The inaugural meeting of the President Donald Trump-led “Board of Peace” on Thursday was fittingly described as a “show” in the White House readout circulated to the press. It was indeed merely a show. And while it is supposed to address post-war reconstruction in Gaza, there is no mechanism for connecting it to anything that could happen in reality.
The initial impulse for creating this board was the resolution of the war in Gaza and the reconstruction of the almost totally demolished living areas for the 2.2 million Palestinian civilians there, almost all now huddling in makeshift tents waiting for the next box of food aid. But the board’s remit recently expanded to ending multiple conflicts, including the war in Ukraine.
Neither Israel nor Hamas appear inclined to cooperate in preparing for any meaningful reconstruction project.
Notably, there are no Ukrainians or Palestinians on the board, although such champions of peace as Russian President Vladimir Putin, Belarus President Boris Lukashenko and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to join. The governments joining this board don’t include any of the United States’ Western allies.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was specifically disinvited — not that he ever showed any inclination to participate — after he criticized Trump’s attitude toward traditional U.S. partners. It is a self-selected group, in some cases, pledging a $1 billion permanent membership fee. The press release announcing the “run of show” of the board’s inaugural meeting was also replete with errors, including misstating the United Arab Emirate’s representative’s title and the name of the Saudi minister of state for foreign affairs. Such simplistic errors regarding major leaders of long-standing and key U.S. partners reflects not only sloppiness and a lack of proofreading, but also, fundamentally, a downright disinterest in accuracy when it comes to foreign officials.
Despite the common misconception, the war in Gaza is still ongoing, with over 500 Palestinians killed, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, since the so-called ceasefire went into effect on Oct. 20, 2025 — and the reconstruction project is entirely disconnected from facts on the ground. Israel Defense Forces officials said at the time that they would control roughly half of Gaza, including almost all of its arable land, while Hamas has retaken control of the smaller western portion, which includes most of the demolished cities and towns, almost all the Palestinian civilians and sandy beaches.
Neither Israel nor Hamas appear inclined to cooperate in preparing for any meaningful reconstruction project, and both appear to be hunkering down to make this partition and attenuated war a semipermanent reality. Reconstruction, therefore, remains a diplomatic fantasy.
The reconstruction “master plan,” developed by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, is an absurdist fantasy resembling decades of careful development in places like Dubai and Singapore. It ignored the inconvenient fact that essentially the entirety of the Gaza Strip is in rubble, and that the urgent need is for Palestinians to be provided with basic housing, food and water, health and education and the minimal necessities of life.
Instead, this real estate developer’s hallucination includes data centers, airports, train systems, beachfront resorts and any number of wild and inappropriate fantasies that disregard the needs of the people, the utter devastation in the area and the existence of major historical and religious sites in a place that has been of great strategic and cultural significance since ancient times. Unless there is a dramatic change in fundamental realities in Gaza, reconstruction will remain a cruel fantasy and even a diplomatic hoax. One of the dead giveaways about this “Board of Peace” is that its inaugural gathering was held at the former premises of the tragically disbanded Institute for Peace, now renamed the “Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.” That only underscores the extent America’s once-national institutions are being rapidly personalized and rebranded for the narcissistic gratification of a president with no regard for the inherent fiduciary responsibility of the office — and every determination to stamp his name and identity on everything possible. The bottom line, though, is that, for all the pledges of billions and Kushner’s “Master plan” for Gaza reconstruction (he insists, chillingly, “there is no plan B”), there is, at present, absolutely no connection between the diplomatic kabuki show being run by the Trump administration, joined by countries interested in currying his favor for one reason or another, and actual events on the ground in Gaza or anywhere else. Unless there is a dramatic change in fundamental realities in Gaza, reconstruction will remain a cruel fantasy and even a diplomatic hoax. So what will happen to the billions pledged, if, indeed, they are ever delivered? At present, it seems more than likely they will be spent on something dedicated to the greater glory of Trump, rather than saving or serving any of the millions of homeless, destitute and starving people of Gaza.
Hussein Ibish
Hussein Ibish is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. 
