Category: MIL-OSI

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

A little-known Nationals MP, Queenslander Colin Boyce, who declared on Wednesday he will move for a spill of the party’s leadership, has tossed a grenade but David Littleproud appears firmly dug in.

Littleproud’s breaking of the Coalition has had a profound impact on conservative politics, further destabilising the Liberals and their leader Sussan Ley. It has divided his own party.

But as of late Wednesday no other challengers were in sight, and there did not seem to be support for a spill.

Boyce announced his move – to be made the Nationals’ Monday meeting – on Sky News, saying he wanted to give colleagues “an option”.

“The reality is, if they follow the course they’re on now, they are going over the political cliff,” he said.

“The National Party is committing political suicide by removing itself from the Coalition.”

Boyce – close to Barnaby Joyce, now ensconced in One Nation – flagged he would run for leader, but he won’t get the chance if he can’t get support for the spill motion.

Littleproud said in a statement,

I stand by my record as Leader of The Nationals and what our Party Room has achieved.

The Nationals held all of its House of Representatives seats at the last election.

The Nationals also fought to keep important policies, including the Regional Australia Future Fund, tougher action on supermarkets with divestiture powers, Universal Service Obligation reform to ensure better mobile phone coverage in regional areas, and dumping net zero while keeping all energy options on the table, including nuclear.

More recently, The Nationals opposed Labor’s hate speech laws, due to the unknown slippery slope of stopping freedom of speech.

Littleproud is protected by two factors: his leadership style, and the lack of an alternative who is both willing and viable.

Littleproud has gone to great lengths to protect his back by tying his colleagues into every decision. A main way he’s done this is by taking every single thing to his party room. Last week the Nationals had numerous meetings, with every incremental development going back to them.

Matt Canavan, the strongest and hardest-line voice in the party who ran against Littleproud after the election, is backing the leader.

In last week’s battle over the anti-hate legislation, Canavan got his way when the Nationals voted against the bill in the Senate. He has no reason to want Littleproud out.

Canavan said on Wednesday: “I’m proud of the team and what it did last week.” He saw “no reason to change leader”, although he could not understand why the Coalition needed to split – why the two parties could not have had different views and move on.

Former leader Michael McCormack voted for that legislation in the House of Representatives, so that would cruel any chance of a return for him.

He told the Canberra Times, “the leadership’s not on offer. The leadership is the gift of the party room, and the party room is very supportive of David.”

Senator Bridget McKenzie said, “this spill motion has come out of the blue. I don’t believe the party room has changed since last week’s events.”

Given how disruptive a force Littleproud is, there would be logic for the Nationals to install current deputy Kevin Hogan, which could facilitate getting the Coalition back together.

Late in last week’s crisis, Hogan had talks with a senior Liberal about a peace plan. It involved:

1. the senators who had breached shadow cabinet solidarity resigning

2. their resignations not being accepted

3. a formal acknowledgement this was an exception and in future shadow cabinet decisions, solidarity would prevail, and

4. having future blunt conversations between the leaderships of the two parties to iron out problems.

Needless to say, no peace was made.

Hogan ruled out any tilt at the leadership. “David has my overwhelming support and he has the overwhelming support of the [Nationals] room”, he said.

Meanwhile Ley wrote on Tuesday to Littleproud, suggesting a meeting.

She explained in a message to her Liberal shadow ministry colleagues, sent on Wednesday, “I wrote to David Littleproud proposing that we meet along with other senior party officials, without any preconditions and as a priority, ahead of Parliament’s return.

“I reminded him that as the leaders of the Liberal and National parties, we are the stewards of two great movements that exist to serve the Australian people and that maintaining a strong and functioning relationship between our two parties is in the national interest — whether in formal Coalition or not.

“David’s team have just advised mine that his focus is the spill motion he now faces and he is therefore unavailable to meet until after that spill is considered.”

That sounds like a fobb-off rather than a genuine excuse.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. View from The Hill: Nationals rebel stirs the pot but Littleproud is dug in – https://theconversation.com/view-from-the-hill-nationals-rebel-stirs-the-pot-but-littleproud-is-dug-in-272441

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/28/view-from-the-hill-nationals-rebel-stirs-the-pot-but-littleproud-is-dug-in-272441/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra

Last week, the Coalition fell apart for the second time since the last federal election – which was just eight months ago.

