President-elect Donald J. Trump announced on Sunday that he would name Massad Boulos, a Lebanese American businessman and the father-in-law of his daughter Tiffany, as a senior adviser covering Arab and Middle Eastern affairs.
It was the second time this weekend that Mr. Trump offered a position in his administration to an in-law, coming one day after he tapped Charles Kushner, his daughter Ivanka’s father-in-law, to serve as ambassador to France.
In an announcement that did not mention the family connection, Mr. Trump praised Mr. Boulos’s business experience and his contributions to his presidential campaign.
“Massad is an accomplished lawyer and a highly respected leader in the business world, with extensive experience on the International scene,” Mr. Trump said on social media. “He has been a longtime proponent of Republican and Conservative values, an asset to my Campaign, and was instrumental in building tremendous new coalitions with the Arab American Community.”
Before the election last month, Mr. Boulos played a major unofficial role in the Trump campaign, courting Arab American voters who Republican strategists hoped would support Mr. Trump out of frustration with President Biden’s support for Israel. Despite Mr. Trump’s own defiantly pro-Israel policies during his first term as president, Mr. Boulos worked to build support for him in heavily Arab American and Muslim corners of Michigan.
Through his connection to the Trump family, Mr. Boulos has already served as something of an informal liaison between Mr. Trump and Middle Eastern leaders. In September, Mr. Boulos met with Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. He also helped deliver a letter from Mr. Abbas to Mr. Trump in July, in which Mr. Abbas wished Mr. Trump well after an attempted assassination that month.
While Mr. Boulos has offered few details publicly about how he would approach such an expansive role in the White House, the position could prove influential. The incoming Trump administration could be faced with maintaining a cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon, managing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza caused by more than a year of war between Israel and Hamas and dealing with sudden instability in Syria after rebel forces made startling gains this weekend.
As president, Mr. Trump put forth a number of disruptive policies favoring Israel that often alienated other Middle Eastern leaders. He recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and moved the U.S. embassy there, cut aid to the United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees and proposed a number of agreements between Israel and Arab states that left out provisions aimed at securing Palestinian statehood.
Mr. Boulos’s political connections to leaders in Lebanon are also somewhat murky. According to reporting by The Associated Press and several Lebanese outlets, Mr. Boulos sought a seat in Lebanon’s parliament in 2009 and described himself as a “friend” of a Lebanese presidential candidate who had received support from the militant group Hezbollah.
Mr. Boulos has more recently denied running for parliament in Lebanon or being affiliated with any political party there, according to reporting by Newsweek.
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