Netanyahu Doubted Kushner’s Ability to Lead Mideast Peace Plan, Bolton Says in Book

John Bolton, U.S. President Donald Trump's former national security advisor, has revealed in his upcoming book that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu questioned the ability of the presiden'ts son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner to formulate a peace plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to quotes published in the Wall Street Journal and CNN.

In excerpts released on Thursday, Bolton said Netanyahu spoke with him before he joined the Trump administration and expressed bewilderment at Kushner’s appointment as White House senior advisor.  

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– LISTEN: How Netanyahu could fudge annexation, hoodwink Gantz and cling on to power

LISTEN: How Netanyahu could fudge annexation, hoodwink Gantz and cling on to power

Netanyahu “was dubious about assigning the task of bringing an end to the Israel-Palestinian conflict to Kushner, whose family Netanyahu had known for many years. He was enough of a politician not to oppose the idea publicly, but like much of the world, he wondered why Kushner thought he would succeed where the likes of Kissinger had failed,” Bolton wrote.

Kushner is considered as the one leading a more restrained approach in the Trump administration, seeking to limit or postpone Israel’s unilateral annexation plan of the West Bank.

In his soon to be published book, Bolton accused Trump of sweeping misdeeds that included explicitly seeking Chinese President Xi Jinping's help to win re-election.

Bolton, a longtime foreign policy hawk who Trump fired in September over policy differences, also said that the president had expressed a willingness to halt criminal investigations to give "personal favors to dictators he liked," according to a book excerpt published in the New York Times ahead of its release.

Trump hit back at Bolton, calling him "a liar" in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. The paper also published excerpts Wednesday of the book, titled "The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir," as did the Washington Post.