Beyond the UN: Can the Board of Peace Reshape the Middle East?
- Jury Ajlouni
- May 13
- 8 min read
The Board of Peace was established following United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 on 17 November 2025, which endorsed President Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Gaza conflict and welcomed the creation of the Board as part of Gaza’s transitional framework (UN Security Council, 2025; IRIS, 2026). On 22 January 2026, President Trump ratified the Board’s Charter during a ceremony at the World Economic Forum in Davos, formally launching it as an international organization (White House, 2026a; Better World Campaign, 2026).
Initially, the Board appeared to be a Gaza-focused mechanism: a body meant to oversee reconstruction, support demilitarization, coordinate international funding, and guide the work of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. According to the White House, the Board is expected to provide strategic oversight, mobilize international resources, support governance reform, and guide the next phases of demilitarization and rebuilding in Gaza (White House, 2026b). However, its Charter and public statements surrounding its launch suggest a much broader ambition. The Board presents itself not only as a tool for Gaza, but as a more “nimble” and “practical” peacebuilding body, one that openly responds to the failures of existing international institutions, especially the United Nations (Board of Peace, 2026; Better World Campaign, 2026).
This raises the central question of this paper: can the Board of Peace offer a viable alternative to the United Nations in resolving the Middle East’s conflicts? While the Board may become useful in coordinating reconstruction and political action in Gaza, it cannot realistically replace the UN. Its selective membership, centralized leadership, limited legal authority, and uncertain legitimacy mean that it is better understood as a possible complement to the UN rather than a true alternative (Better World Campaign, 2026; UNifeed, 2026).
This is where the Board’s appeal becomes clear. The UN is often seen as slow, divided, and trapped by its own procedures. In the Security Council, major powers can block action through vetoes, even when civilians are suffering. In the case of Gaza, many critics argue that the UN has failed to stop violence or enforce a meaningful peace process. The Board of Peace seeks to address that frustration by bringing together a “coalition of willing states” ready to act without waiting for universal agreement. Its founding principles explicitly call for “pragmatic judgment,” “common-sense solutions,” and a willingness to depart from approaches and institutions that have “too often failed” (Board of Peace, 2026).
Its founding members include the United States, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Türkiye, Israel, Pakistan, Indonesia, Morocco, Kuwait, Bahrain, and several others (Board of Peace, 2026). This matters because any serious peace effort in the Middle East needs regional involvement. A body that includes key Arab and Muslim-majority states, alongside Israel and the United States, could create space for coordination that is more focused than the wider UN system.
In theory, this could make the Board more practical. Middle Eastern conflicts are not solved by statements alone. They require money, pressure, security guarantees, reconstruction plans, and political compromise. The Board’s structure seems designed around implementation rather than debate. Its executive members are connected to diplomacy, investment, infrastructure, governance, and economic strategy. The White House listed figures such as Marco Rubio, Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Tony Blair, Marc Rowan, Ajay Banga, and Robert Gabriel as members of the Executive Board, each connected to portfolios such as governance capacity-building, reconstruction, investment attraction, and capital mobilization (White House, 2026b).
Gaza is the clearest test case. The formation of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, led by Dr. Ali Sha’ath, is presented as a step toward restoring public services and rebuilding local institutions (White House, 2026b). The Board is also connected to the role of Nickolay Mladenov as High Representative for Gaza and to the proposed International Stabilization Force, which is meant to support security, demilitarization, and the delivery of humanitarian aid and reconstruction materials (White House, 2026b; Britannica, 2026). If these mechanisms actually improve daily life in Gaza, the Board could become more than a symbolic project. It could help create the conditions for stability.
However, this is also where the first major problem appears. Practicality is not the same as legitimacy. The United Nations, despite its many failures, is built on near-universal membership and international law. The Security Council’s authority comes from the UN Charter, and its decisions can carry legal weight for all UN member states. The Board of Peace does not have this kind of authority. It can coordinate the states that choose to participate, but it cannot bind the wider international community (Better World Campaign, 2026).
This difference is crucial. The Middle East’s conflicts are rarely limited to a single actor or a single border. Palestine, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran-related tensions all involve local groups, regional powers, and global actors. If important players refuse to cooperate with the Board, the Board has limited tools to pressure them. The UN Security Council, at least in legal terms, can authorize sanctions, peacekeeping missions, and certain enforcement measures under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. The Board, by contrast, can coordinate political positions and financial support, but it cannot create enforcement regimes that bind the international system as a whole (Better World Campaign, 2026).
