Hammering The UN?
Dr Khairi Janbek- February 25, 2026
By Dr Khairi Janbek
Even from the moment of its inception, the UN was subjected to constant criticism and derision. Though it started as a coalition of the willing in order to deal with differences and sources of conflict in a peaceable and/or diplomatic manner, the term willing remained nebulous.
The strong and mighty wanted to bend this will to suit their interests, and the weak and the needy wanted to bend this will for their own protection. Still in this dialectical formula the need for the UN remains as the only viable formula which offers the possibility of negotiations in the Churchillian wisdom of jaw jaw, better than war war, and it remains in this sense, the standard which provides the vaneer for international legality and the semblance of consensus.
Then suddenly and apparently, the concept of the Donald Trump Board of Peace emerged on the scene, thought of, initially, as an effort to deal with the mayhem of Gaza, and to which one may add ironically and cynically, that the most two concerned parties – Palestinians and Israelis – are out of its functioning. On top of this, the notion was propelled in the media that this Board is really an attempt to replace the UN.
So in this context we can assume what is meant is that if the UN started, all these years ago, as a coalition of the willing, today’s Board of Peace is a coalition of the frightened, of states who want to stay on the good side of Trump. This is aside from the reluctant opportunists whom seek some benefits out of becoming a member of this entity.
On the face of it, one can say that the real purpose of its establishment is not to replace the United Nations per se, but a serious attempt to bypass the UN and redefine international relations in accordance with the Trump notion of who is the enemy of peace and who is its friends, with the essential outlook of not needing the international organization at all. Under the new legality, it is Trump who lays down the law, and the one whom distributes the spoils. As for the UN it remains in his eyes as a gathering for losers.
But if we go back to the beginning, in fact the Board of Peace, not only got the blessing of the UN for its creation, but also the support of the Security Council with resolution 2038, but then again, it was linked to the reconstruction and ‘stabilization’ of Gaza, while the current format of the Board emerged on the sidelines of the recent World Economic Forum meetings.
Now irrespective of some in the international community wanting to spite Trump or of waning his influence, there is a serious and big concern that President Trump and the fact that he is presiding over this Board, will mean that the talked about peace will be the peace of the strong imposed by the strong. In itself this rings many alarm bells on the strategic level for many regions in the world about the kind of peace Trump is talking about.
Among the myriad of world conflicts, currently the Palestinian problem, Ukraine war, and Iran, stand out as the most deadly and critical. So in what shape the proposed peace will come?
Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris.
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