Donald Trump This Thursday he took advantage of the stage of the World Economic Forum in Davos to launch his Peace Board, a body in charge of ensuring the permanence of the ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas and for the reconstruction of the Strip, reduced to ashes after two years of a war investigated in international courts under the accusation of genocide.
The presentation of the project was carried out by his son-in-law, Jared Kushnera successful businessman turned diplomat who showed those present a series of slides with images of New Gaza, a futuristic enclave bathed by the Mediterranean that will have luxury homes, data centers and even a resort.
The Peace Board will finance the plan—in theory, with the $1 billion that each permanent member of the council will pay—and, incidentally, will supervise the governance of Gaza, which falls directly on a Palestinian technical committee headed by engineer Ali Shaathformer Deputy Minister of Planning in the Government of the Palestinian Authority, in the occupied West Bank.
The president of the United States managed to convince a large group of international leaders to form part of a body that, ultimately, will act at his dictate.
Trump had invited around thirty heads of State and Government to accompany his trusted men in leading the group: the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio; your special envoy, Steve Witkoff; and former British Prime Minister Tony Blairamong others.
On the list made public by the White House were the names of the Russian president, Vladimir Putinwhich says it is willing to pay the 1 billion dollars but consults with its “strategic partners” about the convenience of joining the committee, and with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahuwho initially declined the invitation due to disagreements with Trump but ended up joining the initiative in less than 24 hours.
Neither Putin nor Netanyahu attended the signing ceremony of the Peace Board in Davos this Thursday. The fear of being arrested by the authorities of Switzerland, a signatory country of the Rome Statute that recognizes the legitimacy of the International Criminal Court (ICC), a court that is looking for the two leaders for war crimes committed in Ukraine and Gaza, weighed more heavily.
Trump did not make much of his absence. There were more than twenty international leaders who accompanied him at the signing, among whom were the Argentine president. Javier MileyHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán or the Moroccan Minister of Foreign Affairs, Naser Burita.
“Everyone wants to be part,” boasted a Trump who preferred not to take into account the refusals of France, the United Kingdom, Norway and Sweden, and who preferred to ignore the fact that eighteen other invited countries – of the weight of China or Canada – have not made a final decision on the matter.
Many countries reject Putin’s presence on the committee’s senior staff and fear that the Peace Board will bypass the United Nations, a suspicion that Trump himself supported during the presentation this Thursday by raising the possibility of “expanding it to other things as we have success in Gaza.” Then he qualified this route: “We will do it together with the United Nations.”
In staging the plan, the White House tenant admitted that the disarmament of Hamas remains a major obstacle to his plans in Gaza. The Palestinian Islamist militia only agreed to cede power to the Palestinian technocratic committee, but avoids handing over its weapons.
Trump also acknowledged that the parties had “small hot spots that we must put out” in Gaza. “But they are small,” he insisted. Just yesterday, Wednesday, an Israeli airstrike killed three journalists in the center of the Strip. Israeli forces also killed eight other people, including two minors. There are already more than 400 Palestinian fatalities since the signing of the ceasefire in October of last year.