When power defines peace, and victims are excluded

The formation of a new "Board of Peace" by President Trump to chart Gaza's post-war future has been promoted as a constructive step toward ending a devastating conflict. But its composition raises a fundamental question about how peace is being defined - and whose interests it is meant to serve.

There are no Palestinians on the board. Not a single representative of the people whose cities have been flattened, whose families have been killed and whose political future is supposedly under consideration.

Instead, the board is populated by political insiders, former officials and international power brokers. Among them are individuals accused of war crimes, including one whose government is currently on trial before international courts for genocide against Palestinians. These figures are now positioned as neutral architects of peace.

This exclusion is not a procedural flaw. It reflects a deeper logic in contemporary peacemaking — one in which power substitutes for legitimacy and accountability is treated as optional.

Peace, under this model, is not about justice, self-determination or repairing the harm done to civilian populations. It is about managing instability while preserving existing power structures. Palestinians are reduced to objects of policy rather than participants in shaping their own future.

This approach has consequences that extend far beyond Gaza.

For much of the world, particularly outside the Western power bloc, the selective application of international law has long been a source of skepticism. When legal norms are invoked against adversaries but relaxed for allies, the credibility of the so-called rules-based international order erodes.

The inclusion of figures accused of grave crimes as peacemakers sends a damaging signal: that accountability is conditional, that justice can be deferred indefinitely, and that political alignment matters more than civilian lives.

International law was designed precisely to prevent this outcome. Its purpose was not merely to punish past crimes, but to deter future ones by making clear that no one is above the law. When those accused of mass killing are rehabilitated as statesmen, that deterrent effect collapses.

History offers ample evidence that peace processes built on exclusion rarely succeed. Agreements forged without the consent and participation of affected populations tend to produce fragile stability at best, followed by renewed conflict. Sustainable peace requires legitimacy, and legitimacy cannot be manufactured through elite consensus alone.

A credible peace process would begin with Palestinian political agency, not its erasure. It would recognise that accountability and peace are not competing goals, but mutually reinforcing ones. And it would understand that stability imposed without justice is inherently temporary.

Peace without Palestinians is not peace. It is governance by imposition — an attempt to freeze injustice in place while calling it resolution.

In a region shaped by decades of failed interventions and externally imposed solutions, this approach offers little reason for hope. True peace demands inclusion, accountability, and respect for the political agency of those most affected. Anything less is not peace at all — it is merely power, speaking in the language of peace.