Kushner's 'Peace' Plan: Balkan Luxury Edition
Jared Kushner, architect of the famously equitable Abraham Accords, is now experiencing the messy realities of the Balkans, Bloomberg notes. His firm's luxury hotel plans for a former Serbian military headquarters—bombed by NATO in 1999, incidentally—hit a snag when locals objected to bulldozing a poignant historical site for tourist glitz. Meanwhile, a resort in Albania is mired in land disputes,
with critics citing a deeply opaque approval process. One might wonder why, after a career in government facilitating Saudi and Emirati investments, the finer points of public consent and historical memory are suddenly proving so challenging for Mr. Kushner. This isn't just about 'Balkan politics' but the predictable collision of post-colonial real estate speculation with actual people and their
history. Kushner's Mideast 'peace' efforts, where he reportedly brokered Qatari investments and helped secure Saudi funding for his own investment firm shortly after leaving office, never quite faced this level of public scrutiny from the affected populations. When your development strategy relies on strongmen leadership and quiet backroom deals, inconvenient things like protests and independent
media tend to slow down business.