Eko Ernada
Middle East Monitor / January 25, 2026
The inclusion of several non-Western states, including Indonesia, in the newly formed [so-called] ‘Board of Peace’ on Gaza has been presented as a constructive diplomatic step toward ending violence and facilitating post-war recovery. Supporters frame the initiative as pragmatic engagement—a way to contribute to humanitarian protection and political stabilisation. Yet beyond questions of participation and goodwill lies a deeper and more troubling issue: what kind of peace is being pursued, and at what normative cost?
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is not a humanitarian emergency born of spontaneous violence. It is one of the most legally documented cases of prolonged occupation in modern history. For decades, international law has provided a clear framework for addressing this conflict—centred on self-determination, the illegality of permanent occupation, and accountability for violations of international humanitarian law. The crisis in Gaza is not a failure of norms, but a failure of their enforcement.
It is within this context that the emergence of ad hoc peace mechanisms such as the ‘Board of Peace’ demands critical scrutiny.
Peace outside the architecture of international law
Historically, the modern international legal order emerged from the ruins of world wars and colonial domination. Its central promise was that peace would no longer be defined merely by the absence of war, but by the presence of justice. Principles such as self-determination, territorial integrity, and legal accountability were designed precisely to prevent the normalisation of conquest and occupation.
This normative architecture was institutionalised through United Nations and its legal instruments. Despite its many political limitations, the UN system remains the primary framework through which conflicts rooted in occupation and colonial legacies are meant to be resolved. The Palestinian question, in particular, has long been recognised within this framework as a matter of decolonisation and international responsibility.
Yet over time—especially in the post–Cold War era—the meaning of peace in global diplomacy has shifted. Peace has increasingly been equated with stability rather than justice. Conflicts are managed rather than resolved, violence contained rather than structurally addressed. This logic has given rise to what is often described as conflict management: an approach that prioritises order, security, and governance over political rights and historical redress.
The danger of initiatives such as the Board of Peace lies precisely here. When peace processes operate outside established legal frameworks, they risk redefining peace as a technocratic exercise—focused on humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and administrative transition—while leaving the underlying structures of domination intact. Violence may temporarily subside, but the conditions that produce it remain untouched.
In the Palestinian context, this approach has a familiar and troubling history. Repeated peace efforts have reduced a fundamentally political struggle against occupation into a series of humanitarian and security crises. The occupation itself becomes a background condition rather than the central problem. Stability replaces justice as the benchmark of success.
Peace without accountability, however, is not peace—it is postponement.
Palestinian agency and the politics of legitimacy
Equally problematic is the question of whose aspirations are represented within such peace mechanisms. International initiatives frequently claim to act “on behalf of” Palestinians, yet too often marginalise Palestinian political agency itself. Statehood, sovereignty, and self-determination are treated as distant or negotiable outcomes, while humanitarian management becomes the immediate priority.
This inversion is not accidental. It reflects a broader tendency in international governance to depoliticise conflicts rooted in colonial and asymmetrical power relations. Palestinians are framed primarily as victims in need of protection, rather than as a people entitled to political rights under international law.
From a normative standpoint, this is deeply flawed. International humanitarian suffering in Gaza is not the cause of the conflict—it is its consequence. Detaching humanitarian relief from political justice risks turning Palestinian dispossession into a permanent condition managed by international actors, rather than a historical injustice to be remedied.
This is where the participation of countries like Indonesia becomes particularly significant. As a postcolonial state with a long-standing commitment to Palestinian self-determination, Indonesia carries considerable moral capital in global diplomacy. Its involvement in peace initiatives is often read as a signal of legitimacy and balance.
Yet participation also carries risk. When states with strong normative reputations join structurally flawed mechanisms, they may inadvertently legitimise approaches that sidestep core legal and political issues. This form of structural legitimation does not require explicit endorsement; it operates subtly, through presence and silence.
The issue, therefore, is not whether states such as Indonesia should engage internationally, but how they engage—and within which paradigms. Engagement that reinforces international law, foregrounds occupation as the root problem, and centres Palestinian political rights can strengthen global norms. Engagement that prioritises stability over justice risks eroding them.
Peace for whom ?
The central question confronting the ‘Board of Peace’ is not procedural effectiveness, but normative orientation. Is peace being pursued as a pathway to justice, or as a mechanism for managing instability? History suggests that peace processes divorced from justice rarely endure. They may calm immediate violence, but they do not resolve the conditions that make violence inevitable.
For Palestinians, peace without self-determination is not peace at all. For the international community, peace without accountability undermines the very legal order it claims to uphold. And for states participating in such initiatives, the risk is clear: to become actors in the normalisation of injustice rather than its resolution.
There remains, however, a critical choice. States involved in the ‘Board of Peace’ can insist that any peace framework must remain anchored in international law, must not replace existing UN mechanisms, and must treat Palestinian self-determination not as an aspiration, but as a non-negotiable principle.
Without such commitments, initiatives like the Board of Peace risk becoming yet another chapter in a long and troubling pattern: peace processes that manage conflict efficiently while leaving injustice untouched.
Eko Ernada – lecturer in International Relations at Universitas Jember (UNEJ), Indonesia
