US President-elect Donald Trump announces the appointment of real estate investor Steven Witkoff to be his special envoy to the Middle East.
Witkoff has been Trump’s regular golf partner and was seen as a conduit to the Jewish business community during his winning presidential campaign.
“Steve is a Highly Respected Leader in Business and Philanthropy, who has made every project and community he has been involved with stronger and more prosperous. Steve will be an unrelenting Voice for PEACE, and make us all proud,” Trump says in a statement.
Witkoff will fill a role that did not exist in the current administration, as US President Joe Biden believing that the conditions weren’t in place for another high-stakes Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative and instead sought to prioritize other foreign policy issues.
Witkoff is not known to have any experience diplomacy or the Middle East, but those have not been criteria for previous Trump appointments. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who similarly lacked such experience, managed to broker the Abraham Accords during the Republican politician’s first term as president.
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