The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the oldest and most intractable in the modern world. Generations of diplomats, institutions, frameworks, and peace plans have attempted and failed to resolve it. Donald Trump’s Board of Peace is the latest in that long line of attempts — arriving with new energy, new ambitions, and some of the same old obstacles.
Trump’s approach is characteristically unconventional. He has bypassed established multilateral frameworks, assembled his own coalition, appointed himself chairman, and set his board in explicit competition with the United Nations Security Council. Whether this unconventional approach produces unconventional results — or simply replicates the failures of its predecessors — is the central question of his Middle East legacy.
The board convened its first meeting Thursday in Washington with more than two dozen founding member nations. It has claimed $5 billion in reconstruction pledges — unverified — against a $70 billion estimated need. Hamas has not disarmed. The transitional governing committee is in Egypt. The stabilization force has not deployed. Key US allies have stayed home. Palestinians were excluded.
These challenges are not unique to Trump’s board — they would confront any institution attempting to resolve the Gaza conflict at this moment. What is unique is the board’s structure: a US-chaired, invitation-based coalition with no formal legal standing, explicit ambitions to rival the Security Council, and a reconstruction vision that goes far beyond what any previous framework has proposed.
The conflict is old. The board is new. Whether novelty of approach can overcome the depth of the conflict’s roots is a question that Thursday’s meeting has begun to answer — but only just begun.