TEHRAN — US President Donald Trump’s announcement of a so‑called ‘Board of Peace’ for Gaza — featuring figures such as Tony Blair, Marco Rubio, and Jared Kushner — does not represent a genuine plan for peace. It is a detailed proposal for the international management of Gaza that ignores the core realities of the conflict and the people it claims to help. When scrutinized, the plan reveals itself as an attempt to impose a solution that serves the interests of the United States, Israel, and their allies, while sidelining Palestinian rights and agency.

The most glaring contradiction is the timeline of violence. The White House presents this board as part of a move from “ceasefire to reconstruction.” However, Israeli attacks have continued across Gaza, with over 460 Palestinians reported killed since the U.S.-brokered ceasefire took effect in October 2025. This is not a post-war scenario. It is an ongoing assault, with a staggering total of over 71,500 people killed and more than 171,000 wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023. Any plan devised while one side continues to kill and wound civilians daily cannot be taken seriously as a peace initiative. It is, instead, a plan for administering a territory under persistent siege and attack, which is a fundamentally dishonest premise.

The choice of board members confirms where the plan’s loyalties lie. Blair, the former British prime minister, is forever associated with the disastrous, deceitful invasion of Iraq, a war built on pretenses that caused immense suffering. His role signals a return to a failed model of Western intervention. More revealing is Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. He is a staunch supporter of Israel who has publicly doubted Palestinians' capability for self-governance. His past comment that Gaza has “very valuable” waterfront property and that Israel should “move the people out and then clean it up” exposes a disturbing mindset. It frames Gaza not as a homeland with a traumatized population, but as a piece of real estate to be cleared and redeveloped. Appointing someone with this view to oversee Gaza's future is not neutral; it suggests an intent to reshape the territory for economic and strategic gain, not for the return and recovery of its people.

The plan’s structure seeks to replace Palestinian political life with technocratic management. It proposes a “National Committee for the Administration of Gaza” to take over from Hamas, supported by international boards and a U.S.-led “International Stabilization Force.” This force’s mandate includes enforcing “comprehensive demilitarization.” In practice, this means demanding that Palestinian factions disarm completely while the much more powerful Israeli military faces no such enforceable constraint and continues its operations. This is not a security guarantee; it is a demand for unilateral surrender, made under the watch of Israel’s closest ally. The plan attempts to erase politics by appointing administrators, but the political reality—of occupation, resistance, and a desperate struggle for survival—cannot be managed away.

While the plan includes a former UN official to lend credibility, it is ultimately a U.S.-controlled framework. It treats Palestinians as a population to be controlled, not as a people with the right to self-determination. Peace cannot be built by the allies of one party in a conflict imposing terms on the other, especially while the violence continues. Real peace requires an end to the killing, an end to the siege, and a political process that recognizes the equal rights and humanity of all people involved. This board offers none of that. It offers only a more organized form of control, designed over the graves of tens of thousands.