Both the Liberals and Nationals are in crisis. Sussan Ley’s leadership of the Opposition now appears to be terminal. And Nationals MP Colin Boyce today declared he would call for a spill of that party’s leadership next week.

Only weeks ago, it was the Albanese government with its back against the wall, after extensive criticism of its handling of the aftermath of the December 14 Bondi massacre.

But after Parliament returned early to pass restrictions on guns and take further measures against hate speech and organisations promoting hate, it ended up splitting the Liberals and their former Coalition partners, the Nationals.

Liberal Senator Jonathon (Jonno) Duniam, the shadow minister for home affairs, was one of the key players in last week’s events. He joins us today to discuss whether the Liberals will end up facing off against the Nationals at the next election, a surge in public support for One Nation and more.

On vocal concerns that new hate speech laws would limit freedom of speech, Duniam says the bill now has adequate safeguards – and blames “social media influencers” who had “whipped up a frenzy” of misinformation.

One thing that’s become apparent to me over the course of the last three weeks is that there are a huge number of social media influencers who seem more interested in boosting their algorithm and boosting their subscribers or viewer numbers than they are in facilitating passage of true information. And that is something that is very concerning to me.

When you’ve got people suggesting that political parties like One Nation might end up as a hate group, which is just patently false […] it’s just nuts. But yet there are people out there spreading this stuff through their 30-second videos, and of course it has whipped up this frenzy.

On the Coalition split, Duniam says he would like it to be re-formed, but at the moment it’s “impossible”.

I think it is probably a good thing for the Liberals and the Nationals to have time apart. I think that the Nationals have a range of issues they need to work through internally. Some of those were on display for all to see in the last sitting week, as they couldn’t agree amongst themselves on their position on legislation and various elements of those bills.

And let’s not forget, it’s the second time in 12 months that the Nationals have precipitated a separation of this nature […] When the Nationals are willing to be a part of such a coherent opposition then I think that it would be great to have them back. But at this point in time I don’t think they are.

Duniam said Boyce’s new push to spill the Nationals leadership “could indeed change things” – but “we don’t need to rush back into Coalition”, even if that meant Liberals and Nationals running against each other at the next election.

Indeed, that is a possibility. And I’m not going to predict anything here, but on the current course we’re on, that’s what’s going to happen.

On the rise of One Nation in recent polls, Duniam acknowledges there’s more the Liberals could do to win back voters.

I think there’s a job for us in centre-right parties to certainly call out [minor] parties that have been all care and no responsibility […] They can say whatever they like and vote however they do in Parliament, with no regard for some of the bigger problems that come along for parties of government.

We need to be clearer in our communication, we need to be clearer in making sure people understand what it is we stand for. And I take responsibility for this as well. I don’t think we’ve done a very good job with that – not just in the last nine or whatever months it’s been since the election, but the last term, too. That’s why we’re in opposition. That’s why we got smashed at the last election.

On bridging the ideological gulf between the Liberal Party’s moderates and conservatives, Duniam says that divide is not as great as people make out.

I think we have been able to do that quite a lot and it’s lost in the froth and bubble of everything that’s going on at the moment. I mean, let’s look at the last six months. Sussan Ley was able to settle a net zero position where the moderates, as they’re called, while they might have had concerns and issues with particular elements of what we were doing, they came along. They didn’t leave the party.

[…] I don’t think there is quite the gulf. What we do need to do is clearly tell people what we stand for, and why, and how much better off they will be as a result of that. I think we can happily work – conservative and moderate – in our party. Because at the end of the day we’re all Liberals and we all want the best for our country.

[…] And at this point in time, we’re spending a bit too much time talking about ourselves and not the people of Australia. So the sooner that settles down, the better.