There is also the question of who controls the Board. Critics argue that its structure is highly centralized around Donald Trump, who serves as chairman. The Better World Campaign notes that the Board’s governance model is chairman-centered, while IRIS argues that Trump’s role gives him significant influence over membership, leadership, and the Board’s direction (Better World Campaign, 2026; IRIS, 2026). This raises concerns about whether the Board is truly an international institution or whether it depends too heavily on one political figure. A peacebuilding body needs trust, especially in a region where foreign intervention is already viewed with suspicion. If the Board appears too personalized or politically selective, it may struggle to gain credibility.
Representation is another serious concern. The Board’s own founding principles say that lasting peace requires people to take ownership over their future (Board of Peace, 2026). Yet in the case of Gaza, Palestinians do not appear to hold real decision-making power within the main leadership structures of the Board. IRIS argues that neither the Board of Peace nor its Executive Board includes meaningful Palestinian representation, while the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza is limited mainly to day-to-day governance (IRIS, 2026). This creates a contradiction. A project that claims to empower people cannot succeed if the people most affected feel managed rather than represented.
This matters because peace is not only about rebuilding roads, schools, and hospitals. It is also about dignity, political rights, and self-determination. If reconstruction becomes a substitute for justice, stability may be only temporary. Gaza does need services, investment, and security. But it also needs a political future that Palestinians can recognize as their own. Without that, the Board risks repeating one of the oldest mistakes in Middle Eastern peacebuilding: treating the region as something to be administered from the outside.
The UN itself has responded cautiously. UN spokesperson Farhan Haq stated that the Board had been authorized by the Security Council strictly for its work on Gaza, not as a wider replacement for the UN. He also noted that the UN has coexisted with many regional organizations and international coalitions before, but that the relationship would depend on what the Board becomes in practice (UNifeed, 2026). This suggests that the Board is not automatically a threat to the UN, provided its role remains limited and coordinated. The danger begins if it tries to present itself as a parallel global authority without the legal foundation or universal legitimacy that the UN possesses.
Still, it would be too easy to dismiss the Board completely. Many people in the Middle East have good reason to be disappointed with the UN. Legal legitimacy does not mean much to civilians if it fails to protect them from bombs, hunger, displacement, or political abandonment. The UN has often been able to describe crises more effectively than to stop them. From this perspective, a body that can act quickly and deliver results may gain legitimacy through performance.
This is the strongest argument in favor of the Board. If it helps rebuild Gaza, restore basic services, support security, and create economic opportunities, then it will matter. People living through war do not only need perfect legal structures. They need electricity, hospitals, schools, jobs, safety, and a reason to believe tomorrow will be different. The White House frames the Board’s mission in exactly these terms, presenting it as a mechanism for reconstruction, stability, and opportunity in Gaza (White House, 2026a; White House, 2026b). If the Board can provide these things, it could become an important tool in conflict recovery.
But success in Gaza would still not prove that the Board can replace the United Nations across the Middle East. Gaza is already an extremely complex case. Expanding the Board’s role to other conflicts would be even harder. Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and wider regional tensions each have different actors, histories, and power balances. The Better World Campaign notes that the Board’s current value is best understood as coordination rather than global authority, while Britannica also emphasizes that its original purpose was linked to the Gaza ceasefire and transitional governance framework (Better World Campaign, 2026; Britannica, 2026). A selective coalition led by a powerful state may be able to coordinate reconstruction in one context, but that does not mean it can resolve deeply rooted political conflicts across the region.
The Board of Peace should therefore be judged carefully. It may be useful if it stays focused, transparent, and connected to international law. It could help fill some of the gaps left by slow multilateral diplomacy. It may also provide funding and coordination at a time when Gaza urgently needs both. But if it becomes a tool for bypassing the UN, excluding local voices, or turning peacebuilding into a project of political branding and investment, it will quickly lose credibility. Concerns that the Board may sidestep the existing multilateral system have already been raised by critics, including close U.S. allies such as France and the United Kingdom (Better World Campaign, 2026; Brookings, 2026).
In the end, the Board of Peace reflects a larger problem: the world is losing patience with institutions that promise peace but struggle to deliver it. The UN remains legally central, but its failures have created space for alternatives. The Board is one of those alternatives, but it is not yet a replacement. Its future depends on whether it can do what many institutions before it could not: combine action with legitimacy, reconstruction with justice, and outside support with genuine local ownership.
For now, the Board of Peace may offer a new method, but not a new foundation. The United Nations still provides the legal framework that gives international peace efforts their global authority. The Board may help implement parts of that framework more quickly, especially in Gaza. But peace in the Middle East will not come simply because a new body has been created. It will come only if the people most affected by conflict are not treated as objects of policy, but as owners of their own future.
Bibliography
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Board of Peace. (2026) Charter and Foundational Principles of the Board of Peace. Available at: https://boardofpeace.org
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White House. (2026b) Statement on President Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict. Available at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/01/statement-on-president-trumps-comprehensive-plan-to-end-the-gaza-conflict/
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