Trump’s Gaza Board of Peace: Vision or mirage?

Donald Trump’s proposal for an international “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza’s post-war future is bold, headline-grabbing, and deeply problematic. While the idea aims to fill the governance vacuum that will emerge after the fighting subsides, its feasibility is questionable given regional politics, Israel’s red lines, and the hard lessons of past Middle Eastern experiments.

At the core of the plan is a multinational framework, reportedly involving regional and international actors, tasked with stabilizing Gaza, managing reconstruction, and preventing the return of Hamas. On paper, this responds to a real need: neither Israel nor the Palestinian Authority is eager or able to govern Gaza alone, and the international community is wary of an open-ended trusteeship. Yet the composition of such a board may ultimately determine whether it becomes a solution or another failure.

Israel’s clear objection to the participation of Turkey and Qatar is not a marginal detail; it strikes at the heart of the proposal. Both countries have maintained close political ties with Hamas over the years. Qatar has hosted Hamas leaders and provided financial assistance to Gaza, while Turkey has offered ideological and diplomatic backing. From Israel’s perspective, involving either state risks legitimizing Hamas indirectly and enabling it to survive politically, even if it is militarily weakened. No Israeli government, certainly not in the post-October 7 reality, can accept a framework that allows Hamas-friendly actors to shape Gaza’s future.

Equally telling is who is not at the table: Saudi Arabia. Riyadh’s absence is not accidental. The Kingdom has shown little appetite for taking responsibility for Gaza, a territory synonymous with intractable conflict, humanitarian crises, and political failure. More importantly, Saudi Arabia has no interest in being drawn into a project that could collapse and damage its regional standing. Unlike Egypt or Jordan, Gaza offers Riyadh no strategic depth, and unlike normalization with Israel, it offers no clear diplomatic upside. Without Saudi political weight and financial muscle, any international council will struggle to gain legitimacy in the Arab world.

Perhaps the most serious concern, however, is the risk of replicating the Lebanese model. In Lebanon, Hezbollah does not formally govern, yet it wields decisive power behind the scenes, militarily, politically, and socially, undermining the state and any international stabilization effort. A Gaza “Board of Peace” that focuses on surface-level governance while failing to dismantle Hamas’s networks could produce a similar outcome: Hamas absent from ministries, but present everywhere that matters. Such an arrangement would satisfy international optics while entrenching long-term instability and posing a renewed threat to Israel.

Trump’s instinct to think big is characteristic, and the idea of a regional mechanism is not inherently flawed. But without credible, neutral actors, without Saudi involvement, and without ironclad guarantees that Hamas will not retain shadow control, the Peace Board risks becoming another well-intentioned initiative that ignores Middle Eastern realities.

In Gaza, the danger is not chaos alone, it is managed chaos, where the old power survives under a new name. Any plan that fails to confront this truth is unlikely to bring peace.