Michelle Grattan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Jonno Duniam on the ‘frenzy’ over hate speech laws and the Coalition split – https://theconversation.com/politics-with-michelle-grattan-jonno-duniam-on-the-frenzy-over-hate-speech-laws-and-the-coalition-split-274516

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/28/politics-with-michelle-grattan-jonno-duniam-on-the-frenzy-over-hate-speech-laws-and-the-coalition-split-274516/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Ali Mamouri, Research Fellow, Middle East Studies, Deakin University

Renewed fighting in Syria in recent weeks between government-aligned forces and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) isn’t just a local issue. It has serious implications for the stability of the rest of the Middle East.

Syrian government forces launched an offensive in early January into areas of northeastern Syria controlled by Kurdish forces. The operation enabled the government to gain control of key oil and gas fields and major border crossings with Iraq and Turkey.

Of particular concern to Syria’s neighbours, though, is the thousands of former Islamic State (IS) fighters who have been held in prisons run by the SDF in the region. One camp, al-Hol, reportedly held about 24,000 detainees, primarily women and children. There were also diehard IS supporters from around the world at the camp.

Amid concerns the prisoners would escape with the SDF retreat, the US military began moving detainees from Syria to other facilities in Iraq last week. Some prisoners, however, were able to escape.

Though both sides agreed to a ceasefire that would see the SDF forces incorporated into the Syrian armed forces, it remains shaky.

The government’s offensive has also resulted in mass displacement, mistreatment of civilians and what the SDF claims are Islamic State-style killings of its forces and civilians.

And there are concerns the Islamic State will take advantage of the chaos to regroup and try to destabilise the region once again.

A pattern of violence

The fighting has followed a pattern disturbingly similar to other violent episodes following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government to forces led by now-President Ahmed al-Sharaa in late 2024.

Al-Sharaa has pledged to protect minorities in the new Syria he is building, but religious and ethnic minorities have specifically been targeted. This includes the Druze in southern Syria and Alawite communities in the west.

There have been credible reports of summary executions, arbitrary killings and kidnappings.

When the Islamic State controlled large portions of Syria around 2014, its violent actions against civilians – in particular, minorities such as the Yazidis and Kurds – were widely condemned as potential war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In al-Sharaa’s Syria, the violence has allegedly been carried out by government security forces, as well as armed factions affiliated with the government, including foreign fighters.

And al-Sharaa’s government has been supported – or at least tolerated – by international actors, most notably the United States. US President Donald Trump praised al-Sharaa earlier this month for his “tremendous progress”, adding, “I think he’s going to put it all together.”

Trump even met al-Sharaa during a visit to Saudi Arabia in May at the behest of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

As a result, violent actions that once triggered airstrikes and global outrage are now met largely with silence, caution or political justification.

This shift is most stark in the treatment of Kurdish forces, particularly the Syrian Democratic Forces. These forces have been among the US government’s most effective local partners in the fight against Islamic State for years.

Despite this record, violence against Kurdish civilians has elicited little meaningful reaction. Instead, US policy has focused on supporting the Syrian government structure and urging Kurdish leaders to accept the new political order and fully integrate into state institutions.

For Kurdish communities, this demand carries profound risks. The experiences of the Druze and Alawites offer little assurance that disarmament and territorial concessions will be met with protection or political inclusion.

Many Kurds fear laying down arms without security guarantees could expose them to similar attacks.

A return of Islamic State

Another destabilising consequence of the fighting in eastern Syria has been the collapse of the detention network built to prevent the return of IS.

The US has said up to 7,000 detainees could be transferred from Syria to detention facilities in Iraq in its operations.

While framed as a logistical and security necessity, the announcement immediately triggered alarm across Iraq, where memories of the 2014 Islamic State invasion remain vivid. That was fuelled, in part, by prison breaks from poorly secured detention facilities in Iraq and Syria.

In response to these concerns, Iraqi security forces have deployed in large numbers along the Syrian border to prevent escaped IS detainees from infiltrating the country.

US and Turkish agendas

At the centre of this unfolding crisis is the US, which favours a centralised Syrian state under a single trusted authority. This is easier to manage diplomatically and militarily than a fragmented country with competing armed factions.

This approach also aligns with Trump’s broader regional ambitions, including expanding the Abraham Accords by persuading more regional countries to normalise ties with Israel.

