At a heated White House briefing this week, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt lashed out at a New York Times reporter who questioned the role of Jared Kushner in President Donald Trump’s proposed Gaza peace plan — even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signaled that Israel would not abide by key terms of the agreement.
The exchange highlighted the growing political tensions surrounding the Trump administration’s high-stakes, 20-point roadmap to end the war in Gaza — a plan that includes phased Israeli withdrawal, a governing council for Gaza, and Gulf-backed reconstruction — and the controversial involvement of Trump’s son-in-law in its negotiation.
The confrontation occurred after The Times’ Shawn McCreesh asked whether it was appropriate for Kushner — who has received over $2.5 billion in investments from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar — to be so deeply involved in diplomacy involving those very same countries.
“How did the White House decide that it is appropriate for Jared Kushner to be working on matters that involve Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, three countries that combined have given him more than $2.5 billion for his investment firm?” McCreesh asked.
Leavitt, 28, erupted in response:
“I think it’s frankly despicable that you’re trying to suggest that it’s inappropriate for Jared Kushner, who is widely respected around the world and has great trust and relationships with these critical partners in these countries, to strike a twenty-point comprehensive detailed peace plan that no other administration would ever be able to achieve,” she said.
“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.”
Her impassioned defense sought to frame Kushner not as a conflict of interest, but as an asset — someone whose personal relationships and business history with the Gulf states were being leveraged for diplomatic gain.
Still, the optics are hard to ignore. Kushner’s firm, Affinity Partners, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund in 2021, soon after he left the White House. Since then, the firm has secured at least $1.5 billion more from the UAE and Qatar.
The scrutiny over Kushner comes amid growing signals from Israel that it will not fully honor the peace plan brokered by the Trump administration — despite its public support.
Earlier this week, Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would accept only an agreement “on its terms,” suggesting that the Israeli government may revise or reject critical components of the proposed deal.
The original plan includes:
The release of all hostages;
A phased Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza;
The establishment of a transitional, internationally backed governing council for Gaza;
A demilitarized Gaza Strip, with armed groups disarmed;
And billions in reconstruction funds from Gulf states, primarily Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Qatar.
But Netanyahu’s statements — including that “Israel alone will determine the security future of Gaza” — appear to directly contradict the disarmament and governance provisions. According to Israeli media, Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition is especially resistant to any plan that would reduce Israeli control or allow significant Palestinian self-governance.
Netanyahu’s “own terms” include retaining Israeli military oversight of Gaza indefinitely, rejecting both Hamas and the Palestinian Authority as future rulers of the enclave, and demanding absolute disarmament before any reconstruction or diplomatic normalization moves forward. These changes would substantially alter the agreement Trump’s team — with Kushner at the helm — has been promoting.
The question McCreesh posed — about whether private financial entanglements are influencing public diplomacy — underscores the growing unease about the backchannel nature of these negotiations.
Democratic lawmakers, including Senator Ron Wyden, have launched inquiries into Affinity Partners’ foreign funding, warning that the overlap of Kushner’s financial and diplomatic roles represents a “serious constitutional and ethical problem.”
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