The Trump administration is celebrating what the president called “one of the biggest approvals in the History of the United Nations” following the UN Security Council’s endorsement of his Gaza peace plan.
With 13 votes in favor and strategic abstentions from Russia and China, Resolution 2803 authorizes an International Stabilization Force and establishes a “Board of Peace” to govern Gaza—with Trump himself at the helm. The White House would have us believe this represents a genuine international mandate for American stewardship over the post-war reconstruction of Gaza.
The reality is far less inspiring.
The mandate that wasn’tLet’s be clear about what actually happened at the UN. Russia and China—two permanent members with veto power—abstained rather than endorsed this resolution.
Moscow’s Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia explained his country’s position bluntly: the Security Council was “giving its blessing to a US initiative on basis of Washington’s promises” while “giving complete control over the Gaza Strip to the Board of Peace and the ISF, the modalities of which we know nothing about so far.” China echoed similar concerns, noting that “Palestine is barely visible in it, and the Palestinian sovereignty and ownership are not fully reflected.”
These abstentions speak volumes. When the world’s major powers decline to actively support your “historic” initiative, you haven’t received a mandate—you’ve received permission to proceed at your own risk. There’s a profound difference between international legitimacy and international indifference.
The Arab and Muslim states that did support the resolution—including Qatar, Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey—had their reasons, but those reasons have less to do with enthusiasm for American nation-building and more to do with pragmatic calculations.
These countries recognize that some international presence is preferable to continued Israeli military occupation, and they need UN authorization to justify committing their own troops to what promises to be a thankless and dangerous mission.
Ghosts of Iraq and AfghanistanFor those of us who watched the American ventures in Iraq and Afghanistan unfold over two decades, the parallels are impossible to ignore.
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Once again, Washington is promising to transform a war-torn Middle Eastern territory through the deployment of international forces, the establishment of transitional authorities, and the vague promise of eventual self-determination. Once again, we’re told that with sufficient American will and international cooperation, democracy and prosperity will bloom from the rubble.
The resolution authorizes the Board of Peace and International Stabilization Force until the end of 2027—a mere two years to accomplish what the United States couldn’t achieve in Iraq over 20 years.
The ISF is tasked with stabilizing security, overseeing demilitarization, dismantling terrorist infrastructure, training a new Palestinian police force, and facilitating humanitarian aid. Meanwhile, the Board of Peace will coordinate reconstruction efforts and eventually hand over control to a “reformed” Palestinian Authority.
This is nation-building on steroids, wrapped in the language of international cooperation. And it ignores every lesson we should have learned from our recent Middle Eastern adventures.
Problem of legitimacyHere’s what the Trump administration doesn’t want to acknowledge: international authorization is not the same as local legitimacy.
Hamas, which still commands significant support among Palestinians despite the devastation of the recent war, has rejected the resolution outright, calling it “an attempt to impose another form of occupation on our land and people.”
The Palestinian Authority, weak and discredited after years of failed negotiations and accusations of corruption, is in no position to assume control even after hypothetical reforms are completed.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, continues to oppose Palestinian statehood and faces pressure from his far-right coalition partners who view any pathway to Palestinian independence as a betrayal.
The resolution’s language about a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood” appears only after Palestinian Authority reforms are “faithfully carried out” and “Gaza redevelopment has advanced”—conditions with no timeline, no benchmarks, and no enforcement mechanism.
In other words, Palestinian statehood is a mirage on the horizon, always visible but never reachable.
Folly of American centralityPerhaps most troubling is the resolution’s placement of the United States—and specifically President Trump—at the center of Gaza’s future governance. The president will chair the Board of Peace, promising to announce its members “in the coming weeks.”
This personalizes American involvement in a way that virtually guarantees the initiative will be perceived as an extension of US power rather than genuine international trusteeship.
This is not how successful international peacekeeping and reconstruction efforts work. The most effective UN missions have succeeded precisely because they maintained distance from the great powers and preserved their neutrality.
By making Trump the face of Gaza’s transitional administration, the resolution undermines whatever claim to impartiality the International Stabilization Force might have had.
Western diplomatic sources have already told CNN that “the lack of detail in the resolution will make it hard to put into effect.” This is diplomatic speak for: nobody really knows how this is supposed to work, but we’re voting for it anyway.
Realist’s perspectiveFrom a realist perspective, Resolution 2803 represents the triumph of form over substance. The Trump administration wanted international cover for its Gaza initiatives, and it got the bare minimum required to claim success.
Russia and China were content to abstain rather than block American plans they view as doomed to failure. Arab states calculated that nominal UN authorization serves their interests better than continued chaos.
But a UN Security Council resolution cannot conjure legitimacy where none exists. It cannot force Israelis and Palestinians to accept compromises that neither side is prepared to make. It cannot transform the United States into an honest broker when decades of policy have demonstrated otherwise.
And it certainly cannot substitute for the hard work of genuine reconciliation and state-building, which requires local ownership, regional buy-in, and sustained commitment far beyond a two-year authorization.
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The United States has not received a mandate for Palestine. It has received permission to try—and very likely fail—at nation-building yet again. The difference between these two things will become painfully apparent in the months ahead, when the International Stabilization Force confronts the reality on the ground and discovers that Security Council resolutions make poor shields against rockets and roadside bombs.
Hence, the Trump administration’s celebration of this UN vote reveals how desperately Washington craves international legitimacy for unilateral actions. But legitimacy cannot be manufactured through diplomatic maneuvering and abstention management.
Real legitimacy comes from the consent of the governed, from sustainable political settlements and from solutions that address the underlying drivers of conflict rather than merely its symptoms.
Resolution 2803 does none of these things. It is a fig leaf masquerading as a mandate, a talking shop pretending to be governance, and a recipe for American entanglement in yet another Middle Eastern quagmire.
History will judge this “historic approval” not by the votes counted in New York, but by the bodies counted in Gaza when this latest experiment in American-led nation-building inevitably unravels.
The question isn’t whether the United States has received a UN mandate for Palestine. The question is whether America will ever learn that mandates cannot substitute for wisdom, and that international resolutions cannot manufacture the political will required to solve conflicts that have resisted solution for generations.
This article was originally published on Leon Hadar’s Global Zeitgeist and is republished with kind permission. Become a subscriber here.
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