'Board of Peace' Takes Shape Despite Israel's Concerns

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00:00Dan, walk us through who we know is potentially going to make up this Board of Peace

00:04and what some of the objections are to it.

00:08The Board of Peace is the upper echelon of this really rather ambitious and quite

00:12building superstructure that the U.S. president is setting up to oversee an ambitious plan to

00:20transform the Gaza Strip from its current war-torn ravages to something resembling a Riviera and

00:2811th. Now, this superstructure at the top of it, crowning it, would be a Board of Peace.

00:33This would be chaired by the president, by Trump himself, along with other serving heads of state

00:39and heads of government. Apparently, he's already invited the leaders of Argentina, Canada, Turkey.

00:46This talk, he might even invite the Israeli Prime Minister. However, as reported by Bloomberg over

00:51the weekend, some misgivings have been expressed over a draft charter for this Board of Peace

00:57that would require permanent members to pay a buy-in sum of $1 billion or more. Already,

01:05the Canadian leader has said this perhaps might not be something that would be agreeable to Canada.

01:11Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, someone who's involved in the Gaza plan,

01:15has also voiced misgivings through his spokespeople. So it's a quick question as to whether

01:21implementation, according to this draft charter, is possible and also what the long-term plans are.

01:27The Board of Peace does not speak specifically about Gaza. It appears to be far more ambitious,

01:33global ambitions potentially. And there is some speculation that perhaps Trump sees this replacing

01:39or posing a rivalry to the United Nations. He's been very open in his criticism of that established

01:46forum. So time will tell whether the Board of Peace, as currently envisaged, will take shape.

01:52Underneath the Board of Peace is an executive board. This is more of a hands-on authority that

01:57would oversee the Palestinian government envisaged taking over, ousting from Hamas rule in the Gaza

02:04strip. The makeup of that was announced by the Americans a few days ago. It includes the Turkish

02:10foreign minister and a Qatari diplomat. Now, the Israelis are unhappy about this. They want to distance

02:16Turkey and Qatar from the post-war planning for Gaza. And therefore, as you noted,

02:22rare umbrage from Israel over that as well.