American political scientist and international relations scholar John Mearsheimer called the BoP “cockamamie”.
Speaking on a podcast, Mearsheimer commented: “What we have with President Trump, and this shows what a radical president he is, is that he has no interest in international law, he thinks it’s just cumbersome and useless, and he has little interest in international institutions.
“You want to understand that his administration recently withdrew from 66 international institutions, number one; and number two, this Board of Peace – this cockamamie idea he’s come up with – is basically designed to undermine the United Nations…”
At the launch ceremony in Davos, just 19 countries signed up to the BoP. They include Argentina, Paraguay, Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kosovo, Morocco, Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan.
A long list of countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy and other European nations, were absent from the signing, and some have specifically rejected the invitation.
Of the 27 EU member-states, only Hungary and Bulgaria signed up.
The officials of the countries who did join will sit on the BoP’s governing board, chaired by none other than Trump.
After Trump’s “top leaders” were presented, his son-in-law Jared Kushner unveiled a $30 billion “Trump development plan” for “New Gaza.”
Replete with a skyscraper-crammed coastline, the vision would see the wholesale bulldozing of the Strip to create a newly engineered society and economy under BoP supervision.
As the European Council on Foreign Relations think tank noted in an article: “What began with a mandate to implement Washington’s Gaza ceasefire plan, as enshrined in UN Security Council resolution 2803, has morphed into a personal vehicle for a Trumpist world order.
“The BoP’s charter omits any reference to Gaza and echoes Trump’s criticism of the UN, calling for ‘courage to depart from… institutions that have often failed’ by establishing a ‘a more nimble and effective international peace-building body’.”
Under the board’s charter, all decisions and power emanate from Trump as he selects and presides over a subordinate governing board of member states.
Board members will serve three-year terms, renewable at the chairman’s discretion. Together, they will vote on the BoP’s budget, international agreements and “peace-building initiatives”, with only a simple majority – and the approval of the chairman – required.
Below the governing board is an executive board and CEO appointed by Trump. It’s tasked with day-to-day running of the BoP and the managing of funds. It also has the mandate to set the agenda for each board meeting.
Among the executive board’s members are senior US officials and businessmen: Jared Kushner, the founder of Affinity Partners, an American investment firm with close ties to Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds; and Ajay Banga, another business executive and president of the World Bank Group.
The BoP has a number of subsidiary entities focused on Gaza, which Trump has “exclusive authority to create, modify, or dissolve.”
For example, the Gaza Executive Board overseeing the implementation of Trump’s 20-point plan, including a Palestinian National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG). Comprising 15 members and charged with Gaza’s day-to-day management, the NCAG sits at the bottom of the hierarchy with little influence or agency.
More worryingly, Trump has appointed two White House advisors, Aryeh Lightstone and Josh Gruenbaum, as senior BoP advisors.
Lightstone’s background in particular raises a red flag: he was an advisor to former US ambassador David Friedman and is a “staunch defender” of Israel’s settlement project.
Lightstone was also linked to the disastrous Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which caused the deaths of numerous Gazan aid seekers, and is now working through the Gaza Civil-Military Coordination Center (CMCC) to develop US plans for post-conflict Gaza.
Independent American journalist and geopolitical analyst Patrick Henningsen described the setup as an “abomination”.
He said in an email to the Cyprus Mail: “Like the failed Abraham Accords, an audacious maneuver hatched by the President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Netanyahu, and designed to undermine scores of UN resolutions and international law, this so-called ‘Board of Peace’ completely bypasses any input from the one stakeholder which should matter the most – the native Palestinian population. Hence, this scheme will likely fail for the same reason”.
Henningsen, co-founder and executive editor of the 21st Century Wire news website, went on: “Trump and Netanyahu are attempting to subvert all international laws and conventions, in order to, in effect, privatise diplomacy, in the deluded hope that this VIP club business model will somehow become the new template for international dispute resolutions.”
In addition to Cyprus, all the major European governments aren’t joining, while Russia and China are holding back on the sidelines.
“So Trump goes and appoints a wanted war criminal, Netanyahu to this vaunted board? And Kushner wants to recreate Dubai on top of the remains of potentially hundreds of thousands of dead Palestinians – killed with US bombs. It’s an abomination. Trump won’t get the buy-in necessary to make this happen, but don’t let that get in the way of a good headline splash, which is about all the value he’ll be able to extract from this gaudy exercise.”
