On October 28, 2018, a day after the massacre at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Congregation, I was in New York on business and attended the annual meeting of the Tikva Foundation. I’m not on their political wavelength, but I was in the US, and they had a good lineup of speakers, so I went to hear them.
As the session opened, Chairman Emeritus Roger Hertog said that before the program began, thanks needed to be given to President Trump (remember, this was in his first term) for all he had done for Israel. Everyone stood up and applauded… except for me.
One of the people at my table looked at me and asked why, since I live in Israel, I did not also stand up. I told her that, like all of us there, I was grateful for what he had done for Israel, but that I did not yet know what it would cost us.
Frankly, I was afraid that one day, when he no longer needs us, or at least perceives that he no longer needs us, he will throw us under the bus, because that’s just the way he operates. And, as expected, here we are, under the bus.
At the end of last week, the White House released the names of the people the president has invited to sit on the “Board of Peace,” which will be responsible for rebuilding the enclave and ensuring the disarmament of Hamas. Really? Let’s look at some of the people on the invitee list and see how committed they will be to the disarmament and elimination of Hamas.
Canada's arms embargo on Israel
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who, in April of last year, let slip his stance on Israel policy when he responded to an anti-Israel heckler asking about the “genocide” in Gaza by saying, “I’m aware, that’s why we have an arms embargo,” to cheers of “Carney! Carney! Carney!” from the crowd.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who defined Hamas as a “liberation movement,” accused Israel of war crimes and spearheaded a campaign of blatant incitement based on distortions of fact, lies, and an anti-Israel and anti-Jewish narrative. Through his mouthpiece, the newspaper Yeni Safak, the Turkish strongman calls Israel “Turkey’s number one enemy.”
Ali Al-Thawadi, a diplomat from Qatar, which has been a key mediator between Israel and Hamas throughout the war. Nevertheless, Qatar has a checkered history vis-à-vis Israel, having hosted the leadership of Hamas in luxurious quarters in Doha while Israel’s sons and daughters were being slaughtered on October 7, with others sacrificing their lives later in this far-too-long war.
Two other members of the Peace Board, Egypt’s General Intelligence Service chief Hassan Rashad and Gaza native Ali Shaath, head of the Palestinian committee tasked with managing the Gaza Strip, met in Cairo this past Saturday to discuss humanitarian priorities and the delivery of aid. According to a report in the Egyptian Daily News, Shaath, Rashad, and members of the committee expressed appreciation for Egyptian efforts toward the Gaza Strip, specifically noting the stance of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi regarding the prevention of Palestinian displacement and the preservation of the Palestinian cause.
Note the emphasis on the fact that Egypt, which could have made it possible for Gazans who wanted to enter the enclave during the war to do so, still does not want to accept any Arab Gazans into that country. During the meeting, they underscored the importance of opening all border crossings to allow the “largest possible amount” of humanitarian aid, subsistence materials, and necessary relief to reach residents, but reiterated their displeasure with the concept of Gazans leaving the strip through Egypt.
Sigrid Kaag, the Danish Interim UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, said at a May 2025 meeting of the UN Security Council that the man-made crisis unfolding in Gaza has plunged civilians into “an abyss.”
She added: “Since the collapse of the ceasefire in March, civilians have constantly come under fire, confined to ever-shrinking spaces, and deprived of lifesaving relief. Israel must halt its devastating strikes on civilian life and infrastructure.”
Add to all of this the fact that, in spite of Trump’s earlier assurances to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Board of Peace would be composed of neutral parties, the decision was made without prior notice to Israel and is diametrically opposed to our best interests.
Of late, world leaders have taken to criticizing Israel, and our prime minister specifically, for seeming to prefer conducting managed wars on all of our borders rather than make peace with our enemies. Their theory is that, in the view of Netanyahu, peace is too restrictive and prevents us from responding in kind when our country and its people are attacked.
While it is easy to postulate in this manner, one can understand the reluctance of our government to end the various wars in which we are engaged when Western leaders on whom we depend for support turn away from us at every opportunity.
In the case of the Board of Peace, while it is nice for the president of the United States to be able to say that he has corralled a large number of countries to serve, if the bulk of those who have been invited harbor long-standing complaints about how the Jewish state conducts itself with its neighbors, the results end up skewed against us even before the first board meeting takes place.
By Trump choosing people to serve who are pre-positioned against us and not sharing that decision before it is publicized, we have, in fact, been thrown under the bus. Sadly, this is not simply an unwelcome decision by the United States; it also represents a diplomatic failure on our part as well. We cannot be proud of our diplomatic efforts if we end up surprised by these kinds of decisions.
Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel, said: “The future of Israel is the future of the Jewish people, and the future of the Jewish people is the future of the world.” Someone should paste that one up on a wall in the White House.
The writer, a 42-year resident of Jerusalem, is a former national president of the Association of Americans and Canadians in Israel, a past chairperson of the board of the Pardes Institute of Jewish Studies, and a board member of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM).