Gaza today is not emerging from conflict; it is still being crushed by its consequences. Entire neighbourhoods have been erased, civilians displaced en masse, famine conditions allowed to fester, and allegations of international crimes hang unresolved over the ruins. Any serious discussion of Gaza’s future would begin with ceasefire, accountability, and the restoration of Palestinian political agency. Trump’s board begins elsewhere. It begins with money, authority, and control.
The structure of the proposal is revealing. Membership is tiered by financial contribution. Terms are renewable not by collective review or international mandate, but at the discretion of a chairman. Palestinians are not named as partners, decision-makers, or even formal participants. Gaza is spoken of as a space to be stabilised, administered, and rebuilt, but never as a society entitled to determine its own future. This is governance without consent, authority without accountability, and peace without people.
The demand for a billion-dollar buy-in is not incidental. It signals that this is not a short-term humanitarian mechanism but a long-haul enterprise. Reconstruction contracts, security arrangements, infrastructure corridors, ports, surveillance systems, and resource access all sit just beneath the surface of the charter’s polite language. Destruction becomes opportunity. Suffering becomes leverage. Peace becomes a balance sheet. What is being proposed is disaster capitalism, repackaged as international benevolence.
Equally striking is what the charter avoids. There is no anchoring in international law, no reference to the Fourth Geneva Convention, no acknowledgement of United Nations General Assembly resolutions affirming Palestinian self-determination, no deference to the International Court of Justice or its provisional measures. The United Nations Security Council is conspicuously absent. This omission is deliberate. A UN-mandated framework would impose legal obligations, transparency, and limits on power. Trump’s board seeks freedom from all three.
By bypassing the UN system, Washington is not merely streamlining diplomacy; it is insulating itself and its partners from scrutiny. The board creates a parallel structure—global in funding, narrow in control, and opaque in responsibility. If it fails politically, blame can be diffused. If it succeeds commercially, credit and influence remain tightly held.
The global invitation list deepens the deception. Dozens of countries are being asked to participate not as equal architects of peace but as financiers and legitimising accessories. Arab states, in particular, face a moral crossroads. To underwrite a board that excludes Palestinians and postpones sovereignty is not neutrality; it is collaboration in political erasure. Writing cheques while Gaza is denied self-rule does not rebuild dignity—it formalises dispossession.
For the Global South, the implications reach far beyond Palestine. This model establishes a precedent in which devastated territories can be internationalised without consent, managed by elite boards, and financed by many while controlled by few. It is a rehearsal for future interventions where law is inconvenient, democracy is delayed, and markets move faster than rights.
History offers no comfort here. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Haiti to Kosovo, externally managed post-conflict arrangements have promised stability and delivered dependency. Gaza’s proposed fate is even more bleak: an indefinite holding pattern where occupation dissolves into administration, responsibility evaporates, and sovereignty is perpetually deferred. A place neither free nor formally occupied, governed by committees rather than citizens.
The greatest danger of the Board of Peace lies in its moral hazard. By separating reconstruction from accountability, it teaches the world that mass destruction can be condemned rhetorically and rewarded practically. By rebuilding without restitution, it prepares the ground for repetition. Stability imposed without justice does not end violence; it reorganises it.
True peace in Gaza cannot be bought, chaired, or outsourced. It begins with an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unrestricted humanitarian access, and the lifting of a siege that has turned an entire population into hostages. It requires accountability for crimes committed, not amnesty through bureaucracy. It demands Palestinian leadership in rebuilding Palestinian life, supported by international law rather than foreign discretion.
Refusing Trump’s board is not obstructionism. It is the minimum ethical response to an unethical proposal. States that genuinely seek peace must reject participation in schemes that monetise suffering and instead insist on law-based, UN-led processes rooted in self-determination. Anything less is not peace-building. It is memory erasure, administered politely and paid for generously.
Gaza does not need a board of directors. It does not need a chairman deciding its future in renewable terms. It needs justice, sovereignty, and the restoration of human dignity—none of which can be purchased for a billion dollars.
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