US President Donald Trump’s so-called Board of Peace is not a peace initiative.
It is a permanent concentration of power designed to legitimise dispossession, commercialise destruction, and convert grave breaches of international law into a branded property development project.
By appointing himself chairperson for life and granting himself the authority to select his own successor, Trump has constructed a self-perpetuating body devoid of democratic mandate, legal accountability, or international legitimacy.
The central objective of the Board of Peace is to advance Trump’s openly stated ambition to transform Gaza into a high-tech luxury destination, the so-called “Gaza Riviera”.
This framing reduces the reconstruction of a devastated territory with a right to Palestinian statehood to a real estate transaction.
It treats land as an asset to be monetised and people as variables to be managed, while Palestinian rights, consent, and sovereignty are excluded entirely from the equation.
Under this model, Gaza’s future is engineered not for its inhabitants but for the global wealthy.
Profitting from Palestinians’ plight
Palestinians are positioned as a disposable labour force, while Trump, his associates, and aligned investors are poised to own, control, and profit from land, infrastructure, and economic activity.
The public pitch by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, at Davos made this vision explicit: private development without Palestinian ownership, growth without rights, and reconstruction without self-determination.
Such a framework mirrors historical patterns of colonial economic domination and violates the core principles of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The Board of Peace further seeks to launder illegality through institutional endorsement.
And the decision by members of the United Nations Security Council to endorse this body represents a profound failure of legal responsibility.
No political forum has the authority to legitimise land acquisition by force, collective punishment, or the permanent exclusion of an occupied population from decisions governing its territory.
Endorsement does not confer legality, and repetition does not transform unlawful acts into lawful outcomes.
Legalising land seizure
The board’s true function is to normalise and legalise land seizure under the language of peace and development.
This is not conflict resolution; it is rebranding.
It attempts to convert violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force, and the right of peoples to self-determination into greedy investment opportunities protected by political power.
Participation by certain states in the Board of Peace has been perceived to be secured through economic coercion, including threats of punitive tariffs.
Consent obtained through pressure and retaliation is not consent - it is compulsion.
Any process built on coercion further undermines the claim that this body represents a legitimate or voluntary international effort.
Notably, the Board of Peace was conceived, negotiated, and announced without the presence, knowledge, or consent of Palestinian political representatives, civil society, or affected communities.
Decisions about Gaza’s land, economy, and future were made in rooms where Palestinians were deliberately left out.
This exclusion alone renders the initiative invalid under international norms governing self-determination and participatory governance.
While the board speaks abstractly of “development”, it has failed to address the immediate and catastrophic realities on the ground.
Moral inversion
Gaza’s population faces continuing insecurity, severe shortages of food, medicines, clean water, sanitation, and access to education.
Any initiative that prioritises luxury infrastructure and speculative investment while ignoring mass deprivation and humanitarian collapse is not a peace plan - it is a moral inversion.
Peace cannot be imposed through ownership structures, enforced silence, or economic dependency.
It cannot be chaired for life, inherited by appointment, or traded for market access.
Genuine peace requires justice, accountability, and the full recognition of Palestinian rights under international law.
And we categorically reject Trump’s Board of Peace as illegitimate, unlawful, and dangerous.
The international community must refuse to participate in schemes that disguise dispossession as development and exploitation as peace.
Anything less is complicity.
The statement is also endorsed by Third World Network executive director Chee Yoke Ling, Pure Hands Malaysia chairperson Adandi Saleh, Malaysian Humanitarian Aid and Relief president Jismi Johari, Sahabat Alam Malaysia president Meenakshi Raman, and Consumers' Association of Penang president Mohideen Abdul Kader. - Mkini
The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.
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