This Lebanese American billionaire and Trump are in-laws. Will that help bring peace to Lebanon?
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KFARAKKA, Lebanon — In normal times, you’d rarely hear of Kfarakka, a hamlet nestled in the lush green mountains of north Lebanon whose primary claim to fame is that it’s the country’s top olive oil producer.
These are not normal times.
Hoping for an end to the devastating war with Israel, many Lebanese have turned to this village of some 3,500 people and its most famous son, a Lebanese American billionaire named Massad Boulos who has a direct family line to President-elect Donald Trump and is being talked about as a likely pick for his envoy to Lebanon.
Boulos’ son Michael is married to Trump’s daughter Tiffany, and during the U.S. election campaign Boulos served as Trump’s unofficial representative to Arab and Muslim American communities.
His job was to help them forget the ban on visitors from certain Muslim-majority countries during Trump’s first presidency and — capitalizing on disenchantment with the Biden administration for backing Israel in the wars in Gaza and Lebanon — persuade them that Trump can deliver peace in the Middle East.
“Trump will be a strong president,” Boulos said in an October interview with Saudi broadcaster Al-Arabiya. “He’s the only president who can achieve peace [in Lebanon] and a permanent solution to the Palestinian problem.”
He promised that if Trump won, he would work to end the wars immediately, even before he took office.
For those determined to stay out of the fight between Hezbollah and Israel, the war in Lebanon can feel at a remove.
It’s unclear what role the charm offensive may have played, but in Dearborn, Mich. — where more than half the population is of Arab descent, the largest share in any city — 43% of the vote went to Trump and 36% to Vice President Kamala Harris. Green Party candidate Jill Stein won 18% — a share many times the less than 1% she received nationally and a possible sign that many Arab American voters found little to like about either major candidate when it comes to Middle East policy.
The common belief among Lebanese is that Boulos can push Trump to end the war, which began on Oct. 8, 2023 — a day after Hamas militants killed 1,200 people in southern Israel — when Hezbollah launched what it described as a “solidarity campaign” with Gaza and began firing rockets into Israel. For the next year, Israel focused its military on Gaza, where the death toll has reached nearly 44,000.
Then this October it invaded Lebanon with the stated aim of destroying Hezbollah. Israeli bombardment has ravaged large swaths of the country, killed almost 3,300 people and displaced a quarter of the population.
Thrust into the limelight by a confluence of nuptial relations and the U.S. election result, Boulos has become a conversation topic across the region on social media and television talk shows.
“Will the in-law come to help and support Lebanon and the Lebanese?” said Tony Khalifa, a popular television host and general manager of Al-Mashhad, a pan-Arab news platform based in Dubai, in the opening segment of his show this week.
“Everyone is hoping Trump’s in-law and Trump will rescue Lebanon from the furnace of Israel’s fire and iron.”
In Kfarakka, where every road seems to lead to an olive press, the Boulos family has long been held in high regard: Massad’s father, Fares, served as mayor until his death in 2011, and a plaque honoring him is mounted above the entrance of the village‘s municipal building.
Massad, who grew up during Lebanon’s long civil war, hasn’t lived here since he was 18, when he finished high school and moved to the United States and earned an international law degree at the University of Houston.
His life, though, took a new turn when he married the daughter of a Lebanese business tycoon who sent him to Nigeria and put him in charge of SCOA Motors, an automotive manufacturing and distribution company.
He met Trump at a White House Christmas party in 2019 after their children started dating. The couple, who married in 2022 at Mar-a-Lago, are expecting their first child — a grandchild of two billionaires.
Now, residents of Kfarakka joke that the Trump connection makes their humble village the most important place in all of Lebanon.
“They’re immediately giving all of us visas to go to America,” said Randa Saleh, a clerk in a hardware store on Kfarakka’s main thoroughfare. “We’re in the priority line now.”
As Israeli airstrikes flatten swaths of Lebanon, groups warn the attacks mirror some of the patterns of destruction and displacement seen in Gaza.
Taking a more serious tone, she said Boulos needs to push for a cease-fire: “It’s enough war for Lebanon. We can’t handle any more.”
Her colleague Rami Bou Farah, 37, agreed: “As a son of Lebanon, he should do his best to make things better. We don’t want this war. No one wants this war.”
He speculated that Boulos’ personal connection with Trump would enable him to advocate for the country’s interests with the incoming U.S. administration.
But Bou Farah’s uncle doubted that Boulos would be of much help.
“One question: Which country’s interest is a priority for him, the U.S.A. or Lebanon?” said Emile Bou Farah, 55. “I think he’ll work for the U.S.A.’s sake before that of Lebanon.”
He pointed out that although the family had helped Kfarakka with development projects in the past, Boulos himself had done little. He mounted two unsuccessful bids to win a seat in Lebanon’s parliament in 2008 and 2019.
For his part, Boulos has been circumspect about what role he will play. He is known to have good relations with Lebanon’s various political parties, and during the U.S. presidential campaign, he helped deliver a letter to Trump from Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority.
Last week, the Lebanese broadcaster Al-Jadeed quoted Boulos as saying the Trump administration had tapped him to help negotiate with Lebanon. He later denied the report, saying the network misquoted him.
In other interviews, he’s said it’s too early to determine his position but that he will visit Lebanon in the coming weeks. In recent days, he met with a number of Lebanese political leaders who visited him in the U.S.
Regardless of Boulos’ mandate, the prospects of a peace seem dim, at least so far. Some Israeli officials say there has been some progress in cease-fire talks, but the country’s military leaders say they are expanding their offensive deeper into Lebanon, and Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said this week there would be “no cease-fire and there will be no respite [for Hezbollah] until the goals of the war are achieved.”
Hezbollah, meanwhile, is said to be mulling a cease-fire proposal relayed by U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Lisa Johnson to the Lebanese government, according to media reports on Friday.
Liliane Saliba, a housewife in Kfarakka who lives next door to the Boulos family mansion, believes Boulos can make a difference.
“We want him to work on this quickly,” she said.
“Look, they say that if Trump promises something, he comes through.”
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