There is a peculiar magic trick the United States performs on the international stage. With one hand, it builds institutions, blesses them with lofty language, and sells them as guardians of order. With the other hand, it discredits, undermines, and threatens to demolish the very same institutions—usually when they stop obeying Washington’s GPS. Gaza is merely the latest stage on which this old routine is being performed.
Donald Trump did not invent this trick. He only does it without the usual diplomatic deodorant.
Mark Carney’s warning remains one of the sharpest summaries of modern geopolitics: if you are not at the table, you will be on the table. The tragedy of Palestine is that it is technically at the table—and still on the table. Menu, garnish, and main course.
The Board of Peace: A Name That Should Have Triggered Laughter
Enter the Board of Peace (BoP), an entity whose very name should have set off alarm bells. Nothing branded “Peace” by a great power ever arrives peacefully. History is littered with such branding disasters: “Operation Restore Hope,” “Enduring Freedom,” “Shock and Awe.” Peace, in this context, is usually something done to people, not with them.
UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025) formally endorsed the U.S.-backed “Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict”, a 20-point framework that reads like a management consultancy deck prepared after a long lunch. The resolution “welcomes” the establishment of the Board of Peace as a transitional administration for Gaza, complete with international legal personality. In plain English: a governing body that governs, but isn’t really accountable to those being governed.
This is governance by PowerPoint.
The BoP is tasked with:
- Coordinating reconstruction,
- Overseeing security and demilitarisation,
- Managing aid,
- And eventually handing Gaza back to a “reformed” Palestinian Authority—whenever the adults decide the children have behaved.
To support this, the resolution authorises an International Stabilization Force (ISF) operating under the Board’s authority. Stabilisation, of course, being another word that means “guns, but politely”.
How to Use the UN While Actively Loathing It
Here is where the hypocrisy becomes art.
The U.S. routinely denounces the UN as biased, ineffective, anti-American, or worse—anti-Israel. It threatens to defund agencies, sanctions UN officials, and treats international law like a buffet where it only eats dessert. And yet, when it needs legitimacy for a geopolitical project, it runs straight to the Security Council.
The UN, for Washington, is neither sacred nor useless. It is a vending machine. You kick it when it refuses your coins, but you still expect snacks when you insert the dollar.
The Board of Peace is not a UN subsidiary. That is crucial. It is a sui generis creature—born of a Security Council resolution, endowed with authority, but conveniently insulated from the messy accountability mechanisms that come with formal UN organs. This is institutional outsourcing: all the power, none of the embarrassment.
So yes, America uses the UN to strongarm the world, then turns around and tells its domestic audience that the UN is a joke. This is not contradiction; it is strategy.
Palestinians: Invited Guests, Served as the Meal
Supporters of the plan will insist Palestinians are included. After all, the resolution speaks of “eventual Palestinian self-determination.” Eventually is doing an extraordinary amount of work in that sentence.
Palestinians are present in name, but absent in control. They are consulted, but not decisive. Observed, but not empowered. It is like being invited to a board meeting about the future of your house—after it has already been sold, renovated, and rented out.
This is Carney’s warning made flesh: Palestinians are not merely excluded from the table; they are laid out on it. Their land becomes a project. Their politics becomes a security problem. Their resistance becomes a pathology. And their consent becomes optional.
The Deeper Danger: Precedent
What makes the Board of Peace particularly dangerous is not just Gaza. It is the precedent it sets.
If the Security Council can endorse bespoke governing bodies to manage “problem territories,” what stops this model from travelling? Weak states, post-conflict zones, inconvenient populations—anywhere sovereignty becomes conditional and self-determination becomes a reward for good behaviour.
International law then stops being universal and becomes probationary.
Conclusion: Peace as Performance
The U.S. will continue to rail against the UN even as it uses it. Trump may shout louder, but the script is old. What has changed is the brazenness—and the diminishing patience of those permanently seated on the menu.
The Board of Peace may succeed in rebuilding roads and pipes. It may stabilise rubble. But peace without agency is just quiet domination. And governance without consent is not peacekeeping—it is trusteeship with better branding.
Carney was right. The tragedy is that Palestinians heard the warning too late. They arrived at the table, only to discover their name printed under today’s special.
Centre for Nigeria Progress 