Is Trump’s peace board a new UN or a gang of friends? | World News

When it was announced, four months ago, the idea of a Board of Peace seemed wholly entwined with the future of Gaza.

Since then, things have changed.

Now, the board has taken on a more expansive view.

Perhaps it was always planned like that, but in Davos its ambitions became more overt, its scope much wider and its pace more pressing.

The message: yes, Gaza, but also yes, everything else.

On Gaza, the tentacles of the Trump peace plan are certainly spreading.

As the board members gathered for the first time, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law who doubles as Trump’s roving deal-making diplomat, delivered a short PowerPoint presentation that showed his vision for how Gaza could be redesigned and rethought as a paradise of free market economics.

His message was quite evident – that Gaza should not be considered as a warzone, but as an investment opportunity, and a chance for a new economic model.

Instead of allowing people to live lives bankrolled by aid, he said, the world should create a Gaza that was fuelled by investment and entrepreneurship.

The ambition appeared enormous, and it also seemed like a crashing contrast with the reality of vast numbers of people sleeping in torn tents amid piles of rubble that will take years to clear.

It’s one thing to talk about a sweeping revival, and another thing to deliver it.

So is it cynical to suggest that a creation born out of a war in the Middle East should now be seen as a challenger to the United Nations?

Honestly, probably not.

Has anyone ever scored a point by underestimating the ambition of the American president?

For one thing, the UN is hardly the most popular organisation in the world.

Despite its aspirations and humanitarian credentials, it has found itself with an endless list of critics who accuse the UN of everything from institutionalised bias to wholesale corruption.

Israel which, in particular, regards it with contempt, this week started work to demolish the Jerusalem headquarters of UNRWA, a UN agency founded to support Palestinian refugees that Israel has repeatedly accused of enabling Hamas.

The UN, in turn, has rejected those criticisms and described the demolition as “an unprecedented attack”.

Israel will join this new board.

More than one Israeli official has said to me that they would much rather deal with the White House than the UN, however capricious the American administration may be.

Of course, there are countless others around the world who would ride to the UN’s defence.

But even the organisation’s own leader admits that it is struggling to maintain its preeminent position in global diplomacy.

The Board of Peace won’t usurp the UN any time soon.

In fact, there’s a very good chance it will never do any such thing, particularly if it continues to be treated with scorn by Europe.

Read more:
Who’s on Trump’s Board of Peace – and who said no
Is a new world ‘without rules’ emerging?

But it is a challenge, and a symbol of how the world order is changing before our eyes.

America, for so long the self-proclaimed leader and policeman of the free world, is now setting up its own gang.

For the moment, the Board of Peace is largely reserved for Trump’s friends, and those who want to be his friend.

He is, after all, chairman for life, and he also has the right to nominate his successor.

Quite what might happen if America were to elect a Democrat president in 2028 is anyone’s guess.

But if Russia were to join the board now, or India, or China, or all of them, then the dynamic would change.

Suddenly this board might have immense gravitational pull and power, like a masonic lodge with nuclear weapons.

We live in a time of unprecedented diplomacy and unpredictable outcomes.

And for many, that is uncomfortable.