Jared Kushner Appoints His 30-Year-Old Assistant Avi Berkowitz To Lead Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks

Last week, the White House announced Jared Kushner’s assistant Avi Berkowitz will lead the U.S peace mission to the Middle East along with Brian Hook.

The pair will be replacing long time Trump Organization lawyer Jason Greenblat, whose focus has been to create plans for resolving the Israel-Palestine crisis, plans that have yet to come to fruition or be released to the public.

Hook, the current U.S special representative for Iran, seems to be a choice that takes a more traditional approach to filling the role, but the choice of Berkowitz follows a trend of Trump choosing advisors who are close to the family, favoring loyalty over one’s level of political experience.

Berkowitz, 30, had a similar Orthodox Jewish upbringing as Trump’s son-in law and assistant to Kushner, who has close ties to Israel. Berkowitz and Kushner met at a pick-up basketball game during a Passover celebration in Arizona when Berkowitz was an undergrad at Queens College.

Berkowitz graduated from Harvard Law and was by Kushner’s side through his time at the Trump Organization and various endeavors since 2012 and then became what many would call Kushner’s “right hand man”  at the White House in 2017. Berkowitz’s duties in the White House has included holding on Kushner’s phone during meetings and reportedly fetching coffee.

“His role generally has been growing as he learned the material,” said Trump’s ambassador to Israel, David Freindman, while commending Berkowitz’s work ethic, according to Politico.

Some analysts on the matter believe that the appointment of an inexperienced friend of the Trump family is a sign that there are not high hopes for the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan that Greenblat was working on. More details on the plan are supposed to be released shortly after Israel’s presidential election on September 17.

Article by Zoltan Lucas