Board of Peace takes its first steps amid many contradictions, but for Sayegh, the Palestinians are missing
Yesterday, the body created by the US president met for the first time with pledges for funding, and the establishment of an International Stabilisation Force (ISF) with troops from Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, and Albania, as well as a Palestinian police force. The first reconstruction projects are set to start in Rafah, but many unresolved issues remain. For Palestinian analyst, it is not just a humanitarian issue.
Milan (AsiaNews) - The main limitation of the Board of Peace (BoP) for Gaza established by US President Donald Trump, which held its first meeting yesterday in Washington, is the lack of effective Palestinian representation.
For Khalil Sayegh, a political analyst and expert on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict born and raised in Gaza but now based in the United States, “The Palestinian people and the Palestinian government deserve a seat at the table, so that they can be engaged in actual talks about political issues, not only about, you know, refugees or like, food to Gaza, etc.”
Sayegh, who is the president and co-founder of The Agora Initiative, a non-profit organisation that encourages dialogue and outreach, gave his thoughts about the BoP meeting.
Despite controversies, partisan oppositions, and its founder's antics, the organisation is attempting to lay out various bases on which to build Gaza’s future, starting with the international peacekeeping force that is beginning to take shape, a Palestinian police force with thousands of applications already in, and the first reconstruction projects (notwithstanding the controversy over the resort project for rich tourists) starting in Rafah.
Speaking to AsiaNews, the scholar slammed the BoP because it reduces “the Palestinian problem to one of refugees, humanitarian aid, and stopping the war in Gaza.”
The fact is that “There is no mention whatsoever of the occupation, no mention of the issue, the core issue, which is that the Palestinian people have been struggling for decades to gain their own freedom, their own state and territory”.
In this regard, he agrees with a recent statement by Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, that reconstruction without involving the Palestinians is a "colonialist operation" in which "others" decide for the Palestinians.
This is the “core issue,” Sayegh explained. “I think that Cardinal Pizzaballa is on the point.” As a pastor, he knows “the Palestinians more than anyone else. And I think when he says it, it's really true because it is impossible to gain anything without involving the Palestinians and Israelis.”
Unfortunately, “today we have a government in Israel that denies the very existence of the Palestinian people, and works to erase the Palestinian people completely” from the map. From this perspective, Trump’s BoP “meets those Israeli aspirations of erasing the Palestinian people once and for all.”
Speaking about the situation in Gaza, the analyst notes that while “killing has been reduced compared to before the ceasefire”, it “definitely continues”.
The “unfortunate reality” is that “Israel continues to have the upper hand and they kill. And there is no mechanism of holding the Israelis accountable to violations of the ceasefire whatsoever. That's on one hand. On the other hand, all the plans of disarming Hamas and having Hamas give up weapons have failed so far.”
The extremist group “continues to be there, they're armed, and we don't see anything in the foreseeable future in which Hamas disarms itself.”
Still, “we need to discuss the end of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Those are interconnected things. And we cannot ignore the occupation and pretend as if, like, the only issue is humanitarian.”
Despite all these serious contradictions, some points seem to have emerged from the first meeting of Trump's Board of Peace, which includes 20 member countries, some of which are close allies and supporters of the US president, like Argentina and El Salvador, as well as leading regional players like Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Representatives from around 40 states were expected to attend yesterday's first meeting, some like Italy sending an observer, while the Holy See declined the invitation.
For the future, the hope is to involve other major powers “China is going to be involved, and I think Russia is going to be involved," Trump said.
Yesterday, the first seven billion dollars were pledged for the reconstruction effort, with donations from the United States (which has announced another 10 billion), the Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait, among others, with one billion each.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has promised to raise an additional two billion to invest in reconstruction, which is expected to begin in Rafah.
Illustrating the housing plan for Gaza, BoP Executive Board member Marc Rowan confirmed that reconstruction will begin in the southern city, where 100,000 homes for 500,000 residents will be built in the first phase. Another 400,000 will be built in other parts of the territory.
The goal is to rebuild Rafah within three years, which will be “connected to the world through an Abrahamic gateway, linking it with Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and extending to India and Europe.”
Rafah is also expected to be the location of the first battalion of the nascent International Stabilisation Force (ISF), as General Jasper Jeffers of US Central Command explained in his remarks.
The senior officer, who will lead the force, stressed that it will have at least 20,000 soldiers divided into five brigades, the first of which will be in the southern border city.
He confirmed that Indonesia has agreed to provide the deputy commander of the force, which will also be responsible for border patrols, with Jakarta contributing the largest number of soldiers, approximately 8,000. They will also be joined by soldiers from Morocco, Kazakhstan, Albania, and Kosovo.
However, the ISF is expected to limit its operations to border control and the protection of humanitarian convoys. Internal security and control in Gaza should be entrusted to a Palestinian-led police force, tasked with patrolling the territory and maintaining public order, playing a key role in coordination with the ISF.
Yesterday, Ali Shaath, a Palestinian technocrat appointed to lead the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), Gaza’s governing body under the Trump plan, spoke at the BoP meeting. He was joined by US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz and veteran Bulgarian diplomat Nickolay Mladenov, a former UN envoy to the region.
Mladenov is charged with overseeing the planned demilitarisation of Gaza, the handover of Hamas weapons, and the deployment of a Palestinian police force.
“We are operating in extremely difficult conditions," Shaath said.
Priorities include restoring security through 5,000 trained professional civilian police officers, revitalising Gaza's economy, and creating jobs.
Police recruitment in Gaza is already underway, he said, and 2,000 Palestinians have applied so far to join the force, which will be trained in Egypt.
.png)
