Trump’s Board of Peace and the Palestinian Question It Refuses to Answer

Of all the criticisms directed at Donald Trump’s Board of Peace, the most fundamental may be this: the people most affected by its decisions were not invited to the table. More than two dozen nations assembled in Washington Thursday to determine the future of Gaza — a territory home to approximately two million Palestinians — without a single Palestinian representative in the room.
Palestinian leaders and civil society figures have objected loudly to this exclusion. The board is weighing governance structures, reconstruction plans, security arrangements, and political transitions that will shape Palestinian life for decades. Their absence from the deliberations is not merely a procedural slight — it raises fundamental questions about the legitimacy and durability of any outcomes the board produces.
Trump’s vision for Gaza — articulated through the plans of Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff — involves a rebuilt territory with coastal tourism, data centers, and industrial zones. Kushner suggested at Davos that this transformation could occur within three years. But transformations imposed without the consent and participation of the people being transformed have a poor historical track record.
The board also faces the challenge of a transitional governance committee — a 15-member Palestinian body named by the US — that is stuck in Egypt waiting for Israeli permission to enter Gaza. That committee, led by former Palestinian Authority deputy minister Ali Shaath and overseen by former UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov, cannot function without Hamas handing over power and ceasefire violations ending.
The Palestinian exclusion from the Board of Peace is not a detail that can be finessed away. It is a structural flaw that will complicate every subsequent step of the process. Any governance arrangement, reconstruction plan, or security framework that Palestinians do not consider legitimate will face resistance that could ultimately undermine the entire enterprise.