The UN Security Council endorsed the creation of a US-led Board of Peace for Gaza largely out of urgency to stop the conflict, but analysts are sceptical President Donald Trump’s initiative will ensure a final end to the war.
The board, which on Thursday convenes in Washington and is chaired by US President Donald Trump, was initially conceived as a mechanism to oversee a ceasefire in Gaza and co-ordinate the enclave’s reconstruction after the war between Israel and Hamas. It grew out of Mr Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan, which the Security Council endorsed with a two-year mandate in November last year.
Mr Trump has suggested the Board of Peace “might” one day replace the UN, raising a question about whether the Security Council is experiencing any buyer’s remorse after throwing its weight behind it.
The board will “go far beyond Gaza, I think it will be peace all over the world,” the President told reporters on Monday.
“We are working in conjunction with the United Nations. The United Nations is there, they haven't lived to [their] potential”.
'Our way or the highway'
From the outset, the proposal exposed deep divisions among allies and unease within the UN system, with some member states worried that Washington was building a parallel diplomatic structure that could sideline the UN.
Michael Hanna, US programme director at the International Crisis Group, said France and the UK initially tried to amend Washington's draft resolution creating the Board of Peace – but the Arab Group at the UN was reluctant to push back, fearing it could not afford to alienate the US.
The Arab Group was under a lot of pressure and had no other option, Mr Hanna told The National. Arab countries believed Mr Trump was the only leader with enough leverage over Israel to halt the war in Gaza. According to Mr Hanna, US officials made it clear that the proposal was not open to significant renegotiation.
US Ambassador to the UN “Mike Waltz told them it was our way or the highway,” he said. A senior UN official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said many diplomats concluded there were few realistic alternatives. “The view was that Mr Trump was the only one who could stop the war in Gaza,” the official said. “It’s not like we had a big choice.”
Max Rodenbeck, who oversees the International Crisis Group’s work on Israel and Palestine, described the Security Council’s endorsement as “technically wrong, but probably a necessity”. Still, he warned that the board’s chances of long-term success “are not good”, and that failure in Gaza could undermine the body’s survival beyond Mr Trump’s presidency.
'Clumsy' and 'limited'
At the Munich Security Conference last week, Mr Waltz said the board would have “flexibility” to address other international crises if requested, suggesting it could “tackle other problems” beyond Gaza.
That prospect has heightened concerns among diplomats, especially the Europeans, that the initiative could evolve into a rival forum to the UN itself, one shaped primarily by American leadership rather than multilateral consensus. The four other veto-wielding members of the Council – China, France, Russia and Britain – have declined to join the initiative. About two dozen countries, including the UAE, have joined the Board of Peace.
Last month, China’s ambassador to the UN, Fu Cong, warned against bypassing the world body. “We shall not cherry-pick our commitments to the organisation, nor shall we bypass the UN and create alternative mechanisms,” he told Council members.
Greece, a current non-permanent member of the Council, declined an invitation to participate because the initiative “goes way beyond” the mandate originally endorsed by the Security Council, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in an interview with Euronews.
“What has been established is something in which most European countries can’t join,” he said, adding that the US should play a role in Gaza’s redevelopment, but “only for a limited amount of time”. Analysts say that hesitation reflects not only legal concerns but also uncertainty about how the board would function in practice.
“I am not sure who will buy into such a clumsy mechanism,” Mr Rodenbeck said. “In Gaza there was a commonly felt desperation to stop the war.” So far, he added, the board has produced only what he called a “shaky, partial ceasefire” and an “American-dominated mechanism” that may struggle to deliver lasting peace.
