Donald Trump’s so called ‘Board of Peace’ is a blatant declaration of intent to complete the colonisation of Gaza after Netanyahu’s genocidal war. This military-financial dictatorship in Gaza goes hand in hand with the expansion of settler violence and land grabs in the West Bank. US imperialism is legitimising the destruction of the Palestinian people’s last territories in their historic homeland by the racist Israeli state.
On 18 November the UN passed Resolution 2803 13-0 (China and Russia abstained), which allowed the forming of a ‘Board of Peace’. The text of the resolution and the conversations leading up to the vote were all about the conflict but the outline which emerged was far from what the UN agreed. It handed control of Gaza to Trump’s ‘board’ for 2 years, in absolute violation of the Palestinian’s right of self-determination.
While the UN had hoped it would be a body which would end Israel’s genocidal war on Palestine and mediate for the Palestinians, in reality they backed a Trump-run pay-to-play club with aims of supplanting the UN itself. In the usual self-promotion, Trump boasted the board will ‘present a bold Vision for the Civilians in Gaza, and then, ultimately, far beyond Gaza – WORLD PEACE!’ on his Truth Social platform.
Even though the original mandate called for the board to aid the 2.2 million Palestinians forcibly displaced by Israeli forces, its charter makes no mention of Gaza. It instead touts the board as a permanent body to promote peace around the world, aiming to take a ‘pragmatic’ and ‘results-oriented’ approach to international peacekeeping with the ‘courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed’.
There is little doubt that it’s referring to the UN which Trump considers an anti-American irrelevance. When directly asked whether he wants his new Board of Peace to replace the United Nations, Trump said, ‘It might… The UN just hasn’t been very helpful.’ In an unheard-of gesture of contempt, Trump has ordered that the First Lady, his wife Melania Trump, will preside over the first UN security council meeting in the US.
Occupation by another name
One vital part of the ‘peace plan’ is the use of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) in Gaza. This unaccountable mercenary army under US command will enforce ‘demilitarisation’, disarming Palestinian resistance. A handpicked ‘technocratic’ Palestinian committee called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) led by Palestinian Authority collaborators like Ali Shaath, will provide a fig leaf of legitimacy while administering Gaza under the boot of this force.
At the board’s inaugural meeting on 19 February it was announced that 12,000 police and 20,000 ISF soldiers, coming from Albania, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Morocco, will be deployed in Rafah. Reports that Israel is preparing a ‘humanitarian city’ in Rafah are just plans for a concentration camp, a ghetto to permanently imprison Gaza’s population. This is the ‘durable environment’ Trump’s board envisions.
Besides using the “peace” meeting to threaten Iran, Trump announced that the US has pledged $10bn, with 9 member states pledging $7bn to the ‘rebuilding of Gaza’. However, this remains far below the UN estimates of up to $70bn needed for the rebuilding of the Palestinian territory destroyed by nonstop Israeli bombardment during more than two years of war.
The charter immortalises Trump, mentioned by name 35 times in the document, as the board’s permanent chairman. This allows him to select and terminate all other members as well as his successor, decides what the board discusses and when it meets, and even issue resolutions without any other board member’s approval. Since Trump is named in a personal capacity, not tied to his presidency, he can continue in this role for as long as he wants.
War Pigs
Around 60 countries received invitations to join the board but only 24 countries have accepted. If you want to be a permanent member you must pay $1bn into a fund controlled by Trump, who no doubt use the funds to reward friends and family with contracts. Each country serves a three year term which can be renewed or revoked at his discretion regardless of the $1bn payment.
The countries that have joined are ruled by regimes with some of the worst track records for human and democratic rights in the world. Argentina, ruled by the hard right populist Milei who is currently cracking down on workers with his hugely unpopular labour reform joins a list of regional regimes favoured by Trump in the region (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Turkey, Bahrain and the UAE) as well as Pakistan, El Salvador and Hungary. The genocidaire Netanyahu of course has a seat at the table.
The Board’s leading organs, the ‘Board of Peace Executive Board’ and the ‘Gaza Executive Board’ are a cabal of Trumpist cronies: Zionist zealots Jared Kushner and Marco Rubio, bloodstained war criminal Tony Blair, and vulture capitalist Marc Rowan to name a few. Ex UN special co-ordinator for the Middle East Nikolay Mladenov gives the board a veneer of legitimacy as the ‘High Representative for Gaza’ and link between the boards and the NCAG.
Notably absent are the US’s traditional allies, Canada, the UK, France, Australia, Germany and Spain, a sign of the wider shift which has occurred in international relations. The board represents Trump’s fundamental realignment of US foreign policy, as he draws the US away from international institutions it has traditionally dominated such as the UN and NATO, rips up international treaties and imposes tariffs on its longstanding allies. The militarised ‘board of peace’ controlled by Trump goes hand in hand with his recent attacks on Iran and Venezuela.
The United Nations has once again proven itself a tool of the powerful, to be used or set aside by US empire, its protocols useless. There is no reform of this project possible. This ‘Board’ is the enemy of the Palestinian people and of democracy and rights everywhere. It is a weapon of the US state and finance capital, working to secure Israel, whose arms guarantee the region’s rotten order.
We must build mass resistance internationally, and organise mass protests against collaboration with this ‘Board’, occupation and Israel’s ethnic cleansing, deepening the movement here by organising for workers sanctions modelled on the actions by dockers blacking Israeli ships from South Africa to Italy. We must support the working class and youth in the Middle East struggling against imperialism and their own collaborationist bourgeoisies.
We fight for a socialist federation of the Middle East, overthrowing the capitalist states and borders that sustain this cycle of war and oppression. Ultimately, only the independent, revolutionary mobilisation of the global working class, in solidarity with the oppressed, can smash the imperialist war machine.
For the right of the Palestinian people to defend themselves! For the dissolution of the collaborationist Palestinian Authority! For a free, secular socialist Palestine from the river to the sea!
