by Wayne Madsen
April 17, 2017
Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner has emerged as a significant influence within the policy-making apparatus of the White House. After a rather public imbroglio with Trump's strategic policy adviser Stephen Bannon over the U.S. cruise missile attack on the Shayrat airbase in Syria, Kushner is "in", as they often say in Washington, and Bannon is "out". In any case, the anti-globalist faction, which is led by Bannon, has received verbal "thumbs down" on several fronts from Trump.
Trump’s adoption of Clintonesque Democratic Party policies of opposing the Syrian government, confronting Russia, supporting NATO, backing the U.S. Export-Import (EXIM) Bank, and militarily confronting North Korea and China in East Asia have neo-conservatives and globalists cheering but many within Trump's political base of "America First" nationalists and libertarians crying foul.
The warning signs that Kushner was fronting for the neo-conservatives was always present. His media company, Observer Media, which publishes the weekly on-line New York Observer, prominently featured several neo-conservative writers. Kushner, who also led the real estate firm Kushner Companies, turned over control of the newspaper to his brother-in-law after being named as senior adviser to President Trump. Kushner inherited a real estate empire from his father, Charles Kushner. In 2007, Jared Kushner made the largest single purchase of a single building in U.S. history, he paid $1.8 billion for a 41-story building at 666 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In 2015, Jared Kushner bought a 50.1 percent share in the Time Square Building in Manhattan from Africa Israel Investments, Ltd. (AFI), an investment and holding company owned by Israeli-Uzbek diamond magnate Lev Leviev. In what could spell trouble for U.S. relations with the Palestine and Africa, AFI has been involved in the building of illegal settlements on the West Bank and the acquisition of diamonds from Africa’s bloodiest of conflict zones.
AFI and its subsidiary, Danya Cebus, have been subjected to disinvestments by a number of governments and companies over its West Bank activities. In August 2010, the Norwegian pension fund divested in the two firms. Leviev is also involved in dodgy casino operations, which puts him in the same business circles as casino operator Trump. In 2009, Playtech Cyprus, Ltd., one of AFI’s companies, began providing casino equipment to a new casino in Bucharest, Romania. Playtech was started in 1999 by four Israelis, Teddy Sagi, Elad Cohen, Rami Beinish, and Amnon Ben-Zion. Playtech's on-line gambling software is primarily provided by software programmers in Estonia. Sagi is a convicted stock fraudster, having been convicted of fraud in the 1996 "Discount Bank affair", a stock and bond manipulation scheme that shook the Tel Aviv business community. Leviev's Africa diamond mining operations involve several "former" Mossad officers, most notably in Sierra Leone, Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, Namibia, and Angola.
The narrow gap of separation between Jared Kushner and some of Israel's top gangsters is cause for alarm. This situation became especially acute after it was revealed that Kushner failed to provide all the requested information on his national security questionnaire forms concerning his contacts with foreign persons and interests, has led for congressional calls for his security clearance to be suspended.
Please go to Strategic Culture to read this entire article.
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