Turkey, a NATO member and key US ally, also has a vested interest in the future of Syria. Ankara, a key backer of al-Sharaa, has long viewed any form of Kurdish autonomy in Syria as an existential threat, fearing it would embolden Kurdish demands inside Turkey.

Together, these overlapping agendas reveal why the international response to the fighting in eastern Syria has been so muted. Concerns over civilian protection or the potential regrouping of the Islamic State have been trumped by the strategic realignment taking place with a post-Assad Syria.

Kurdish forces, once indispensable partners, now find themselves caught between shifting alliances and competing regional interests — another casualty of a new international order defined by convenience rather than principle.

Ali Mamouri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. As Syria’s new government consolidates its power, the Kurdish minority fears for its future – https://theconversation.com/as-syrias-new-government-consolidates-its-power-the-kurdish-minority-fears-for-its-future-274110

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/28/as-syrias-new-government-consolidates-its-power-the-kurdish-minority-fears-for-its-future-274110/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By David S G Goodman, Director, China Studies Centre, Professor of Chinese Politics, University of Sydney

Last weekend, China’s Ministry of National Defence announced that the country’s two most senior generals – Zhang Youxia and Liu Zhenli – would be removed from office and placed under investigation for serious disciplinary violations.

Zhang had been the People’s Liberation Army’s most senior general since October 2022. He was the highest ranking military member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China (CCP), the party-state’s 24-member executive policy-making body.

Zhang was also the senior vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, which controls the armed forces.

Liu was the former commander of the PLA’s Ground Force and had most recently been in charge of the Central Military Commission’s Joint Staff Department.

The reaction to these developments outside China has led to dramatic headlines. A BBC headline initially focused on a “military in crisis”, while the Australian Broadcasting Corporation called it an “astonishing” purge that leaves Chinese leader Xi Jinping almost alone at the top of the world’s biggest army.

Certainly, the moves were surprising. But so little is known about the internal workings of the CCP’s leadership, including Xi’s relations with his colleagues in the Politburo, that interpreting these developments is difficult, if not impossible.

What we know

For historical and political reasons, the PLA is an organisation of the CCP. Both fall under the direct purview of Xi, who is chair of the Central Military Commission, general secretary of the CCP and president of the country.

The removal of Zhang and Liu at least temporarily leaves military leadership under just Xi and General Zhang Shengmin. Three other members of the Central Military Commission have lost their positions since 2024 and not been replaced.

Though the Chinese leadership is notoriously opaque, it is clear there have been disciplinary problems within the military in the last few years, particularly related to corruption and procurement in the more technically advanced departments of the PLA. Some two dozen senior military figures have been dismissed or investigated since 2022.

Zhang and Liu were fairly recent appointments to even more senior positions. Both were also seen as personal supporters of Xi. The fathers of Xi and Zhang had a close relationship dating back to the early days of the CCP in the 1930s before the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.

Moreover, the removals of Zhang and Liu happened more quickly than other senior military dismissals of recent years – and there were fewer warning signs. Both men had appeared in public as recently as a month ago.

Perhaps of even greater surprise, the Wall Street Journal reported that Zhang is accused of providing the United States with information about China’s nuclear weapons program, alongside allegations of accepting bribes and forming “political cliques”.

So, how to read the tea leaves?

Past practice suggests without a doubt that once a senior figure loses their status or is dismissed – for whatever reason – their downfall results in accusations of a litany of crimes.

The Politburo has also seen its share of intense internal politics in the past, though the precise circumstances of such conflicts usually take years to surface. A good example is the mysterious death of Lin Biao in 1971, another former PLA commander who at the time was Mao Zedong’s designated successor.

Given the broader context at play here with the management of the military and the development of government programs in recent years, as well as the claims Zhang and Liu violated “discipline and the law”, there are two possible explanations for their dismissals.

Both may have had direct involvement in corruption, taking bribes to appoint officials or ensure contracts for suppliers. It is equally likely they are being held responsible for corruption that has undoubtedly occurred in military procurement under their watch.

Then there is the possibility of a difference of opinion within the Central Military Commission and the Politburo on how to deal with corruption, particularly within the military.

