Afrasianet - Dr. Hani Al-Akkad - When the U.S. peace plan was signed in Sharm el-Sheikh on October 13, 2025, it approved the formation of a "peace council" in the Middle East as part of the second phase of the agreement, with the reference on which Trump's plan to end the war in Gaza is based, and it was put into perspective that the peace council would include many world leaders and heads of state, and this council would be chaired by President Trump in his capacity as President of the United States of America, the author of the plan to end the war in the Gaza Strip, and the man who seeks peace between Palestinians and Israelis And end this long conflict. "Peace Council" is a purely American term and it may seem to be an invention of Trump with a narrow circle of his team on strategic affairs, many of the rationales of this Council were not revealed at the time or its tasks or even its charter was not announced, and its functional tasks were not unveiled, but with the start of the second phase of the agreement to end the war in Gaza, some things began to unfold about its structure, this Council and some of its charter clauses. However, all perceptions were at the time that the Council's work might not be limited to the Gaza Strip, but that its work would be broader in the following stages to include all the Palestinian territories and all areas that are witnessing conflicts in the world, starting from the end of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
On November 18, the United Nations Security Council voted on the US draft resolution to grant international powers to the International Stabilization Force (ISF) that will be deployed in Gaza under the agreement and under UN Security Council Resolution 2803, which received 13 votes against the abstention of Russia and China, and the resolution stressed the importance of consolidating the ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and Israel's withdrawal from the Yellow Line and the deployment of the International Stabilization Force there. The decision was approved to establish a "Peace Council", and Trump announced after the decision that he will chair the "Peace Council", which will include many leaders in the Middle East and some Arab and Islamic countries, and President Trump aspired that the "Peace Council" would be the highest international body that lays the foundations of security and stability in the Middle East and the world, although this Council may be concerned with matters that are not part of its prerogatives but of the powers of the United Nations, the most important of which is the spread of peace and achieving stability, and this "Peace Council" will be responsible for achieving prosperity. At the same time, the Peace Council may be entrusted with expanding the Abraham Accords adopted by the Trump administration and integrating the Palestinians into them, and this is one of the most dangerous goals of the Peace Council, as the Abraham Accords give importance to the establishment of the Palestinian state.
In the midst of large and difficult talks for the accession of many European countries to the Peace Council, President Trump announced at the Davos Forum in Switzerland the inauguration of the Peace Council with the accession of 59 countries to it, thus accepting these countries to join the Council according to the charter that was announced, and thus accepting the payment of a billion dollars for the seat, and this may not be compatible with a council that calls for and works to achieve peace, which is closer to a trade deal and nothing more. Talks on the accession of the European Union countries Reports say that the talks that are taking place now regarding this issue are very difficult, France objects to the establishment of the American Peace Council and does not intend to join it, and President Macron rejected the invitation extended to him by President Trump, and considered that the Peace Council raises fundamental questions regarding respect for the principles and structure of the United Nations, and Macron considered that this Council may one day be an alternative to the United Nations, and I think that his fear is realistic because the Council did not recognize it. Officially in the Charter of the United Nations or be one of its official structures, and even ignores the existence of the United Nations and its quest to achieve peace, at least in Gaza, where the war has not yet stopped, despite the ceasefire plan announced by Trump nearly 100 days ago, President Trump responded to Macron by saying, "No one refuses to care about Macron's refusal to join the Peace Council, and if Macron decides to do so, he will be out of the presidential office soon." Trump sees himself as the leader of the world who is capable of removing any head of state who does not agree with his management of this world. ّ . Deputy Spokesperson for UN Secretary-General António Guterres said that the Security Council has authorized the Peace Council exclusively to work in Gaza and will study the form of the Council and the nature of its establishment to determine the relationship with it, adding that "we will have to study the form of the Peace Council when it is actually established to know the nature of the Council's relationship with the United Nations." Around the world, the majority of the European Union countries, in addition to France, including Sweden and Norway, have expressed their unwillingness to join the "Peace Council" and have expressed strong reservations because they fear that this accession will give President Trump broad powers as a founding president and weaken the role of the United Nations towards establishing the foundations of security and stability.
The truth is that the Peace Council, as an idea to achieve security, peace and stability in conflict zones with an American effort, is a good idea, and peace may be achieved if the charter of this Council is in line with and receives support from the United Nations and assigns its decisions to international legitimacy to confirm them so that the decisions of the Council are not subject to the desire or temperament of Trump personally. If Trump thinks that the "Peace Council" has great international powers that overwhelm the role of the United Nations, this of course weakens the role of the United Nations and the Security Council and keeps the decision of peace and war in the hands of the United States alone to achieve America's greatness and dominance over the whole world, and I think that the "Peace Council" may not continue its work for long and will weaken with the days because the Trump administration may be the one with the mandate and when the centralization of the decision will prevail in the Council and this will make many countries I also do not believe that this Council will remain active in the era of the Democrats, and I do not believe that Trump will succeed with all the factors of dictatorship, control and control over the world in making this Peace Council an alternative to the United Nations because the United Nations has great roles and multiple bodies and structures that the Peace Council cannot ignore, although some statements of President Trump say that Trump aspires for the "Peace Council" to play roles that the United Nations has not been able to perform. We read Trump's statement well in which he said that "the Peace Council for Gaza would be great and the United Nations should have played a bigger role for peace" and this means that the Peace Council is now in charge of resolving conflicts and adjudicating conflicts, especially stopping and ending the war in Gaza, and this is what the United Nations and not even the Security Council has done, and this means that Trump is planning to become an alternative to the United Nations. Perhaps in the face of all this, Trump ignores dozens of UN resolutions calling for an end to the war of annihilation against the Palestinians, ignoring the role of the United States in supporting this war, knowing its continuity, and not obliging Israel to cease fire in the Gaza Strip until now, and forgetting that the United States of America used its veto power to thwart six ceasefire projects by a Security Council resolution over the years of the war on Gaza.
