Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump organized a private meeting between Qatar's prime minister and a bipartisan group of mostly Jewish businessmen and billionaires, according to a report published Monday.
Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who has played a leading role in talks between Israel and Hamas, discussed his country's efforts to get hostages released in Gaza and the nation's relationship with Hamas, a source who attended the meeting told Axios.
"Many of us came in with a negative perception of Qatar based on what we have been reading, and came away with a more nuanced understanding of the role they have been playing in Gaza, both historically and currently," said one participant.
Kushner, who became close to the prime minister during the Donald Trump administration and received hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar for his private equity firm, organized the lunch at Coco's, a members-only restaurant in Manhattan, while Sheikh Mohammed was in New York last week to speak at a UN Security Council meeting.
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"It was an intense conversation at times and there was some skepticism among some of us at the end of the meeting," said another participant.
Some of the participants listed by Axios included:
- Bill Ackman, founder of Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund
- Mark Rowan, founder of Apollo Global Management
- Robert Kraft, owner of the New England Patriots
- Marc Lasry, CEO of Avenue Capital Group and former co-owner of the Milwaukee Bucks
- Dan Senor, author and former adviser to Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign
- Gary Ginsberg, lawyer, political operative and confidant of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu
- Josh Kushner, Jared Kushner's brother, founder of Thrive Capital
- Edmond Safra, a businessman and owner of Coco's
