Trump’s “Peace Council”: When Spain says no, and those claiming to stand with Palestine say yes

The problem is not that the international system has failed. That has been evident for a long time. The real problem is that this failure is no longer managed with embarrassment or disguised by diplomatic lingo. It is now being replaced with open political arrogance, presented to the world as “real politic”, while victims are told to adapt, accept, and move on as though injustice were an unavoidable destiny.

When Donald Trump announced what he called the “Peace Council”, he was not proposing international reform. He was not seeking to fix the structural paralysis of the United Nations, nor offering a fairer or more balanced alternative. He was doing something else entirely. He was removing the mask.

Trump said openly what empires had long practiced quietly: power is the reference point, money is the language, and whoever possesses military force writes the rules.

For that reason, this council should not be understood as a temporary deviation from the global order, but as a moment of revelation; a rare instance in which what had long been discussed behind closed doors was declared publicly, without remorse, regret or apology.

Most alarming of all is that this initiative was launched under the political sponsorship of Benjamin Netanyahu; a convicted war criminal formally wanted by the International Criminal Court and held directly responsible for acts of genocide committed against the Palestinian population in Gaza. At that point, the debate ceases to be political. It becomes purely moral.

For what kind of peace can be constructed by the hands of those who carried out a genocide?

READ: Spain declines joining Trump’s Board of Peace

A broken international order yet still less obscene than Trump’s alternative 

There is no illusion here. Long has any real hope become lost in international legitimacy, or in the fairness of the United Nations, or indeed in the willingness of the Security Council to meaningfully protect the oppressed.

It’s perfectly understood that the post–Second World War international system was designed to protect the powerful, not the victims, and that Palestine was among its earliest casualties, and remains one of its longest-suffering ones.

Yet despite its corruption, paralysis and hypocrisy, this system, with all its deformities, remains less obscene than what Trump now proposes.

International law, however selective, still feels compelled to pretend it exists. It continues to adopt legal diplomatic language. It continues to manufacture human-rights discourse. And it still feels a degree of shame when it lies, or when it is found out publicly to have lied.

Trump’s proposal requires none of this. It demands no legal framework, no moral justification, not even rhetorical courtesy. Rather, it represents a direct shift from an unjust system that hides behind law, to one that sees no need for masks at all. This is precisely why several Western states refused to join.

Spain issued a resounding and unequivocal rejection, while Norway unambiguously withdrew. Germany rejected the framework, with France expressing firm reservations, and Canada coming to political blows with Trump himself.

Notable also was that the overwhelming majority of European Union states chose to avoid the project altogether.

These governments were not motivated by solidarity with Palestine, nor by a sudden commitment to justice. They acted out of fear; fear of accelerating the total collapse of an already fragile international order.

As for Britain, despite announcing that it would not join “for now”, its position remains unreliable and unworthy of political confidence. London’s record on Palestine suggests its stance may shift whenever alignment with power becomes expedient.

READ: Germany, Italy say cannot join Board of Peace in current form

The Arab paradox: When the unjustifiable is justified

On the other side of the divide, the picture is far more disturbing. While Western governments refused to sit at the same table as a war criminal wanted by international justice, several Arab and Muslim states accepted participation, offered political endorsement or chose the convenience of silence.

No one is naïve about the scale of American pressure. Nor does one underestimate the financial, military and diplomatic blackmail that Trump deploys openly. One may understand, without excusing, the inability of some governments to say no to Washington. But what cannot be understood, under any circumstances, is the acceptance of Netanyahu’s membership. Even if rejecting the council itself proved impossible, rejecting the genocidal perpetrator should not have been. Even if fear of Trump’s unsteadiness prevailed, the minimum moral threshold remained available.

What unfolded instead revealed a deeper crisis; as for some regimes, Gaza is no longer a central cause but more of a political inconvenience. And yet, within this bleak moment lies an uncomfortable paradox. From where I stand, I do not see absolute evil in Trump’s bluntness. I see in it something revealing, perhaps even historically useful.

Trump does not beautify occupation. He does not speak of “peace processes”. He does not sell illusions of a two-state solution long emptied of substance. He articulates the imperial worldview honestly: No justice; only interest. No law; only power.

And brutal as this may be, such clarity accelerates the advent of history, as it strips away pretence, raises public consciousness and awakens societies long anaesthetised by diplomatic language. It also brings an end decades of illusion sold under the label of the fantastical “the peace process”. Trump does not herald injustice. He simply declares it without pretence.

Gaza, through its endurance and devastation, has exposed this world more clearly than any report, resolution or summit ever could. Today, the Palestinian cause is no longer merely a national struggle but rather a universal moral conundrum: How can the killer be rewarded with peace and prosperity, and why should the victim be compelled to adapt to being exterminated?

What is being proposed is not peace, but recolonisation. What is planned for Gaza is not reconstruction, but subjugation. This is why the battle is no longer about councils, communiqués or conferences, rather it is about consciousness. The consciousness of peoples who are beginning to see, to understand and to shed the illusions of the old international order.

So, while there might be no hope left in global institutions, true and real hope remains in people awoken from a long slumber. Meanwhile and always, Gaza, remains the spark that triggered that global awakening.

OPINION: We must act before Palestinian hostages are executed in the world’s worst prisons

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.