The Limits of Containment: Gaza and President Trump’s Board of Peace

Francesco Salesio Schiavi, Middle East Institute

The launch of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026 marks a revealing moment for conflict mediation in the Middle East. Framed as an innovative mechanism to oversee the Gaza ceasefire and coordinate reconstruction, the Board quickly expanded its mandate, granting itself authority to intervene in conflicts beyond Palestine and positioning Trump at the center of a personalized, executive-driven peace architecture. Though more than 20 nations have accepted invitations to join—initially at no cost—several European allies have refused, citing concerns about international law, governance, and the erosion of the UN’s role.

Whatever its future trajectory, the initiative captures a deeper regional trend: mediation is increasingly effective at containing conflict, yet increasingly detached from the political foundations required to resolve it. Gaza, in this sense, is not an outlier but a test case.

When “peace” lacks a shared definition

A core problem exposed by the Board of Peace is the absence of a shared definition of what peace actually means. Its mandate emphasizes ceasefire monitoring, security control, and investment-led reconstruction, while remaining vague on political representation, sovereignty, or Palestinian self-determination. This ambiguity is not merely technical; it is structural.

As Safeen Dizayee, Minister and Head of the Department of Foreign Relations of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), warned during MEPS Forum 2025, peace efforts falter when actors are not reading from the same dictionary on concepts such as security, stability, and coexistence. Without a common political vocabulary, mediation risks becoming semantic bargaining—negotiating procedures rather than outcomes. Gaza illustrates this clearly: the Board offers a mechanism to manage violence, but no agreed end-state to replace it.

The Board of Peace reflects a broader shift toward transactional, leader-led mediation that prioritizes speed and control over legitimacy and inclusivity. Its structure—centralized authority, discretionary membership, and limited Palestinian participation—has raised concerns among European governments and legal scholars that it sidelines multilateral norms in favor of ad hoc crisis management.

This model may succeed in preventing immediate escalation, but it struggles to generate sustainable outcomes. Luigi Di Maio, EU Special Representative for the Gulf Region, captured this constraint succinctly during MEPS Forum 2025: “Without fixing the Palestinian issue, it is very hard—if not impossible—to build a real and lasting security architecture for the region.” Gaza’s experience suggests that ceasefires without a political horizon merely postpone conflict, storing instability rather than resolving it.

Security first, institutions later?

Proponents of the Board of Peace argue that security must precede politics—that stabilizing Gaza is a prerequisite for any future settlement. Yet regional experience casts doubt on this sequencing. From Iraq to Syria, premature transitions from external security management to nominal sovereignty have repeatedly produced vacuums exploited by armed actors.

Dizayee drew a direct parallel with Iraq after 2011, noting that the withdrawal of international forces before national institutions were ready contributed to the collapse that enabled ISIS to seize territory and U.S.-supplied weapons. His conclusion remains stark: “The presence of international forces, in different formats, remains a necessity until national institutions are truly able to deal with internal and external threats.” Gaza today faces a similar risk if reconstruction advances without credible governance structures rooted in local legitimacy.

The Board of Peace also exemplifies a deeper conceptual problem: the conflation of mediation with conflict management. By focusing on administering ceasefires, coordinating aid, and attracting investment, mediation risks becoming a tool for managing symptoms rather than addressing causes.

Bisher Khasawneh, former Prime Minister of Jordan, warned during MEPS Forum 2025 against precisely this dynamic, arguing that mediation can devolve into “managing a situation rather than resolving the core of the problem.” In the Palestinian context, decades of efforts that prioritized security coordination while deferring political grievances have repeatedly produced cycles of violence and the emergence of non-state armed actors. Gaza’s current trajectory suggests this pattern is being replicated, rather than corrected.

Inclusivity and regional buy-in

Another fault line exposed by the Board of Peace is inclusivity. Palestinians’ marginal role in shaping the initiative has drawn criticism not only from civil society but also from regional diplomats, who see exclusion as a recipe for long-term instability. The issue is not representation for its own sake, but ownership: peace frameworks imposed from above struggle to endure once external attention wanes.

Abdulaziz Al Horr, a senior Qatari diplomat involved in mediation efforts, emphasized that the region must move beyond constant crisis diplomacy toward “actually building a comprehensive and inclusive security framework.” In his view, exclusionary architectures divert resources into proxy competition and retrenchment rather than development—an outcome Gaza can ill afford.

While Gaza is the most visible arena, the logic underpinning the Board of Peace is not confined to Palestine. Its global remit, personalized authority, and transactional ethos hint at a model that could be replicated elsewhere, from Iran-related de-escalation to post-ISIS stabilization efforts. The risk is that containment becomes normalized as an end in itself.

Gaza thus stands as a cautionary example. Mediation that prioritizes control over consent, and stability over justice, may prevent immediate catastrophe—but it also entrenches a fragile status quo. In the absence of shared definitions, political horizons, and inclusive institutions, peace risks being reduced to performance rather than transformation.

The Middle East does not lack mediators. What it lacks is mediation anchored in resolution. Gaza’s experience under the Board of Peace underscores a simple but uncomfortable truth: without addressing root political questions, even the most ambitious diplomatic machinery can only manage instability, not end it.