Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, all-but-abandoning America’s commitment to a two-state solution, has its roots with the religious politics of Jared Kushner, Trump’s Middle East adviser and son-in-law. Kushner, a favorite of both Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and pro-Netanyahu American casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, has tapped for his Middle East “envoy” team two rabidly pro-Israeli expansion ideologues, US ambassador to Israel David Friedman and “Special Representative for International Negotiations” Jason Greenblatt. Friedman was an attorney with the law firm of Kasowitz, Benson, Torres & Friedman, which represented the Trump Organization. Greenblatt was the chief legal officer for the Trump Organization. Kushner, an Orthodox Jew, along with Friedman and Greenblatt, represent a far-right Zionist cabal that rejects both a Palestinian state and a single Israeli-Palestinian nation that fully enfranchises Palestinians as citizens of a secular Israeli state. Kushner, Friedman, and Greenblatt favor an apartheid state, in which Palestinians are second-class citizens.