Xi has repeatedly stressed the importance of the fight against corruption since he became general secretary of the CCP in 2012.

In recent weeks, he has made this an even more important crusade in the context of the about-to-be-announced 15th Five-year Plan for Economic and Social Development. On January 12, he designated the issue of corruption as a “major struggle” in a speech to China’s top anti-corruption agency:

Currently, the situation in the fight against corruption remains grave and complex […] We must maintain a high-pressure stance without wavering, resolutely punishing corruption wherever it exists, eliminating all forms of graft, and leaving no place for corrupt elements to hide.

To meet China’s developmental goals, he added, the CCP “must deploy cadres who are truly loyal, reliable, consistent and responsible”.

It is difficult to see Zhang and Liu or indeed anyone else currently willing or able to challenge Xi. Or, indeed, that Xi might feel immediately threatened by Zhang, Liu or others.

To that extent, Xi’s personal position is neither strengthened nor weakened by these dismissals.

Other analysts have suggested that the disruptions caused by the dismissals could lower Xi’s confidence in his military. Some have even said the potential for an invasion of Taiwan has now been lowered.

The removal of so many leaders may indicate the PLA is now expected to undergo culture change. At the same time, it would be drawing a very long bow to suggest its military capacity generally or in relation to Taiwan has either been strengthened or weakened.

David S G Goodman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Xi Jinping has dismissed two of China’s most senior generals. What does this mean? – https://theconversation.com/xi-jinping-has-dismissed-two-of-chinas-most-senior-generals-what-does-this-mean-274425

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/28/xi-jinping-has-dismissed-two-of-chinas-most-senior-generals-what-does-this-mean-274425/

Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Hawkins, Head, Canberra School of Government, University of Canberra

Inflation has risen further above the Reserve Bank of Australia’s 2–3% target. There is now a very real prospect the Reserve Bank will feel it needs to increase interest rates at its meeting next week, with an announcement due on Tuesday afternoon.

Inflation rose 3.8% in the year to December, up from 3.4% in the year to November, according to the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics consumer price index (CPI) report.

The Reserve Bank will look at the data for the December quarter at its February 2-3 meeting.

Financial markets and economists had been leaning towards the possibility of an interest rate rise, as inflation proved stubbornly high in recent months and the jobs market picked up. Today’s inflation data has led markets to regard an interest rate increase as more likely.

Where prices moved the most

Comparing prices in the December quarter of 2025 with the same period in 2024, strong rises were recorded for beef and veal, up 10.7%, reflecting strong overseas demand for Australian red meat.

The ending of rebates saw electricity prices rise 26%, reversing previous sharp declines. The cost of child care was up 11.3%. The prices of some food items, such as pork, poultry, seafoods and cheese, were little changed over the year. So were prices of furniture and pharmaceuticals. But very few goods and services showed significant price falls.

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The Reserve Bank’s preferred indicator for the underlying trend in inflation is the “trimmed mean”, which takes out items with the most extreme price changes. This measure was 3.4% in the December quarter, up from 3.0% in the September quarter.

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This is significantly above the top of the target range and almost 1% above the mid-point of the range, which is where the central bank would like to see inflation. It is also above the RBA’s most recently published forecast.

This measure of underlying inflation initially dropped rapidly from its 6.8% peak at end of 2022, once the Reserve Bank started raising interest rates. Progress in returning to the target range, unsurprisingly, slowed going into 2025. But inflation has now risen again.

The International Monetary Fund recently warned Australia is “projected to see some drawn-out persistence in above-target inflation”.

But another international body, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, was more optimistic, commenting “if, as expected, inflation turns back down during 2026, there may be some space for further easing” in interest rates.

The more volatile monthly series

As well as the long-running quarterly series, the Bureau of Statistics has recently published monthly data. The December 2025 data is only the third complete monthly CPI issued.

Previously, the monthly update was called an “indicator” because it covered fewer goods and services than the long-running quarterly CPI report.

But the complete monthly CPI is not only new, it is also more volatile than the long-running quarterly series. So this increase in reported inflation needs to be interpreted with care.

