The inaugural meeting of the Board of Peace held in Washington on Thursday is being billed as a breakthrough–an international mechanism to lock in a ceasefire and begin reconstruction.
Pakistan’s foreign office has publicly framed its participation as consistent with its long-standing support for Palestinian rights, while emphasising that any security-related role would be contingent on international legitimacy. This stance is sensible. Pakistan has spent decades contributing to UN peace operations, and the instinct to see stabilisation and civilian protection through a rules-based lens is part of its diplomatic muscle memory. But the Board’s credibility problem is real. Core questions remain unresolved: who governs Gaza, what happens to armed groups, and how immediate needs are met while politics remain contested? Participation appears uneven as some states have joined fully, others have sent observers, and key allies have kept their distance, wary of a new structure that could rival (or dilute) the UN’s role. The architecture of the Board, established under UN Security Council Resolution 2803, grants it a mandate to support reconstruction and temporary stabilisation, but the concentration of decision-making power raises concerns about its legitimacy. Pakistan, precisely because it is not a party to the conflict and has credibility in multilateral settings, should be among the states insisting that the UN track remains central.Pakistan travel guide
Above all stands the moral and material scale of Gaza’s destruction. UN estimates around 61 million tonnes of debris in the besieged strip, which translates into years of clearance even before rebuilding begins. Yet some of what is being showcased under the Board’s banner-promises of housing units, hundreds of schools, dozens of medical facilities, and economic targets reaching $10 billion GDP with 500,000 jobs by 2035 – risks reading like a spreadsheet substitute for sovereignty. A reconstruction project that treats Palestinians as beneficiaries rather than authors is not a peace plan. Not today. Not tomorrow. Pakistan should be clear-eyed here. Joining the process can be justified only if it is used to push the initiative toward legitimacy. Islamabad continues to reaffirm a two-state settlement consistent with the familiar parameters of the 1967 lines and East Jerusalem as capital, and it has simultaneously engaged in regional diplomacy opposing unilateral land changes in the West Bank.
The joint statement by Pakistan and seven other states condemning Israel’s designation of West Bank land as so-called “state land” explicitly invokes international law, rejecting unilateral changes to the occupied status. The Board will inevitably attract money. Pakistan should, thus, argue that rebuilding must be conditioned on three basics: unhindered humanitarian access, a credible, locally rooted interim administration, and a time-bound political pathway consistent with the UN framework. Gaza does not need another theatre of diplomatic branding. It needs a mechanism that reduces suffering now, prevents renewed war later, and restores a political future rather than replacing it with urban design. Pakistan should stay in the room, but it must use its seat for leverage, because peace that is merely announced is peace that will not hold.
