Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, claimed on Sunday that Saudi Arabia was safer for American Jews than U.S. college campuses amid tense ongoing conversations and protests about the Israel-Hamas conflict.
On October 7, Hamas led the deadliest Palestinian militant attack on Israel in history, with Israel subsequently launching its heaviest-ever airstrikes on Gaza in response. As of Sunday, over 1,400 people in Israel have been killed, the Associated Press reported. More than 8,000 Palestinians in Gaza have died, the AP said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his country is “at war” and has cut off food, fuel, electricity, and medicine supplies into Gaza. Israel has allowed some aide to enter Gaza via Egypt. Netanyahu’s government has called up 360,000 army reservists as it prepares for a likely ground offensive into the territory, which has an estimated population of around 2.3 million.
The escalating conflict has resulted in an intense public debate over which side to take between Israel and Gaza, and to what degree support for the Israeli and Palestinian civilians caught up in the conflict constitutes support for the actions of the Israeli government and Hamas. Some, even within Israel itself, have called for a ceasefire in Gaza in light of the military’s heavy assault on the territory.
Part of this ongoing discourse has seen a number of pro-Palestinian protests and statements by students and student groups at various colleges and universities in the U.S., including the likes of Columbia and Harvard. Some of these students and groups have been accused of stepping over the line into supporting the actions of Hamas.
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On Sunday, Kushner, a businessman and the husband of Ivanka Trump, appeared on Fox News to discuss the ongoing situation. During his father-in-law’s term in the White House, Kushner notably served as an adviser on matters pertaining to the Middle East and maintains a working relationship with the Saudi government, a relationship that has generated intense scrutiny. During the interview, Kushner claimed that, in his view, Jewish people would be safer in Saudi Arabia than on college campuses.
“Yeah, so it was a very interesting time to be over there, and I’ve been there many times before,” Kushner said following a recent trip to the country. “One of the ironies is that as an American Jew, you’re safer in Saudi Arabia right now than you are on a college campus like Columbia University.”
Six months after departing the White House in 2021, Kushner’s investment firm received $2 billion from a fund controlled by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Years later, the firm had yet to actually make an investment using the funds, prompting renewed scrutiny of the relationship between the two parties. Kushner has been accused by some, without concrete evidence, of selling U.S. secrets to the Saudi government. The kingdom has in turn been accused of trying to use Kushner to curry favor with Trump, should he be reelected in 2024.
Kushner himself has denied all such accusations of impropriety in his relationship with Saudi Arabia.
Newsweek out to the JVP Action group via email for comment.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.