During times of global peace,
it is easy to suppose that increased economic interdependency between countries
reduce the likelihood of war due to the ramifications on the business projects.
By a similar logic by analogy, a couple could suppose that by getting married, the
increased interdependence would make breaking up more difficult, and thus less
likely. What is overlooked here is that emotions, whether in a romantic
relationship or between governments, can, if allowed to go unchecked, break
through the parchment barriers that we set up as if they could constrain even
intense, ongoing emotions. A couple using marriage as a substitute for going to
couples-counseling could actually make a break-up more likely once in
the marriage. Similarly, peace abroad and domestic tranquility can be thwarted
by international real-estate development projects themselves. Such a situation
was unfolding in Albania in mid-2026.
In early June, “Edi Rama told
Euronews that opposition to a proposed real estate project on [Albania’s]
southern coast linked to the Trump-Kushner family is being amplified by bots,
antisemitic narratives and hostile external forces to fuel tensions in Albania.”[1]
Israel had been incessantly “crying wolf” as if international criticism of
Israel’s militaristic aggression against the people of Gaza were antisemitic,
so Rama’s label can also be viewed as misapplied hyperbole intended to discredit
political opposition. Because the protests against the proposed real estate
project came largely from environmental groups, it is unlikely that Rama’s
claim that “antisemitic narratives” were “being promoted by the ‘enemies of
Israel and Albania’ is true.[2]
In actuality, the environmental groups were objecting to the project being
located on a hitherto protected small island.
To be sure, that the planned
luxury resort’s financing involved Affinity Partners, the investment firm
founded by Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of U.S. President Donald Trump, was
also rich fodder for the critics, and even though Kushner is Jewish, it would
be a stretch to label protests against his involvement to be antisemitic.
Indeed, the label antisemitism had ironically been weaponized by Israel’s
Netanyahu, who still faced an arrest warrant issued by the International
Criminal Court. Rama’s own narrative that there was an alternative narrative sourced
in the “enemies of Israel and Albania” that the project was based on a “hidden
dean between me and Bibi Netanyahu through Jared Kushner to bring Palestinians
to that area, which is a total fantasy,” can be subjected to scrutiny,
especially as Rama felt the need to add that Albania “has a very proud history
of saving Jews, of never having antisemitic feelings.”[3]
Indeed the political-linguistic “red herring” device goes beyond even such
statements.
The whole Albania thing can be
viewed as a diversion or even distraction from the more serious case of Jared
Kushner’s involvement in luxury real-estate development projects then being put
together to turn Gaza into a resort area, sans Palestinian residents. The
Trump-Kushner-Netanyahu axis was much more evident in that case than in Albania,
and the business and political stakes were much greater than those pertaining
to a resort on a small island in Albania. Being a de facto or tacit
accomplice to a genocide, even if in standing to gain financially from it,
renders Kushner much more culpable than he stood to be in Albania. So, it is
interesting that the latter galvanized more political protests than the former,
as if the latter were more unethical than the former. To be sure, targeted
political protests against one resort stood more of a chance of success than
voiced criticism of turning Gaza into a resort area, especially given the sheer
political power backing up the latter. Is it ethical, however, to bypass cases
of much greater harm just because the chance of success is less? Furthermore,
is it ethical to “take the bait” by focusing on a lesser harm at the expense of
retaining a focus on the more egregious case?
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
