling for a strategy. Trump is wary of penalizing a nation that spends big money on US arms.“I don’t like stopping massive amounts of money that’s being poured into our country – I know they’re talking about different kinds of sanctions,” he said Thursday, referring to moves in Congress to sanction Saudi Arabia, “they’re spending $110 billion on military equipment and on things that create jobs, like jobs and others, for this country.”Saudi Arabia is also an important player in Trump’s plans to isolate Iran.At the center of the US-Saudi relationship is Kushner, whom Trump has tasked with relaunching the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. The drive for a peace deal is what ostensibly brought Kushner and MBS together, but their relationship has broadened to include arms sales and regional strategy making.Here are five key moments in the Kushner-MBS bromance.
The first meetingAccording to The Washington Post, MBS and Kushner became friendly when the crown prince first visited Trump in March 2017. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was next on the list, but was delayed by a snowstorm, which allowed the two 30-somethings to become acquainted. That set off a long distance relationship, with frequent phone calls.Open arms and an arms dealOne result of the closeness was a major shift: A president’s inaugural trip has traditionally been to a neighbor, Canada or Mexico. In May 2017, Trump instead first headed to Saudi Arabia with Kushner being instrumental in setting the agenda – so instrumental that he says he got a rabbi’s permission to join his father-in-law on the Shabbat flight. (Which rabbi? That’s still a mystery.)The trip went off smoothly – remember that glowing orb Trump and MBS’s dad touched together? Trump signed a $110 billion arms sale deal with the country.That Lebanon businessIn October 2017, Kushner visited with MBS in Saudi Arabia, supposedly to discuss advances of the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. A week or so later Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, turned up in Saudi Arabia to resign, citing the overbearing influence in his country of Hezbollah, the Shiite militia aligned with Iran.It was a bizarre moment, and soon Hariri returned to Lebanon having rescinded his resignation. What happened?Hariri has close business and family relations in Saudi Arabia,but MBS may have coerced his resignation as a means of sowing chaos in Lebanon, which he reportedly hoped would spark a punishing Israeli assault on Hezbollah. No one told the Israelis and they were not game to be Saudi Arabia’s proxy in its longstanding dispute with Iran.Did Kushner give MBS a green light? They chatted until 4 a.m. during the visit. We may never know what they discussed, but the proximity (and secrecy) of his visit so close to the Lebanon fiasco led to speculation that Kushner must have given MBS’s maneuvering the green light. The crown prince arrested a bunch of his extended family at around the same time. That was the second round of arrests; the first was in June, soon after Trump’s visit. Making matters murkier, Trump praised the prince for the arrests in a tweet.That peace dealIn November 2017, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was summoned to Saudi Arabia the same month as Hariri. What was said was not clear, but according to subsequent reports, MBS pressed Abbas to accept Kushner’s terms for a peace deal that would comprise a Palestinian quasi-state with its capital in Jerusalem’s suburbs, as opposed to the city itself.Abbas reportedly declined, and Saudi statements denied that MBS had ever embraced such a proposal.One year later …A year after their snowbound bromance began, MBS was back in the United States for what was a turning point in the US-Saudi relationship. He met with Trump, and Kushner helped organize a busy itinerary for the prince, including stops in high-tech centers on the East and West coasts to discuss investments. MBS and his modernization proposals received glowing attention from influential columnists.Marring the visit was the revelation, that MBS told his Persian Gulf buddies that he had Kushner “in his pocket,” as reported by The Intercept.Is that the case? The Khashoggi mystery is not going away, and we may learn more soon.