Donald Trump gives a pro-Israel speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that is later revealed to have been written by Israeli ambassador Ron Dermer and Jared Kushner, whose family is close friends with Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

It is first revealed in April 2016 that Kushner was responsible for the speech. He is credited with writing the speech as well as convincing Trump to use a teleprompter for (probably) the first time during the campaign.

Later, in 2018, a journalist writing a book about the Trump campaign finds out that the speech, though written by Kushner, was actually dictated by and later reviewed by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, before it was read by Trump.

On a call with Kushner ahead of the speech, Fox writes, Dermer “talked for a solid hour about the U.N., about Iran, about hard lines and language that was very important to the Israelis, and about many people who would be in the audience that day.”

For Kushner, who was scrambling to put together a Middle East policy agenda for his father-in-law, Fox writes, Dermer’s lecture was like “getting your hands on the answer key the night before the final exam.”

The day after his conversation with Dermer, Fox writes, Kushner sent a copy of the speech over to Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson for review. Adelson promptly forwarded it back to Dermer. “The text Dermer read was like a transcript of what he had told Jared in their phone call, right down to the jokes,” Fox writes. “It was basically wholesale theft.”

Among other things, the speech tells 18,000 attendees and countless viewers around the world that Palestinians and the United Nations must let go of any defenses or criticisms of Israel. This is one of many signs that Kushner’s presence in the Trump campaign and administration has less to do with family and more to do with his connections in Israel.

See the speech in full at the link below.

Sources

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/trump-takes-strong-pro-israel-stance-at-aipac-1.5420950

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/jewish-son-in-law-kushner-guided-trump-s-triumphant-aipac-speech-1.5427089

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/17/trump-kushner-israel-dermer-brain-650397

Speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHmINZRwiZU

Photograph: Public Domain