THE plans surrounding Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” reveal something far more sinister than a misguided attempt at conflict resolution. This is not a reconstruction plan, nor a humanitarian vision. It is a blueprint for control – one that seeks to transform Gaza from a besieged homeland into a managed enclave, a playground for capital, and ultimately, a territory under permanent American supervision. Peace, in this imagination, is not justice. It is submission.
The language is revealing. “Stability.” “Development.” “Security guarantees.” These words have long been the vocabulary of empire. From Iraq to Afghanistan, from Vietnam to Latin America, they have been used to mask occupation, resource extraction, and political domination. Gaza is simply the next chapter in this familiar story—except this time, the ruins are fresh, the dead are still unburied, and the audacity is staggering.
At the heart of this plan is an assumption so arrogant it borders on delusion: that Gaza can be emptied of its political meaning, stripped of its people’s will, and repackaged as an investment opportunity. Trump’s vision—echoed eagerly by Netanyahu—is not one of coexistence but of erasure. Palestinians are not viewed as a people with rights and history, but as an obstacle to be managed, displaced, or ignored.
This is not peace-making. It is real estate logic applied to genocide’s aftermath.
Netanyahu’s role in this fantasy is neither surprising nor incidental. His political career has been built on the permanent denial of Palestinian sovereignty. For decades, Israeli policy has oscillated between overt military repression and the subtler suffocation of everyday life—checkpoints, blockades, settlement expansion, and legal apartheid. Gaza, under siege since 2007, was already an open-air prison long before the current devastation. What we are witnessing now is an attempt to convert that prison into a protectorate.
Trump, for his part, brings the crudeness of a property developer to geopolitics. Land, in his worldview, is valuable only insofar as it can be monetized. Human beings are irrelevant unless they can be turned into labor or consumers. That such a figure now speaks of “peace” in Gaza would be laughable if it were not so dangerous.
Together, Trump and Netanyahu represent a convergence of imperial nostalgia and authoritarian contempt for international law. Their vision rests on three false assumptions—three humbugs that will ultimately undo them.
The first humbug is the belief that Palestinians can be bombed into political silence. History offers no evidence for this claim. From Algeria to Vietnam, from South Africa to Kashmir, colonized peoples have endured far worse and yet refused to disappear. Gaza’s resistance—whether one agrees with its forms or not—is rooted in lived reality: dispossession, blockade, and humiliation. Destroying homes does not destroy memory. Killing civilians does not erase national consciousness. If anything, it hardens it.
The second humbug is the idea that economic incentives can replace justice. The promise of ports, resorts, trade corridors, and foreign investment is being waved as a substitute for freedom. This logic assumes that Palestinians can be bribed into accepting permanent subjugation. It misunderstands the nature of the struggle entirely. No amount of capital can compensate for the denial of dignity, self-determination, and return. Prosperity without sovereignty is merely a more comfortable cage.
The third – and most dangerous humbug is the fantasy of permanent American control. The notion that the United States can oversee Gaza indefinitely, neutralize resistance, and impose a “managed peace” ignores both regional dynamics and America’s own declining legitimacy. Washington’s role as a neutral broker is already in ruins. Its military, financial, and diplomatic backing of Israel’s assault on Gaza has stripped away any remaining pretense of impartiality. An American-administered Gaza would not be seen as a peace project; it would be recognized instantly for what it is: occupation by proxy.
There is also a deeper moral failure embedded in this plan. It treats Gaza as a blank slate, as though October 2023 erased seventy-five years of Palestinian history. It ignores the Nakba, the refugees, the stolen land, the unfulfilled UN resolutions. It assumes that the world’s outrage can be managed with public relations and that Palestinian suffering will eventually fade into background noise. This is not only wrong—it is reckless.
What Trump and Netanyahu fail to grasp is that the global context has shifted. The genocide in Gaza has ruptured the old order of impunity. Millions across the world—especially in the Global South—no longer accept Western moral authority at face value. International institutions may be weak, but public consciousness is not. Israel’s actions, once shielded by narrative dominance, are now scrutinized in real time. The attempt to crown this devastation with an American-led “peace board” will not be received as benevolence. It will be seen as the final insult.
Empires collapse not only from resistance abroad but from rot within. The United States is already overstretched, polarized, and economically strained. Israel faces internal dissent, demographic realities, and growing isolation. To believe that these two actors can jointly impose a permanent solution on Gaza is to ignore the lessons of history.
This dream – of control without accountability, of peace without justice, of prosperity built on rubble—will fail. Not because Palestinians are uniquely defiant, but because injustice is inherently unstable. Systems built on domination require endless force to sustain them. Eventually, the cost becomes unbearable.
Gaza does not need a “Board of Peace.” It needs an end to occupation, accountability for war crimes, the lifting of the blockade, and recognition of Palestinian self-determination. Anything less is not peace—it is colonial management.
Trump and Netanyahu may imagine themselves as architects of a new Middle East. In reality, they are recycling the oldest imperial fantasy of all: that power can override truth. History suggests otherwise. And when this fantasy collapses – as it inevitably will – it will not be Gaza alone that bears the consequences, but those who believed they could rule the ashes forever.
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Ranjan Solomon is a writer, researcher and activist based in Goa. He has worked in social movements since he was 19 years of age. The views expressed here are the author’s own and Clarion India does not necessarily share or subscribe to them. He can be contacted at ranjan.solomon@gmail.com
