By Ellen Isaacs
As Trump convenes his “Board of Peace” to consolidate Israeli and US exploitation of Gaza, death and suffering continue to stalk the population. A recently published study by the Lancet medical journal estimates that, as of January, 2025, the violent deaths of Gazans had been understated by about 35% over the official toll, now over 72,000. An estimated 16,000 had died of non-violent causes, although the proportion of non-combat related deaths has likely sharply increased recently. Overall, the victims of violent death are 56% women, children and the elderly.1 Since the so-called ceasefire, over 600 have been killed, Israel has occupied 53% of the territory, relief supplies remain severely restricted, the sewage system is completely destroyed, the health system further devastated, and almost no one has been allowed egress for life-saving medical treatment. The longstanding Israeli dream of ethnic cleansing of all Palestinians is continuing apace in Gaza, as it also accelerates in the West Bank (see https://multiracialunity.org/2023/12/07/ethnic-cleansing-was-always-the-zionist-plan/).
Meanwhile Trump envisions a luxurious territory under his control, not only as a beachfront resort, but as an anchor of US control of the fossil fuel resources in and around Gaza, indeed in the entire Middle East. The Board of Peace invitation to over 50 countries, does not even mention Gaza per se, but purports to be an engine for solving widespread international conflicts. It is an effort to rework the NATO/US domination of the world after World War II into a new structure of US domination, this time with non-European autocratic nations as allies. Trump has promised $10 billion in US funds for the project and is requiring each board member to come up with $1 billion within three years.
Among the 26 countries that have so far accepted Board of Peace membership are Argentina, El Salvador, Hungary, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt Indonesia, and Israel. Although EU countries have declined to join, Russia, China and India are still considering it.2 The Executive Board consists of Chairman Trump (for life), as well as Steven Witkoff, Jared Kushner, Mark Rubio, Tony Blair, the President of the World Bank and the Chairman of Apollo International. No Palestinians are included, of course, except a technical board seat for the collaborationist Palestinian Authority that administers the West Bank. Security is proposed to be enforced by 20,000 international soldiers, headquartered at a huge new 350 acre military base constructed on the ruins of Rafah in southern Gaza. So far, Indonesia, Morocco, Kazakhstan, Kosovo and Albania and Israel have promised troops. Palestinian gangs that have opposed Hamas and been armed by Israel since the start of the genocide, who are also thought to have seized much of what relief has entered Gaza, will be empowered as part of a 12,000 man police force.3,4
For those in Gaza, the plan offers no hope of resuming a stable life – no goal of their wellbeing or say in their future. Although many, if not most, Gazans do not support Hamas, many are firmly nationalist and do not wish to leave. Hamas, although greatly weakened, is refusing to surrender its remaining weapons, which may well give Israel its excuse to resume active warfare.
As anti-capitalist organizers, we recognize that the weakness of the anti-imperialist movement of Palestinians – as in all national liberation movements – from the time of the Ottoman Empire to British colonialism to U.S. sponsored Zionism, has been the lack of a class-conscious resistance. Although there was communist led binational struggle from the 1920-30s in Palestine, this movement also devolved along nationalist lines. Palestinian nationalism has meant loyalty to the Palestinian ruling class, a small elite, that has exploited Palestinian workers in its own interests or in collusion with successive colonial and imperial masters (see https://multiracialunity.org/2024/07/13/no-war-but-class-war-class-capitalism-and-multiethnic-unity-in-israel-and-palestine/#more-5375, and https://multiracialunity.org/2018/05/21/one-state-in-palestine-israel-cannot-bring-equality-if-it-is-a-capitalist-state/#more-1099). Palestinian workers have no hope of achieving a society in their interests unless they become part of an international workers’ movement, be they Arab or Jew or from all nations of the world.
As declining US capitalists become more desperate and competition with China accelerates, all workers of the world face the risk of devastating war and deprivation. The determination of the US to control the resources and trade routes of the Middle East is reflected not just in this latest strategy to uplift Israel and empower itself more directly in Gaza, but in the threat to attack Iran. If either of these battles is lost, then China and its allies will have a huge leg up in the struggle to dominate this vital part of the world, and the decline of the US as a world power will be greatly accelerated. This understanding leads us to see that it is not just Trump that is the problem, although his tactics may be haywire. No, we must build an international communist movement that focuses on the overthrow capitalism and imperialism no matter what individuals are in power. Only then can the workers of both colonized and imperialist nations build a world that prioritizes their interests.
Ellen Isaacs is a retired physician, anti-racist and anti-capitalist activist and co-editor of multiracialunity.org.
25 February 2026
Source: countercurrents.org