Civil society coalition calls Trump’s Gaza reconstruction plan illegitimate land grab excluding Palestinians
PETALING JAYA: A coalition of Malaysian civil society organisations has issued a strong condemnation of former United States President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” initiative, calling it an illegitimate attempt to commercialise Gaza’s reconstruction while excluding Palestinian voices.
In a joint press statement released today, the groups—led by POLITY executive chairperson Nurul Izzah Anwar—rejected the initiative as “a permanent concentration of power designed to legitimise dispossession, commercialise destruction, and convert grave breaches of international law into a branded property development project.”
The statement criticised Trump’s appointment of himself as chairman for life with authority to select his own successor, describing the body as “devoid of democratic mandate, legal accountability, or international legitimacy.”
The groups argued that the Board of Peace aims to advance Trump’s vision of transforming Gaza into a luxury destination—the so-called “Gaza Riviera”—reducing reconstruction of the devastated territory to a real estate transaction.
“It treats land as an asset to be monetised and people as variables to be managed, while Palestinian rights, consent, and sovereignty are excluded entirely from the equation,” the statement said.
The coalition highlighted remarks by Jared Kushner at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which they said made explicit a vision of “private development without Palestinian peoples’ ownership, growth without rights, and reconstruction without self-determination.”
The statement warned that such a framework mirrors historical patterns of colonial economic domination and violates core principles of international humanitarian and human rights law.
The groups also criticised members of the United Nations Security Council who endorsed the Board of Peace, calling it “a profound failure of legal responsibility.”
“No political forum has the authority to legitimise land acquisition by force, collective punishment, or the permanent exclusion of an occupied population from decisions governing its territory,” they said.
The coalition alleged that participation by certain states was secured through economic coercion, including threats of punitive tariffs, arguing that “consent obtained through pressure and retaliation is not consent—it is compulsion.”
Notably, the groups emphasised that the Board of Peace was conceived, negotiated and announced without the presence, knowledge or consent of Palestinian political representatives, civil society or affected communities.
“This exclusion alone renders the initiative invalid under international norms governing self-determination and participatory governance,” they said.
While the Board speaks of “development,” the statement pointed out that Gaza’s population continues to face severe shortages of food, medicines, clean water, sanitation and access to education.
“Any initiative that prioritises luxury infrastructure and speculative investment while ignoring mass deprivation and humanitarian collapse is not a peace plan—it is a moral inversion,” the groups said.
The statement concluded: “We categorically reject Trump’s Board of Peace as illegitimate, unlawful and dangerous. The international community must refuse to participate in schemes that disguise dispossession as development and exploitation as peace.”
The statement was signed by prominent Malaysian civil society figures including Nurul Izzah of POLITY and Malaysian Humanitarian Aid and Relief (MAHAR), Charles Santiago of ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights, Chee Yoke Ling of Third World Network, Prof. Dr. Mohd Afandi Salleh Faculty of Law & International Relations Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin, Jismi Johari of MAHAR, Meenakshi Raman of Sahabat Alam Malaysia, and Mohideen Abdul Kader of Consumers Association of Penang.
