When Donald Trump held the first meeting of his “Board of Peace” in February, he said it was the “most consequential board” in history. With typical hyperbole, the US President announced that the board would rebuild Gaza after the war with Israel and that “what we’re doing is very simple – peace”.
Four months on, it has proved to be anything but.
According to the Financial Times, the fund for the board, which solicited $1bn “lifetime membership” fees from each nation, has yet to receive any money from donors. “Zero dollars have been deposited,” one source told the newspaper. The fraction of the $7bn pledged that has been sent to the board has not landed in its official accounts run by the World Bank, but in its private JP Morgan account, where there is far less oversight and accountability.
Shorts
The hustle feels all too familiar by now: big reveal, big promises, big names involved – in this case, Sir Tony Blair as one of the leaders of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), another questionable Trump outfit related to the Board of Peace.
