“Board of Peace”: A mockery in the face of genocide against Palestine

Over four months into the (in reality, non-existent) “ceasefire” in Gaza, Israel continues its genocidal campaign to drive all Palestinians out of the strip. In spite of the near-disappearance of Palestine from daily news in the West—supplanted in the headlines by the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran and Lebanon—the Israeli murder machine continues to kill Palestinians. The Israeli invasion forces have slaughtered at least 586 Gazans since the beginning of the “ceasefire” last October; this is in addition to the (official number of) 72,000 dead since Oct. 7, 2023. As the Palestinian lawyer and human rights campaigner Diana Buttu points out, these figures are in reality a huge underestimate.

Israeli forces are also destroying Palestinian schools, homes, and buildings, along with confining Palestinians into shrinking areas inside the “yellow line” that Israel has implemented to cut into the pre-Oct. 7 Gaza boundary. Gazans also continue to experience a severe humanitarian crisis due to the Israeli blockade. With over 81 percent of buildings bombed and no clear plans for reconstruction, Gazans still live in tents and spend their days digging through rubble to find the dead.

Buttu also adds that over 9300 Palestinians are currently imprisoned in the West Bank, including 350 children, and 3300 held without charges. More than 1000 of these are hostages from Gaza, detained under harsh conditions, including 80 medical professionals. Exact numbers, however, are hard to come by as Israel withholds them.

“Board of Peace”

It is in this context that Trump and a handful of US clients inaugurated the “Board of Peace.” Those who agreed to join are exclusively either leaders of authoritarian states or right-wing politicians. Traditional U.S. allies, such as Western European nations, have thus far refused invitations. As Mouin Rabbani acidly put it, this mockery is presented in grand language but with no concrete details. For example, despite their public displays of sycophancy, none of Trump’s allies actually intend to send troops or financial support to Gaza. The BOP is nothing more than a “big shiny object” to celebrate Trump.

Politically, the BOP’s aims are twofold. First, the broader aim is for the Board challenge and ideally replace the United Nations and, in turn, create an instrument for Trump and his family to accumulate wealth and consolidate power beyond his presidency. Second, it is to shift attention on Gaza away from the reality of a political struggle for national self-determination to one framed as a “humanitarian crisis” solvable by aid and reeducation. In other words, this means erasing the settler colonial and genocidal reality.

The Board represents the “second phase” of the Trump Initiative for Gaza, following a “first phase” marked, as mentioned, by ongoing genocide, no ceasefire, worsening humanitarian crisis, a continued Israeli military presence in Gaza, and an accelerated West Bank colonization.

Erasure of Palestinians

No mention was made at the inauguration of any of these realities. To add insult to injury, the U.S., one of two main perpetrators of the genocide, invited Israel, the other perpetrator, as a founding member. At the same time, the Board has no Palestinian members. Instead, the Trump administration has established formal a two-way “communication” with the Palestinian Authority—a body lacking legitimacy and widely loathed by the Palestinian people.

What was conspicuously missing were any of the main Palestinian demands: Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the West Bank, respect for international resolutions on Palestine, and any mention of Palestinian rights to self-determination. Nothing about the Board limits Israel’s ability to resume mass violence at any time. The whole steaming mess is, indeed, worse than nothing. It is a clear example of Trump-MAGA’s larger project, to replace established international law with a “might makes right” paradigm.

Potemkin peace plan, bleak future for Palestinians

The Board envisions Gaza’s governance to be managed by the “National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG),” which is led by the so-called Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (CoGAT/BoP). This body is in reality under Israeli control, with, at most, limited Palestinian representation and no actual Palestinian power. The NCAG is under strict orders to avoid blaming Israel for ceasefire violations. It is part of the broader US – Israeli agenda to prevent any political or organizational revival in Gaza.

It also helps secure the ground for Kushner’s “master plan,” a redesigned Gaza with a coastal tourist strip and inland housing and industrial zones. Even this is probably fantastical. As discussed in a recent interview with Jewish Currents, former Clinton and Obama Middle East policy expert Robert Malley predicted that, under the Board’s vision, a normal life in Gaza would only be possible well into the 22nd century.

“Greater Israel” and “Western Civilization”

Days before this article went to the editorial team, the United States and Israel viciously attacked Iran in a bombing campaign all over the Middle Eastern country. Along with the depraved slaughter of young girls, teachers, and staff at a school—an unspeakable act of barbarity—the U.S.-Israeli campaign has killed the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, along with a number of leading government and military officials.

Barely more than a week after the inauguration ceremony of the Board of Peace, the attack on Iran exposed the truth behind all the words of praise for Trump. Like the Gaza genocide, the kidnapping of Maduro, and the escalating strangulation of Cuba, the bombing of Iran shows the true logic of the emerging “new Western century” about which Rubio—to a standing ovation—lectured the European leaders at last month’s Munich Security Conference.

Around the same time, Mike Huckabee, the leading U.S. diplomat in Israel, reiterated to the far-right influencer Tucker Carlson the U.S. view that Israel has a “Biblical right” to all the land between the Nile and Euphrates Rivers—“Greater Israel.” “Let that sink in,” writes the political scientist and Middle East specialist Trita Parsi. “Huckabee wants Israel to annex parts of Egypt, Turkey, Saudi, and Iraq, as well as all of Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria.”

Gaza was the first act. We are now firmly in the middle of the play: “The new Western Century” is one in which nuclear-armed Western powers no longer make any pretense to legality of the previous imperialist “rules-based order.” The U.S. and Israel, the world’s leading far-right powers, are not the only ones to blame. All of the major Western powers—from the UK to Germany to France and Italy, and a good number of non-Western ones too, principally Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries—are complicit. Now, all working-class and oppressed peoples of the world—our planet’s vast majority—are on notice: You either submit to the U.S. and Israel, or you will be annihilated.

The blood-soaked death machine of U.S. imperialism is more open than ever in showing us the future it has in store for all of us—workers, the young, oppressed communities, and anyone who rejects fascism and slavery. It is past time to unite as broad a mass movement a possible to fight and resist this future.

First published here by Workers’ Voice

Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa / AFP