A committee built from Israel’s enemies, conflict financiers, and open antagonists is being sold as “neutral mediation.” In today’s diplomacy, absurdity isn’t a flaw — it’s the model.

Traditionally, peace does not begin with irony.

When serious conflicts require mediation, there is a fairly uncontroversial rulebook. Mediators are expected to be neutral, detached from the battlefield, and—most importantly—uninvested in the outcome beyond the cessation of violence itself. Neutrality is not a decorative virtue in mediation; it is the entire point. Without it, mediation collapses into advocacy wearing a borrowed suit. This is why, historically, countries like Switzerland are entrusted with such roles. Not because they are morally superior, but because they are structurally boring. No militias to bankroll. No ideological crusades to advance. No enemies to avenge. Switzerland’s greatest geopolitical offense is excessive punctuality. In mediation, that counts as credibility.

Against this backdrop, the composition of President Trump’s so-called Gaza peace board is… innovative.

Rather than neutral brokers, the board includes states that have long defined themselves in opposition to Israel. Countries whose diplomatic output consists largely of condemnations, threats, and moral lectures delivered from a safe distance. Actors who are not external to the conflict, but emotionally, ideologically, and in some cases financially entangled in it. Qatar, for instance, now presents itself as a peacemaker. This is not new—only increasingly audacious. For years, Doha has perfected the art of playing every side simultaneously: hosting Western diplomats while offering safe haven and financial channels to Islamist actors, including Hamas. It is a model of diplomacy where mediation and militancy are not contradictions, merely parallel business lines. The same hands that bankroll “resistance” now extend themselves as neutral arbiters of peace.

We are assured this dual role is not a conflict of interest, but a qualification.

The logic appears to be that proximity to the problem—indeed, partial........

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