As you can see from the chart above there have been periods such as August–September 2023 when the monthly measure briefly spiked up but inflation was still on a downward trajectory. So the annual increase of 3.8% in December may be exaggerating the problem.

Why the latest jobs data matters too

The recent jobs data showed a very healthy labour market. About 65,000 more people were employed in December than November. The unemployment rate dropped from 4.3% to 4.1%.

Low unemployment is a good thing. Indeed, full employment is explicitly an objective of the Reserve Bank.

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Read more:
Reserve Bank says unemployment rise was not a shock, inflation on track

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The RBA would only be concerned about lower unemployment if they thought the labour market was overheating and causing inflationary pressures. Wages growth has been 3.5% or less for the past year. The RBA’s latest forecast is for it to slow to 3%. If labour productivity can grow close to 1%, as the bank expects, that would be consistent with inflation around the middle of the RBA’s 2–3% target range.

Nor is the latest annual growth in the economy, around 2%, indicating an economy that is overheating.

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Read more:
Australian economic growth is solid but not spectacular. Rate cuts are off the table

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What it all means for interest rates

The increase to 3.4% in the RBA’s preferred measure of underlying inflation means the bank will seriously consider lifting its key interest rate, the “cash rate”.

This would be an unusually rapid turnaround after the recent interest rate cuts. Generally, the RBA will hold rates steady for a longer time – perhaps a year or so – before reversing course.

The Reserve Bank would want to be sure there has truly been a sustained increase in the inflationary pressures in the economy, or that they had earlier been underestimating them.

The central bank would want to avoid a situation where, after cutting rates last August, it raised them again in February – then had to cut again soon after if the economy slowed again.

John Hawkins formerly worked as a senior economist at the Reserve Bank.

– ref. Australian inflation jumps, adding to chances of an RBA interest rate hike – https://theconversation.com/australian-inflation-jumps-adding-to-chances-of-an-rba-interest-rate-hike-274195

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/28/australian-inflation-jumps-adding-to-chances-of-an-rba-interest-rate-hike-274195/

Report by Dr David Robie – Café Pacific. –

Feckless European leaders like Starmer let Israel and the US tear up international law in Gaza. Now, faced with Greenland and Ukraine, they are suffering from a severe case of buyer’s regret.

ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook

US President Donald Trump has declared the three-month “ceasefire” in Gaza a great success, and now wants to move on to phase two of his so-called “peace plan”.

What does success look like? Israeli soldiers have killed more than 460 Palestinians since October, including at least 100 children.

Israel has levelled another 2500 buildings, the last of the few that were still standing.

And amid a continuing humanitarian catastrophe engineered by Israel through its blockade of food, water, medicines and shelter, at least eight babies are known to have frozen to death as winter temperatures plummet.

Marking the transition to the new phase, Trump announced earlier this month a “Board of Peace” to determine the enclave’s future.

“Peace” here is being used in exactly the same Orwellian sense as “ceasefire”. This is not about ending Gaza’s suffering. It is about creating Big Brother-style narrative control, selling as “peace” the final eradication of Palestinian life in Gaza.

The narrative spin is that, once Hamas is disarmed, the board will take on the job of Gaza’s reconstruction.

Implicit assumption
The implicit assumption is that life will gradually return to normal for the survivors of the two-year genocide Israel has carried out — though no Western leader is acknowledging it as a genocide, or cares to find out how many Palestinians have actually been killed in the onslaught.

But, as we shall see, peace is definitely not what the board is aiming to achieve. This is a cynical exercise in smoke and mirrors.

The term “board” hints not only at Trump’s preference for the language of business over politics. It alludes too to the business opportunities he intends to make from Gaza’s “transformation”.

His plan is to strip the United Nations — and thereby the international community — of any oversight of Gaza’s fate.

We are back to the time of viceroys. Colonialism is again out and proud.

Trump’s “Board of Peace” has much grander ambitions than simply managing Gaza’s takeover. In fact, the enclave and its future is not even mentioned in the board’s so-called “charter” sent out to national capitals.

In a leaked invitation to the president of Argentina, Trump referred to the board as a “bold new approach to resolving global conflicts”.

‘Results-orientated’
The charter says it will be “results-orientated” and have the “the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed”.

