Jared Kushner met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Monday, a day after holding rare, direct talks with Hamas representatives in Egypt, part of a renewed push to save a stalled Gaza peace deal. Kushner also met with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi during the trip. Hamas says it has agreed to the U.S.-backed 15-point plan, including disarmament terms, and is pressing mediators and the U.S.-created Board of Peace to compel Israel to sign on. Netanyahu rejected the plan last week and has said there will be no military withdrawal until Hamas is, in his words, “genuinely” disarmed.
A Deal Stuck Between Two Yeses and One No
What’s notable here isn’t that Kushner is doing informal diplomacy. Presidential envoys have always operated with more flexibility than career State Department channels. It’s that he’s now the only person with enough trust on both sides to sit across from Hamas one day and Netanyahu the next, on a plan where Hamas has said yes and Israel’s prime minister has said no. That’s an unusual amount of leverage concentrated in one unelected envoy, for better or worse.
Whether that flexibility gets the deal unstuck or just delays an honest reckoning with Netanyahu’s objections is the real question. Official channels haven’t been able to move Netanyahu; it’s not obvious a Trump son-in-law with private-sector relationships can either, but he’s the one currently trying.
🔥 Kushner Meets Netanyahu After Hamas Talks:
What do you think? Does having one trusted envoy shuttling between Hamas and Netanyahu increase the odds of a deal, or does bypassing formal diplomatic channels just delay accountability if it falls apart? Let us know your thoughts in the comments on BeezLoop.com!
Related from BeezLoop: Israel Captures Senior Hamas Security Official in Gaza Raid, Four Killed, The US Denied the Palestinian Delegation Visas Again and 'Moral Cowards': 77 Delegations Walked Out on Netanyahu.
