Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted an invitation to be part of US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
A press release from his workplace said Netanyahu would become a member of the board “which is to be comprised of world leaders”.
The board was initially thought to be aimed at serving to finish the two-year warfare between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and oversee reconstruction. But its proposed constitution does not point out the Palestinian territory and seems to be designed to supplant capabilities of the UN.
The United Arab Emirates and Bahrain have also agreed to be part of, as have Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Vietnam. Many others have expressed reservations.
It is not clear how many nations have been invited to be part of Trump’s new physique -Canada, Russia, Turkey and the UK are among them, but have not yet publicly responded.
Norway has said it will not be part of because the present proposal “raises a number of questions”, while France and Sweden have indicated they will do the same.
According to a copy of the constitution leaked to the media, member states will be given a renewable three-year time period, but they can secure a everlasting place if they contribute $1bn (£740m) of funding to the board.
The doc says the Board of Peace will be “an international organisation that seeks to promote stability, restore dependable and lawful governance, and secure enduring peace in areas affected or threatened by conflict”. It will “undertake such peace-building functions in accordance with international law”, it provides.
Trump will be the chairman but also “separately serve” as consultant of the US. A US official has said the chairmanship can be held by Trump “until he resigns it”, but that a future US president may select a new consultant.
As chairman, he will have “exclusive authority to create, modify or dissolve subsidiary entities as necessary or appropriate to fulfil the Board of Peace’s mission”, according to the doc.
He will also choose “leaders of global stature” to serve two-year phrases on an Executive Board that will help ship the mission of the Board of Peace, US officers say.
Last Friday, the White House named the seven members of the founding Executive Board. They included US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Middle East particular envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as properly as former British prime minister Tony Blair.
Trump also named Nickolay Mladenov, a Bulgarian politician and former UN Middle East envoy, as the Board of Peace’s consultant on the ground in Gaza during section two of Trump’s peace plan, which should see the reconstruction and demilitarisation of the territory, including the disarmament of Hamas, as properly as a full withdrawal of Israeli forces.
Mladenov will act as a hyperlink with a Palestinian technocratic authorities which will “oversee the restoration of core public services, the rebuilding of civil institutions, and the stabilisation of daily life”.
A separate Gaza Executive Board will help support the technocratic authorities, according to the White House.
Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, Rowan, Mladenov will serve on it with Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Egyptian intelligence chief Hassan Rashad, Qatari strategic affairs minister Ali al-Thawadi, UAE minister of state for worldwide co-operation Reem al-Hashimy, billionaire Israeli real estate developer Yakir Gabay, and Sigrid Kaag, a Dutch politician and UN particular co-ordinator for the Middle East peace course of.
On Saturday, Netanyahu’s workplace said the Gaza Executive Board’s composition “was not co-ordinated with Israel and runs contrary to its policy”.
Israeli media said the determination to embrace representatives of Turkey and Qatar – which both helped broker the ceasefire that took impact in October, along with Egypt and the US – had occurred “over Israel’s head”.
Under section one of the peace plan, Hamas and Israel agreed to the ceasefire, an exchange of dwelling and useless Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, a partial Israeli withdrawal, and a surge in deliveries of humanitarian help.
Phase two faces main challenges, with Hamas having beforehand refused to give up its weapons without the creation of an unbiased Palestinian state, and Israel having not dedicated to totally withdrawing from Gaza.
The ceasefire is also fragile. More than 460 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes since it came into drive, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, while the Israeli army says three of its troopers have been killed in Palestinian attacks during the same period.
The warfare was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.
Israel responded to the attack by launching a army marketing campaign in Gaza, during which more than 71,550 people have been killed, according to the territory’s health ministry.
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