Some of us have long warned that Israel and the US view the Palestinians as lab rats, both for testing weapons and surveillance technologies and for changing the norms developed after the Second World War to safeguard against the return of fascist, militaristic and expansionist ideologies.

The critical legal and humanitarian architecture put in place in the post-war era included the UN and its various institutions, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Israel and the US stress-tested this system to destruction from the very start of the two-year genocide in Gaza, as Israel carpet-bombed the enclave’s homes, schools, hospitals, government buildings and bakeries.

Trump’s second presidency has pushed this agenda into overdrive.

Only this month the White House announced that the US was pulling out of 66 global organisations and treaties — some half of them affiliated with the UN.

Meanwhile, the judges and prosecutors of the ICC have been under draconian US sanctions for issuing an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant. The ICJ, which is investigating Israel for genocide, appears to have been cowed into silence.

Dysfunctional world order
Trump’s kidnapping of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro and his imminent seizure of Greenland are evidence enough that the already dysfunctional, international “rules-based order” is now in tatters. Both the UN and Nato, the West’s so-called “defence” alliance, are on the ropes.

The US president hopes his “Board of Peace” will deliver the knockout blow, supplanting the UN and the system of international law it is there to uphold.

The reconstruction of Gaza may be its first task, but Trump has much larger aspirations.

The board stands at the heart of a new world order being shaped in Trump’s image. Billionaires and their hangers-on will openly decide the fate of weak nations, based on the power elite’s naked, predatory instincts to make money.

In a petulant letter sent to Norway’s prime minister, Trump advised that, after being passed over for the Nobel peace prize: “I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace.” What in that case, one might wonder, is the point of a “Board of Peace”?

The answer is that Orwell’s moment is truly upon us: “War is peace.”

Trump, of course, has sat himself atop this new imperial business venture, an updated East India Company — the gargantuan, militarised corporation licensed by England’s Queen Elizabeth I that went on to pillage much of the globe for more than two centuries, spreading death and misery in its wake.

Trump’s lone veto
As chairman, Trump hand-picks the other members — he is reported to have sent out invitations to some 60 national leaders. He can terminate their participation whenever he sees fit. He decides when the board sits and what it discusses. He alone has a veto.

His term as chair, it seems, may extend even beyond his time as US president.

Members are granted a three-year term. A permanent seat at Trump’s new alternative to the UN Security Council can be bought for $1 billion in “cash funds”.

Hungary’s far-right leader Viktor Orban was among the first out of the blocks. He was joined by Netanyahu. Other early participants include the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Belarus and Argentina.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin is reported to be considering a place at the top table.

The significance of this is not lost on the diplomatic community. One told Reuters: “It’s a ‘Trump United Nations’ that ignores the fundamentals of the UN charter.”

Similarly, in a desperate attempt to hold the line, the French Foreign Ministry issued a forlorn statement that “reiterates [France’s] attachment to the United Nations charter”.

White House shredder
But the founding UN document, with its formal commitments to non-aggression, self-determination, multilateral obligations and the protection of human rights, has been put through the White House shredder.

Gangsters have no time for rules.

For decades, Israel has been dreaming of this moment: of taking a wrecking ball to the UN and its legal and humanitarian institutions.

With a record number of UN resolutions against it, Israel believes the world body has too often limited its room for manoeuvre. Now it will hope Trump frees it to finish its long-cherished plan of eradicating the Palestinian people from their homeland.

As if in celebration, Israeli bulldozers swept into occupied East Jerusalem to demolish the buildings of Unrwa, the UN refugee agency that has served as the main aid lifeline for Gaza’s people.

Unrwa called Israel’s action an “unprecedented attack” and one that “constitutes a serious violation of international law and the privileges and immunities of the United Nations”.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for the “Board of Peace” to raise any objections.

Sidelining of UN
Trump’s sidelining of the UN means its assessments of the realities facing Gaza, after Israel’s two-year campaign of genocidal destruction, can be quietly shunted into the shadows.

Trump has set a five-year timeline for Gaza’s transition. But the figures simply don’t add up.

