After Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner sealed a $1.4 billion investment to develop Sazan, Albania’s largest island, into a luxury resort, he shared digital mock-ups of the nature reserve transformed by ranks of glass-fronted apartments and infinity pools. The images recall Trump’s own bizarre AI-generated vision for a “Gaza Riviera,” projecting an opulent resort built on the land left behind by eighty thousand slaughtered and two million displaced or deported Palestinians.
Yet the two projects are linked by more than similarly tasteless visions of luxury. Affinity Partners, the investment vehicle through which Kushner is buying up Sazan, was created to use Saudi money to cross-fertilize investment between Israel and the Arab world. And Albania, a poor European country with a Muslim identity and a hunger for Western integration, is a key piece of the puzzle.
As the Sazan mega-project suggests, Albanian sovereignty and geopolitical loyalty are increasingly up for sale — and Israel is first in line behind Kushner. By offering space not only for the Sazan development but also for Israel-sponsored kindergartens, health centers, and AI projects, Israeli-linked Iranian opposition militants, and even a mooted pro-Israeli Muslim microstate, Albanian premier Edi Rama is positioning his country as a crucial outpost for an emergent constellation of right-wing populists and apologists for Israel.
I arrive on Sazan hours after Kushner and his wife Ivanka Trump make their latest whistle-stop visit. “They came with a big military escort, and our…
Auteur: Matt Broomfield
