American global power has never been exercised solely through military force. Equally central to its dominance has been the ability to design, redesign, and selectively bypass international systems of governance. From institutions and coalitions to doctrines and diplomatic frameworks, the United States has repeatedly demonstrated that when the rules of the global order no longer serve its interests, those rules can be revised-or replaced entirely. It is within this historical continuum that US President Donald Trump’s proposed “Board of Peace” must be understood.

Announced at the World Economic Forum in Davos with characteristic bravado, Trump presented the Board of Peace as a revolutionary instrument for conflict resolution, postwar reconstruction, and global stabilization. Framed as a neutral, elite-driven body capable of cutting through bureaucratic paralysis, the initiative was marketed as evidence of America’s enduring leadership in the pursuit of peace. Gaza, devastated by Israel’s military campaign, was positioned as the Board’s first major test case.

Many commentators were quick to dismiss the proposal as another idiosyncratic Trump spectacle-an impulsive, ego-driven invention untethered from established foreign policy traditions. Such interpretations, however, mistake style for substance. Trump’s rhetoric may be unusually theatrical, but the political logic underpinning the Board of Peace is deeply familiar. Far from being an aberration, it represents a continuation-and intensification-of long-standing American practices of political control.

At Davos, Trump reiterated a set of claims that have become central to his political identity: that he has ended wars, brokered historic peace deals, and restored global order through sheer force of will. These assertions are demonstrably false, yet they serve an important ideological function. They reinforce the myth of American indispensability-the idea that peace is not the result of international law, collective accountability, or local agency, but of US intervention guided by enlightened leadership.

The Board of Peace, in this sense, is not simply an institution. It is a narrative device. It constructs the United States as the world’s natural custodian, uniquely qualified to manage crises it often helped create. Nowhere is this contradiction more apparent than in Gaza.

Marketed as a mechanism to oversee reconstruction following Israel’s devastating assault, the Board of Peace conspicuously excludes Palestinians themselves. Neither Gazans nor legitimate Palestinian representatives are included in its structure or decision-making process. This exclusion is not accidental; it reflects a broader pattern in US-led initiatives concerning Palestine, where Palestinian agency is routinely marginalized in favor of externally imposed “solutions.”

Even more striking is the moral inversion at the heart of the proposal. The destruction of Gaza did not occur in a political vacuum. It was enabled by decades of US military aid to Israel, diplomatic shielding at the United Nations, and systematic obstruction of accountability mechanisms. Washington did not merely fail to prevent the catastrophe-it actively facilitated it. For the same power to now position itself as Gaza’s overseer is not an act of benevolence, but of political audacity.

The question, then, is not whether the Board of Peace will bring peace. It will not. The more relevant question is why it exists at all. The answer lies in power consolidation rather than humanitarian concern.

Gaza’s devastation is being instrumentalized as an opportunity to reshape political realities. Under the guise of reconstruction and stabilization, the United States is attempting to establish a parallel governance framework-one that operates outside international law, bypasses the United Nations, and redefines legitimacy according to American preferences. This is not reconstruction; it is reengineering.

Such strategies are not new. They are consistent with what journalist Naomi Klein famously described in The Shock Doctrine. Klein argues that moments of collective trauma—whether wars, economic collapses, or natural disasters-are routinely exploited by political elites to impose radical policies that would otherwise face resistance. Gaza, reduced to rubble and stripped of basic infrastructure, now finds itself subjected to this logic.

Rather than empowering existing institutions capable of delivering justice and reconstruction, the Board of Peace discards them entirely. The United Nations, international humanitarian law, and established relief agencies are sidelined in favor of an improvised structure designed in Washington. The Palestinians themselves-those most affected and most invested in Gaza’s future-are rendered passive objects of policy rather than active agents of their own recovery.

This approach resurrects a deeply colonial mode of governance. It echoes earlier eras in which Western powers unilaterally determined the fate of Palestine, operating under racist assumptions about the incapacity of its people to govern themselves. These assumptions, embedded in mandates and protectorates, laid the foundation for a century of dispossession, violence, and instability.

Trump’s Board of Peace simply updates this logic for the twenty-first century. It replaces colonial administrators with global elites, military occupation with “post-conflict management,” and imperial rhetoric with the language of peace and efficiency. The substance, however, remains unchanged.

Crucially, this initiative cannot be understood as uniquely Trumpian. American history is replete with examples of institutional engineering designed to preserve US dominance. Even the United Nations-often cited as the pinnacle of multilateral cooperation-was crafted to ensure American supremacy. President Franklin D. Roosevelt insisted on a Security Council structure that granted veto power to the major victors of World War II, thereby institutionalizing inequality and ensuring US influence over global decision-making.

When the UN has resisted US objectives, it has been swiftly undermined. The 2003 invasion of Iraq remains the most glaring example. After failing to secure Security Council authorization, the George W. Bush administration dismissed the UN as irrelevant and assembled a self-selected “coalition of the willing.” The resulting war devastated Iraq, destabilized the region, and produced consequences that continue to shape global politics.

Palestine has long been subjected to similar experiments. The Quartet on the Middle East, established in 2002, was promoted as a diplomatic framework for peace. In practice, it functioned as a US-dominated mechanism that shielded Israel from accountability, marginalized Palestinian voices, and subordinated international law to political expediency. Its failure was not incidental; it was structural.

The pattern is unmistakable. When existing institutions fail to deliver outcomes favorable to US interests, new frameworks are invented. These structures are presented as pragmatic solutions, but they serve primarily to reassert control and circumvent legal constraints. Trump’s Board of Peace fits seamlessly into this tradition.

History suggests that the Board of Peace is unlikely to endure. Like many such initiatives, it will probably collapse under the weight of its own contradictions, lack of legitimacy, and absence of meaningful local participation. However, its transient nature does not diminish the harm it may cause. By diverting attention from accountability and international law, it risks further entrenching injustice and delaying genuine reconstruction.

What is perhaps most troubling is that the United States continues to be granted extraordinary latitude to experiment with the futures of entire peoples, even as its moral authority erodes. This permissiveness reflects not American strength, but the fragility of a global order unwilling to enforce its own principles consistently.

Yet resignation is not inevitable. International law, though weakened, still exists. Humanitarian institutions, though constrained, remain vital. And the Palestinian people, despite decades of dispossession and violence, continue to assert their right to self-determination.

Gaza does not need a Board of Peace conceived in Davos and controlled from Washington. It needs justice, reconstruction rooted in international law, and the restoration of Palestinian political agency. Peace cannot be imposed from above, nor engineered through exclusive clubs of power.

Palestine, the Middle East, and the world deserve more than another illusion of peace built on the foundations of control.

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The post Trump’s ‘Board of Peace’: Power, illusion, and the long tradition of American political engineering appeared first on BLiTZ.

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Source: Weekly Blitz :: Writings