Indonesia Invited to Trump's 'Board of Peace' for Gaza: Should They Accept?

Not many outlets have reported it, but Bloomberg Technoz—the Indonesia-focused platform affiliated with Bloomberg—has reported that Donald Trump has invited Indonesia to join his so-called Board of Peace for Gaza. That report gained added weight this week, when Foreign Minister Sugiono abruptly cut short his visit to the United Kingdom to attend emergency consultations in Davos linked to the board, reinforcing the indication that Indonesia is being actively engaged. If these indications are accurate, Indonesia should not join it. What Israel carried out in Gaza was not a conventional war. It was a genocidal campaign. Civilians were killed at scale. Entire families were wiped out. Hospitals, schools, universities, and refugee camps were systematically destroyed. Siege conditions were imposed to produce starvation, disease, and mass displacement. Gaza was not damaged accidentally; it was deliberately rendered uninhabitable. An expanding body of legal scholars, human rights organizations, and genocide experts have described these acts for what they are: genocide. Any political framework that follows such violence without accountability does not build peace. It conceals crime. Trump announced the Board of Peace on 15 January as part of a 20-point plan for Palestine. The board would be chaired by Trump himself, dominated by US priorities, and populated by a select group of states and political figures, including former British prime minister Tony Blair—an enduring symbol of Western interventionism and catastrophic postwar “management.” Palestinians are offered no guaranteed sovereignty, no binding path to statehood, and no assurance that occupation, blockade, or apartheid will end. This is not an oversight. It is the structure. The United States cannot credibly act as a neutral broker after enabling genocide. Washington armed Israel throughout its assault on Gaza, shielded it diplomatically as mass civilian deaths mounted, and repeatedly blocked calls for a ceasefire. Trump’s own record is unequivocal: endorsing illegal settlements, recognising Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, cutting support for Palestinian refugees, and rejecting any pressure on Israel to accept Palestinian statehood. The Board of Peace is not a departure from this history. It is its continuation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been explicit: there will be no Palestinian state. Any initiative that proceeds without confronting this position is not a peace plan. It is a mechanism to manage the aftermath of genocide while preserving Israeli domination. What the Board of Peace proposes is not peace, but trusteeship. Gaza would be rebuilt under external control. Its people would be administered rather than empowered. Aid would replace rights. Reconstruction would proceed while occupation, blockade, and impunity remain intact. This is not recovery from genocide. It is the normalization of its outcome. For Indonesia, participation would be a grave moral failure. Indonesia’s foreign policy has long been grounded in opposition to colonialism and support for self-determination. Its Constitution explicitly rejects domination in all its forms. Indonesia has consistently refused to normalise relations with Israel and has defended Palestinian statehood under international law. Joining a US-led governance structure that legitimises the aftermath of genocide while denying Palestinian sovereignty would contradict these principles directly. Indonesia’s role would not be neutral. As the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, its participation would be used to sanitize a deeply unjust framework imposed without Palestinian consent. Indonesia would have little real influence over decisions, but its presence would lend moral cover to a project designed to entrench injustice. Some will argue that Indonesia could influence the process from within. This argument does not withstand scrutiny. US leadership is fixed. Israeli security priorities are embedded. Accountability for genocide and guarantees of statehood are excluded by design. These are not negotiable details. They are the foundation. Participation would not reform the structure. It would endorse it. If peace were genuinely the objective after genocide, the steps would be clear: an immediate and permanent ceasefire; accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity; an end to occupation, blockade, and apartheid; and full recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state. The Board of Peace offers none of this. It offers management without justice and reconstruction without freedom. Indonesia should not join Trump’s Board of Peace. Doing so would legitimize the political aftermath of genocide, betray Indonesia’s constitutional commitments, and place the country on the wrong side of history. Refusal is not disengagement. It is the only principled choice. The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.