By He was Donald Trump’s man in the room as the ceasefire and hostage release deal was forged between Israel and Hamas, but Steve Witkoff is no diplomat despite his appointment as the president-elect’s special envoy to the Middle East.
Instead, he brought to the negotiating table decades of experience clinching some of New York’s biggest real estate deals, as well as opening up about his very personal loss during the arduous talks.
Born in the Bronx, the billionaire real estate developer could hardly have a more different profile from those of the American diplomats who usually craft complicated international agreements. Witkoff, 67, was raised in Long Island and trained as a real estate lawyer before charting a path in the rough-and-tumble world of New York real estate development.
He has known Trump for decades, is a Republican donor and served on one of Trump’s Great American Economic Revival Industry Groups to combat the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. He’s also going to be one of the speakers at Trump’s pre-inauguration rally Sunday, alongside Hulk Hogan, Megyn Kelly, Elon Musk and others.
Steve Witkoff with President-elect Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Jan. 7.Carlos Barria / Reuters
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani made a clear reference to Witkoff, who is Jewish and has done business throughout the Middle East, during a Wednesday press conference confirming that a Hamas-Israel ceasefire deal had been reached.
“What we have seen from the U.S. in the past few days, seeing a collaboration transcending both administrations, was a clear demonstration for the commitment of the U.S. to reach to that deal,” Sheikh Mohammed, a key mediator in the talks, told the crowd of reporters and dignitaries, which included Witkoff himself. “And I really would like to thank both the envoys who are here with us in the last couple of days, and they played a vital role in reaching to this moment.”
A senior administration official close to the negotiations also told NBC News that Witkoff had been “very helpful, in particular ironing out a couple of issues” on the “very complex deal.” They added that he had been “working seamlessly” on the effort with Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa.
“I have to say, Brett McGurk has been very fortunate to have been joined in these last 96 hours by Steve Witkoff” in what “has really been a historic and crucial partnership between the two of them to help nail down some of the final arrangements,” the official said.
Witkoff brought “a new energy and a new dynamic” to the table, a person familiar with the negotiations said in a separate interview before the deal was announced. “He’s very much engaged and his heart is in the right place.”
A Middle Eastern diplomat who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity said Witkoff, as well as being a tough negotiator, talked about his son Andrew, who died of an OxyContin overdose in 2011 at age 22, telling “officials he empathizes with parents who have lost children on both sides.”
Neither Witkoff nor his office responded to requests for comment on this story.
