A few years ago, I read a book about the Kushner family. I think it was called Kushner, Inc., but don’t hold me to that. My overall conclusion was that the Trumps and the Kushners, despite several obvious differences, were peas in a pod. One based in New York and one in New Jersey, both were headed by ruthless, amoral men who were intent on building enormous family wealth through real estate investments. Today, one of those men, still ruthless, amoral, and ambitious, finds himself President of the United States, while the other, Charles Kushner, is our Ambassador to France.

We all know about Donald Trump. But we probably know less about Charles Kushner. For example, do you know that Kushner spent two years in federal prison after being convicted  of making illegal campaign contributions, tax evasion and witness tampering. Do you know that, as a matter of personal retribution, not political retribution, Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce his sister’s husband (who was involved in Kushner’s conviction). His plan was to tape the encounter and send the tape to his sister. His plan did not work.

In 2020, Trump pardoned Kushner, praising him for his exemplary post-prison life. Yes, he did, and this is probably not very surprising because Kushner and his wife are (as they in Yiddish) Trump’s machatunim. Kushner’s son Jared and Trump’s daughter Ivanka are married, so Kushner and Trump are, in effect, family.

Jared Kushner, the story goes, was an average high school student, without apparent credentials to enable him to enroll at Harvard. But he did enroll at Harvard because it turned out that he did have one important credential.- a father able and willing to make a $2.5 million gift to the university.

When his father went to jail, Jared took control of the Kushner business empire, and then purchased The New York Observer, an weekly newspaper, with money he raised while in college when he bought and sold commercial properties in suburban Boston. Throughout all of this time, Kushner identified as a Democrat.

Throughout Trump’s first term, Jared and Ivanka served as presidential advisors, with West Wing offices. Jared, who had been an active supporter of Chabad and a relatively observant Jew, was involved in Middle East matters, including implementation of the Abraham Accords. After Trump’s term ended, the Kushners retired from politics and moved to Miami. Jared went back into the money-making business, which primarily involved setting up a multi-billion dollar investment fund primarily with Saudi and UAE money. Of course, he was criticized for capitalizing on connections he made during his White House years, but it does not appear that he let the criticism get to him.

At the same time, while working closely with his Arab business partners, he kept his ties to Israel. He had also met most high level Israeli politicians during the first Trump term, but these were not his only connections. For example, the Netanyahu family and the Kushner family had been very close (sometimes staying at each other’s houses) since Jared’s childhood

For all of these reasons, Jared’s unofficial involvement in attempting to end the Gaza war is not surprising. As perhaps the only person on intimate terms with Trump, Netanyahu, and the most powerful Arab leaders, how could it be otherwise.

Both Israel and Hamas are understandably exhausted by the horrific conflict that erupted into warfare two years ago. They needed a catalyst and Kushner, working with Britain’s Tony Blair (another former government officials with multiple contacts), provided the necessary push to potentially end the current violence

We will see how all of this progresses. In the meantime, in spite of the contempt with which I hold Trump and Netanyahu and most of their minions, I gave never had strongly negative opinions about Jared and Ivanka.

It seems to me that Jared is a pretty talented guy. I don’t really know how he views the future, but he is only 44 years old and may stay in the public eye for decades to come.