Febr. 9, 2025
US president’s Middle Eastern plan has far-reaching tentacles from the Kushners to the Balkan country’s ‘only island’
Featured Image: Albania’s government has approved a €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) project by Jared Kushner to transform Albania’s only island into a tourist destination
A marsh harrier sweeps across a meadow of tawny grass, flamingos cruise like pink arrows above a sapphire lagoon and in the distance, a golden jackal lets out a howl.
Teeming with wildlife, this tranquil corner of Albania feels a world away from the apocalyptic devastation of the Gaza Strip.
And yet, there is a thread that links them together.
Donald Trump was widely condemned this week when he claimed that he would redevelop the rubble-strewn Palestinian enclave as a glitzy Middle Eastern Riviera.
Gaza would be “turned over” to the United States by the Israelis, Palestinians would be relocated to Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere, and the territory would be turned into “one of the greatest and most spectacular developments of its kind on earth”, he said.
It was an outlandish proposal, but one that had already been floated by a member of his inner circle: Jared Kushner, his son-in-law.
Mr Kushner, who is married to the president’s daughter Ivanka, told an audience at Harvard University last February that Gaza possessed “very valuable” waterfront property that could become a hub for tourism.
While those plans appear impossible to enact, a few hundred miles north of the war-torn strip, he is having much greater success with his real estate visions.
Mr Kushner has been given preliminary approval to build a huge tourism complex on a stretch of unspoilt coastline in southern Albanian, near the town of Vlorë.
Currently, the area is a beguiling patchwork of pine forest, lagoons, sandy beaches, heathland and cliffs, devoid of asphalt roads.
Stone-curlews nest in the dunes, pelicans and ospreys patrol the skies. A small herd of scrawny cattle roam the hillsides and there is a flock of grubby sheep guarded by a pack of fierce dogs.
Artistic renderings show that the €1.4 billion (£1.2 billion) project will blanket the area with futuristic hotels, sleek villas, swimming pools, yacht jetties and roads.
That is not all. The Kushners are promoting a second development on an island a few miles offshore.
Sazan, the only island off Albania’s coast, was a Soviet submarine base during the Cold War.
It will be transformed with the construction of modern timber and glass apartments overlooking the sea.
Mr Kushner’s property developments have won the enthusiastic support of Edi Rama, Albania’s prime minister, who has been in power for more than a decade.
“We need luxury, just like [the] desert needs water”, he said last year.
Last month his government gave the green light to the development on Sazan island, which for decades has been an isolated, out-of-bounds military outpost.
The government decreed that the Kushners’ project is a “strategic investment” and a presidential order handed down in December removed the island from a list of national military assets, paving the way for development permission to be granted.
The government has also amended a law to make it easier for high-end developers to build in areas that were formerly off-limits.
Many Albanians are appalled at the prospect of the island and nearby coastline being developed, saying it smacks of the Albanian government giving the Kushners special treatment as a way of cosying up to Mr Trump.
Environmentalists say the coastline is an inextricable part of the delta of the Vjosë river, one of Europe’s last wild, undammed rivers, which winds from the Pindus mountains in Greece to the Adriatic coast.
“This area is supposed to be a protected landscape but instead the government has opened it up to building,” said Joni Vorpsi, a bird specialist from Protection and Preservation of the Natural Environment in Albania, an NGO.
“The Kushner project envisages 10,000 hotel and villa rooms, which means 20,000 to 30,000 tourists. They are practically creating a new city,” he said as he navigated a white Suzuki jeep through muddy tracks and deep puddles of rainwater.
“From being a natural oasis, it will be turned into just another urban area. The government says measures will be taken to mitigate the environmental harm but we’re talking about a transformation. The whole ecosystem will be degraded.”
Environmentalists fear that hotel and street lighting will disturb the breeding of loggerhead turtles. Disruption could drive away some of the 240 bird species that have been recorded in the area, which range from black-winged stilts to spoonbills and little owls.
Conservationists have recorded up to 5,500 greater flamingos in the area, believed to be one of the biggest populations in the Mediterranean, as well as 130 Dalmatian pelicans.
“It’s one of the last, if not the last, natural deltas in the entire Mediterranean, and it should be under full protection,” said Annette Spangenburg, head of conservation for EuroNatur, a German conservation organisation.
“It will be completely altered by the construction of all the hotels and resorts and infrastructure. It is not possible to maintain the integrity of the environment with that scale of development.
“And this is just the start – it seems that the government is aiming to develop the whole coast of southern Albania.”
‘This airport is a dream’
As part of the strategy, an international airport is being built on the site of a former military airstrip to the north of Vlorë.
The skeleton of the airport has been erected and bulldozers are busy laying gravel for the foundations of a two-mile long runway which will be capable of taking long-haul aircraft. By the time it opens, it will handle up to 750,000 passengers a year.
“For Kushner, this airport is a dream. People will be able to fly in directly from America,” said Ms Spangenburg.
The airport is likely to spur more tourist development. That will mean huge demands on water supplies. The authorities want to extract water from the Shushicë river, a tributary of the wild Vjosë.
“It’s one of the most beautiful rivers I’ve ever come across. I have it as a screensaver on my phone. It’s teeming with fish. But their plans to divert water from it mean it will run dry in the summer,” said Leonard Sonten, a biologist and project manager with EuroNatur.
Mr Kushner and his backers dispute claims that their developments will be ruinous to the environment. He told The Washington Post that the projects will be “very sustainable” and that they would “respect all environmental requirements”.
Asher Abehsera, the chief executive of Mr Kushner’s property company, Affinity Global Development, insisted that the projects will “enhance” the area.
There are residents, too, who are firmly in favour of the projects.
Natasha Kota, 68, lives in Zvernec, a village close to the coastal development site. She cares little for stilts and avocets; she just wants to make some money by selling land that her family owns to the Kushners.
“If they want to build a big resort, let them come. There are no jobs here. All the young people have gone to Greece or America. My daughter lives in New York. We just hope for a good price for our property,” she said.
Melpo Subashi, 72, said all three of her adult children are living and working in Greece.
She said: “As long as we get some money, we are happy with the resort. We have land that’s not being used so we are ready to sell it. We used to farm it but none of the young people around here want to work in agriculture.”
Ermal Dredha, the mayor of nearby Vlorë, located just a few miles down the coast, hopes the developments will bring much-needed jobs and wealth to the area. “We want it to be a top touristic destination, something unique… but also sustainable,” he said recently.
Ben Andoni, an Albanian political analyst, believes the government’s decision to grant strategic investment status to the Kushner project just two months after the re-election of Donald Trump was an attempt to curry favour with the incoming administration.
He thinks that approving the tourism developments is a huge mistake – and not just from an environmental point of view.
“Sazan island is strategically very important for Albania. For decades it was a military base. In an increasingly unpredictable world, it’s crucial for national security.”
The island is also replete with military heritage from the Communist era. “Rather than give it away to a foreign investor, it should be preserved. And it should remain accessible to Albanians and other tourists,” he said.
“There’s been a total lack of transparency in the whole deal.”
‘It’s crazy’
Despite the objections, there seems little doubt that the Kushners’ projects in Albania will go ahead.
As he scans the horizon with his binoculars, Mr Vorpsi, the ornithologist, dreads the arrival of the first trucks and bulldozers to the pristine area.
“Would Kushner have been allowed to build in Yellowstone or Yosemite? No. But he asked for permission to build in a protected natural area in Albania and the government just gave it to him. And we’re giving away Albania’s only island. It’s crazy.”
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