Kushner’s fund to double stake in Israeli firm financing illegal West Bank settlements

US President-elect Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, is set to double his investment firm’s stake in one of the Israeli regime’s major financial firms, which funds the construction of illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories, just days before Trump returns to the White House.

Kushner’s Affinity Partners, as Bloomberg reported on Friday, received the nod from Israeli regulators to double its stake in Phoenix Financial Ltd., an approval that allows the Saudi-backed investment firm to buy an additional 4.95 percent stake at 37.5 shekels ($10.3) a share.

According to Bloomberg, Phoenix’s share price has surged over 50 percent to around 58.5 shekels apiece since mid-July, when Kushner’s Miami-based firm announced the $128.5 million deal to buy its initial 4.95-percent stake.

Kushner has held up the deal as a sign of his Saudi-backed company’s confidence in the Israeli regime’s economy which has been drained of coffers after about 16 months of brutal onslaught on the besieged Gaza Strip without achieving any of the occupying entity’s declared goals.

“Investing in Phoenix in July 2024 was a decision rooted in my belief in Israel’s resiliency and the fundamentals of Phoenix’s business,” Kushner said in a statement to Bloomberg. “Six months later, the increased value of our shares, reaffirms my conviction – both in Israel’s strength and the growing promise of Phoenix.”

Phoenix Financial has financed and insured construction projects throughout illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights.

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According to the NGO watchdog Who Profits, Phoenix also owns an 80 percent stake in a large shopping mall in an illegal East al-Quds settlement and stakes in various companies operating throughout other settlements.

Kushner served as his father-in-law’s senior White House adviser in his first term and played a key role in the Abraham Accords that normalized relations between Tel Aviv and four Arab countries in 2020.

Trump, who is set to assume office on Monday, is expected to try to bring Saudi Arabia into the accords.

The return of Trump, who is himself a staunch supporter of Israel, coincides with the implementation of a ceasefire agreement that brought an end to the regime’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza after the massacre of nearly 47,000 Palestinians and injury of more than 110,000 others.

North of 700,000 Israelis live in over 230 settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East al-Quds.

The international community views the settlements as illegal under international law and the Geneva Conventions due to their construction on the occupied territories.

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