Albania is on fire as rioting mobsters and leftists say the country has been sold to the Jews

For the past six months, Albania has been the site of intense anti-government protests.Last month, the largely peaceful demonstrations in this tiny Balkan country of 2.7 million people turned violent.

Now every evening the main boulevard in Tirana, the capital, resembles an urban combat zone as young protesters, mostly student-led protesters, clash with riot police.The police fire tear gas and rubber bullets; the protesters hurl Molotov cocktails and stones.

Central Tirana displays the scars of these confrontations — shattered glass, broken windows, vandalized public property, wrecked kiosks.The protest began as a reaction against a luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner.But it has since grown into something approaching an insurgency against the government of Prime Minister Edi Rama.

The grievances that fed the unrest are real: corruption, substandard public services and the fear that Albania’s natural patrimony is being sacrificed to politically connected investors.But they are increasingly being hijacked by something sinister.The seed for the mayhem was planted during a yachting holiday in the summer of 2021, when Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner visited Sazan, a former military island at the entrance to the Bay of Vlore in southern Albania.

“Captivated” by the island, they proposed developing it into a luxury resort.  The complication: Sazan is state-owned and environmentally sensitive, while the nearby area of Zvernac contains protected wetlands rich in wildlife.The Kushners met Rama on the yacht one evening.The project then acquired shape and speed: A pair of Qatar-based billionaires offered initial financing for the $4.4 billion enterprise; the government designated Kushner’s firm a strategic investor, and in March approved a development permit.

The title to the land in Zvernec was purchased from an Albanian expat in Miami with a dubious reputation.The Albanian government, hungry for investment, fast-tracked preliminary permissions.”Thi...