Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, June/July 2026, pp. 82-83
Waging Peace
ON APRIL 13, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace hosted a virtual discussion titled, “What Path Forward? The Board of Peace, Gaza and the Future of Multilateralism.”
Zaha Hassan, a senior fellow at Carnegie’s Middle East Program, predicted that President Donald Trump’s recently created Board of Peace will evolve beyond its current role in Gaza and noted that many European states have already expressed concerns that it “aims to either supplant the United Nations or undermine U.N. Charter principles.” (In November 2025, every European member of the U.N. Security Council—France, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Greece and Slovenia—voted in favor of a resolution establishing the Board of Peace.)
Hassan is pessimistic about the Board’s future, pointing out that “days after convening a meeting of the Board of Peace in Washington, the U.S. and Israel launched a war on Iran, calling into serious question whether the Board of Peace can be a true mechanism for either regional peacebuilding or Gaza’s reconstruction.” She added that the first test for the Board of Peace was Gaza, which “doesn’t seem to be working.”
Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations, described the implementation of the Trump administration’s Gaza peace plan as “disastrous…there was no implementation to begin with.” Although all the Israeli hostages have been released, he observed, Israel has not been allowing the agreed-upon levels of food and aid into Gaza and has been striking the territory “every day.”
Shehada criticized Trump adviser Jared Kushner’s plan for Gaza, chastising it for turning the territory into a “giant concentration camp,” a “grifting scheme” for Trump administration-connected contractors and “fulfilling the ultimate Israeli fantasy about turning Gaza into a massive surveillance state project.”
“The Board of Peace is unreformable,” he asserted, describing it as “a family-owned business enterprise that is operating like a mafia/reality TV show.” Despite this, he acknowledged that no one else is interested in creating an alternative and Israel “will continue to undermine peace in Gaza.”
Michael Mattler, former U.S. Department of State Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs, detailed the Board of Peace’s structure, highlighting the unusual aspects that differentiate it from other international organizations. He explained that whereas other such entities are based on collective decisions by member states, the Board’s charter gives Trump, in his personal capacity, ultimate authority over the governance structure and member states.
Joseph Saba, chairman of the board of directors of the American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera), focused on the Board of Peace’s funding for Gaza reconstruction. “Unlike the [World] Bank’s historical funding models,” he said its Financial Intermediary Fund for Gaza Reconstruction and Development, created for the Board of Peace, “lacks a clearly defined governance, financial operation and accountability architecture.” He also noted the lack of oversight and implementation agreements, which raise questions about how reconstruction work will actually get done on the ground. Saba suggested “it would take a great deal more work and a great deal more focus” to provide quick and meaningful relief to the people of Gaza.
Discussing the regional dynamics of the U.S.-Israel war with Iran, Yasmine Farouk, project director for the Gulf and Arabian Peninsula at the International Crisis Group, described the “anger” in the Arab Gulf at Iran over its attacks on Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states. Their relationship with Tehran is “not going to be the same,” she said, adding that GCC states will not want to leave the post-war situation in Iran up to the Board of Peace.
Going forward, Farouk speculated that GCC countries’ financial contributions to the Board of Peace will be diminished because of their economic losses in the war. Nevertheless, she believes that GCC states will not rethink the U.S. military presence on their soil. “It remains the only viable, available and tried solution for defense and deterrence against Iran,” she said. While they may diversify their defense relationships, she continued, “the United States will always be the backbone of their defense partnerships abroad.”
—Alex Shanahan
