The Board of Peace: the new UN or Trump's vanity project?
The Story
The Times
3.9 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 19 February 2026
⏱️ 27 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Board of Peace began with the grand ambition of reconstructing Gaza and securing a lasting end to one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. But with Donald Trump as chairman for life, its ambitions have grown: it wants to become a wider international peacekeeping organisation. As members meet for the first time in Washington DC, will their lofty ambitions translate into action on the ground? Or is it all just a vanity project?
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Guest: Gabrielle Weiniger, Israel correspondent, The Times.
Host: Manveen Rana.
Producer: Harry Stott, Olivia Case.
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Read more: Tony Blair to attend Trump’s inaugural Board of Peace meeting
Further listening: Trump's Greenland play and the future of transatlantic relations
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From The Times and the Sunday Times, this is the story. |
| 0:05.9 | I'm Manvine Rana. |
| 0:09.2 | This is a board like no other. |
| 0:11.9 | There will never be a board like the board that we're going to be announcing. |
| 0:16.0 | Everybody wants to be on the board. |
| 0:18.9 | Created to oversee the Gaza peace process, |
| 0:21.6 | Donald Trump's Board of Peace |
| 0:24.6 | has become something very different. |
| 0:27.6 | It's become an obsession. |
| 0:29.6 | I think it's something like nobody's ever even imagined. |
| 0:33.6 | So it's called the Board of Peace and watch for it because it's going to do |
| 0:38.7 | some fantastic things. It's an attempt to redraw diplomatic norms. We can do other things. We can do |
| 0:45.4 | numerous other things. Once this board is completely formed, we can do pretty much whatever we want |
| 0:49.9 | to do, and we'll do it in conjunction with the United Nations. The board has attracted a motley crew of world leaders, |
| 0:57.5 | the controversial president of Belarus, the Saudis, |
| 1:01.8 | Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, |
| 1:04.5 | but no UK, no France, no Germany. |
| 1:08.8 | And what's more, the board that's meant to be determining the future of Gaza |
| 1:12.4 | has a representative from Israel, but no Palestinian member. Well, the Board of Peace is interesting. |
| 1:18.7 | It's mainly Americans, no women, nobody from Palestine. So it really does represent the inner |
| 1:24.7 | circle of what Trump believes are important. |
| 1:34.1 | And then there's the money, the $1 billion price tag attached to permanent membership, |
... |
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