This Lebanese American billionaire and Trump are in-laws. Will that assist deliver peace to Lebanon?

KFARAKKA, Lebanon — In regular instances, you’d hardly ever hear of Kfarakka, a hamlet nestled within the lush inexperienced mountains of north Lebanon whose main declare to fame is that it’s the nation’s prime olive oil producer.

These usually are not regular instances.

Hoping for an finish to the devastating struggle with Israel, many Lebanese have turned to this village of some 3,500 folks and its most well-known son, a Lebanese American billionaire named Massad Boulos who has a direct household line to President-elect Donald Trump and is being talked about as a probable decide for his envoy to Lebanon.

Boulos’ son Michael is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, and through the U.S. election marketing campaign Boulos served as Trump’s unofficial consultant to Arab and Muslim American communities.

Tiffany Trump, the president-elect’s daughter, and her husband Michael Boulos, whose father, a rich Lebanese American businessman, some hope can use that household connection to assist deliver peace to Lebanon.

(Chandan Khanna / Getty Photographs)

His job was to assist them overlook the ban on guests from sure Muslim-majority nations throughout Trump’s first presidency and — capitalizing on disenchantment with the Biden administration for backing Israel within the wars in Gaza and Lebanon — persuade them that Trump can ship peace within the Center East.

“Trump can be a robust president,” Boulos mentioned in an October interview with Saudi broadcaster Al-Arabiya. “He’s the one president who can obtain peace [in Lebanon] and a everlasting answer to the Palestinian downside.”

He promised that Trump received, he would work to finish the wars instantly, even earlier than he took workplace.

It’s unclear what position the allure offensive could have performed, however in Dearborn, Mich. — the place greater than half the inhabitants is of Arab descent, the most important share in any metropolis — 43% of the vote went to Trump and 36% to Vice President Kamala Harris. Inexperienced Get together candidate Jill Stein received 18% — a share many instances the lower than 1% she obtained nationally and a doable signal that many Arab American voters discovered little to love about both main candidate in terms of Center East coverage.

The widespread perception amongst Lebanese is that Boulos can push Trump to finish the struggle, which started on Oct. 8, 2023 — a day after Hamas militants killed 1,200 folks in southern Israel — when Hezbollah launched what it described as a “solidarity marketing campaign” with Gaza and started firing rockets into Israel. For the following 12 months, Israel centered its army on Gaza, the place the loss of life toll has reached practically 44,000.

Then this October it invaded Lebanon with the acknowledged intention of destroying Hezbollah. Israeli bombardment has ravaged giant swaths of the nation, killed virtually 3,300 folks and displaced 1 / 4 of the inhabitants.

Thrust into the limelight by a confluence of nuptial relations and the U.S. election outcome, Boulos has turn into a dialog subject throughout the area on social media and tv discuss reveals.

“Will the in-law come to assist and help Lebanon and the Lebanese?” mentioned Tony Khalifa, a preferred tv host and common supervisor of Al-Mashhad, a pan-Arab information platform primarily based in Dubai, within the opening phase of his present this week.

“Everyone seems to be hoping Trump’s in-law and Trump will rescue Lebanon from the furnace of Israel’s hearth and iron.”

In Kfarakka, the place each highway appears to result in an olive press, the Boulos household has lengthy been held in excessive regard: Massad’s father, Fares, served as mayor till his loss of life in 2011, and a plaque honoring him is mounted above the doorway of the village‘s municipal constructing.

Massad, who grew up throughout Lebanon’s lengthy civil struggle, hasn’t lived right here since he was 18, when he completed highschool and moved to the US and earned a global regulation diploma on the College of Houston.

Massad Boulos watches from the sidelines at a Trump campaign event.

His life, although, took a brand new flip when he married the daughter a Lebanese enterprise tycoon who despatched him to Nigeria and put him accountable for SCOA Motors, an automotive manufacturing and distribution firm.

He met Trump at a White Home Christmas get together in 2019 after their kids began courting. The couple, who married in 2022 at Mar-a-Lago, predict their first baby — a grandchild of two billionaires.

Now, residents of Kfarakka joke that the Trump connection makes their humble village an important place in all of Lebanon.

“They’re instantly giving all of us visas to go to America,” mentioned Randa Saleh, a clerk in a ironmongery store on Kfarakka’s most important thoroughfare. “We’re within the precedence line now.”

Taking a extra severe tone, she mentioned Boulos must push for a cease-fire: “It’s sufficient struggle for Lebanon. We are able to’t deal with any extra.”

Her colleague Rami Bou Farah, 37, agreed: “As a son of Lebanon, he ought to do his finest to make issues higher. We don’t need this struggle. Nobody desires this struggle.”

He speculated that Boulos’ private reference to Trump would allow him to advocate for the nation’s pursuits with the incoming U.S. administration.

However Bou Farah’s uncle doubted that Boulos can be of a lot assist.

“One query: Which nation’s curiosity is a precedence for him, the united statesA. or Lebanon?” mentioned Emile Bou Farah, 55. “I feel he’ll work for the united statesA.’s sake earlier than that of Lebanon.”

He identified that though the household had helped Kfarakka with improvement initiatives up to now, Boulos himself had executed little. He mounted two unsuccessful bids to win a seat in Lebanon’s parliament in 2008 and 2019.

Tiffany Trump and her husband Michael Boulos leave the stage at a rally in Grand Rapids, Mich.

For his half, Boulos has been circumspect about what position he’ll play. He’s recognized to have good relations with Lebanon’s varied political events, and through the U.S. presidential marketing campaign, he helped ship a letter to Trump from Mahmoud Abbas, the chief of the Palestinian Authority.

Final week, the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed quoted Boulos as saying the Trump administration had tapped him to assist negotiate with Lebanon. He later denied the report, saying the community misquoted him.

In different interviews, he’s mentioned it’s too early to find out his place however that he’ll go to Lebanon within the coming weeks. In latest days, he met with plenty of Lebanese political leaders who visited him within the U.S.

No matter Boulos’ mandate, the prospects of a peace appear dim, at the very least to this point. Some Israeli officers say there was some progress in cease-fire talks, however the nation’s army leaders say they’re increasing their offensive deeper into Lebanon, and Israeli Protection Minister Israel Katz mentioned this week there can be “no cease-fire and there can be no respite [for Hezbollah] till the targets of the struggle are achieved.”

Hezbollah, in the meantime, is claimed to be mulling a cease-fire proposal relayed by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson to the Lebanese authorities, in line with media reviews on Friday.

Liliane Saliba, a housewife in Kfarakka who lives subsequent door to the Boulos household mansion, believes Boulos could make a distinction.

“We wish him to work on this shortly,” she mentioned.

“Look, they are saying that if Trump guarantees one thing, he comes via.”