The world body has warned that, even if Israel stops its blockade tomorrow, it will take decades to reconstruct Gaza, effectively from scratch, to house those of its 2.1 million inhabitants who survive.

According to estimates from the UN Development Programme, on the best-case scenario it could take seven years to clear some 60 million tonnes of rubble. Other surveys by the UN suggest a more realistic timetable of 20 years, with 10 years to clear unexploded ordnance.

The UN’s trade and development arm further warns that Israel has erased 70 years of human development in Gaza, and destroyed nearly 90 percent of cropland, leading to “the worst economic collapse ever recorded”.

Gaza’s schools, universities, hospitals, libraries and government offices are all gone. And Israel’s so-called “Yellow Line” that divides Gaza into two has annexed in all but name almost 60 percent of what was already a tiny territory, one of the most densely populated on the planet.

The fact is that these enormous hurdles to restoring life in Gaza to anything approximating “modernity” barely register in Trump’s peace plan. There is a good reason for that: strip away the fanfare and the plan has nothing substantive to say about the welfare of Gaza’s population.

Gaza’s population ignored
Or to put it more bluntly, Trump’s Gaza’s plan is not interested in Gaza’s population because it does not envision them being present in the enclave for much longer.

Israel’s barely veiled goal over the past two years has been the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Gaza. The carpet bombing was intended to make the territory entirely uninhabitable.

Trump’s plan does not conflict with that ambition. It complements it. His “Board of Peace” is the means to arrive at the final destination willed by Israel.

The first practical function of the “Board of Peace” will be to entrench the complicity of Western and Arab states in Israel’s eradication of Gaza. None can wriggle out of their responsibility for what follows.

Real decision-making powers, however, will reside not in the Board but in an executive body comprising seven figures close to Trump. The “Board of Peace” will presumably be expected to sign off on — and fund — whatever they decide.

This “Founding Executive Board”, like the “Board of Peace”, will have no Palestinian representatives.

Instead, Palestinians will be present only on a technocratic, dogsbody committee, called the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza. It will oversee the administration of day-to-day affairs in the so-called Red Zone, where Gaza’s people are penned up, in place of Hamas.

Revamped UN peacekeeping force
Finally an “International Stabilisation Force”, a revamped UN peacekeeping force, will be led by a US major-general, and presumably partner closely with Israel’s genocidal army.

Even assuming that Trump has the Palestinians’ welfare at heart — he doesn’t — no progress can be made by any of these bodies until Israel gives its approval.

In the meantime, their role will be to provide a veneer of legitimacy for further inaction, while more of Gaza’s survivors die from the Stone Age conditions engineered for them by Israel.

Note well the three real power brokers appointed to the “Founding Executive Board”: Jared Kushner, Steve Witkoff and Tony Blair. Gaza’s fate is effectively in their hands.

It was Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and scion of a real estate business family, who way back in February 2024 — long before Trump took office — framed Israel’s genocide in Gaza as “a real-estate dispute”.

It was then that Kushner first publicly floated the idea of developing the enclave into a “very valuable” waterfront property, once it had been “cleaned up”.

Steve Witkoff, a New York real estate mogul and Trump’s special envoy, has spent long months with Kushner — as Israel has been busy clearing out Old Gaza — working on a 40-page prospectus for their proposed New Gaza.

Kushner’s panic
In October, on the US TV news show 60 Minutes, panic was etched on Kushner’s face as Witkoff observed that the pair had been working on a “masterplan” for Gaza’s reconstruction for two years — long before Gaza was levelled by the Israeli military.

He added: “Jared has been pushing this.”

Witkoff’s slip suggested Trump’s team had known from the outset of Israel’s bombing campaign that the intention was to eradicate the whole of Gaza rather than just Hamas. They therefore began working on a business plan to cash in on the carnage.

Through a so-called GREAT Trust — an oh-so-clever acronym for Gaza Reconstitution, Economic Acceleration and Transformation — they have reimagined the enclave as a glitzy seaside resort and a tech hub generating billions of dollars in annual revenue.

A surreal video Trump posted on social media nearly a year ago gave an early idea of what the pair may have in mind. It showed the US president and Netanyahu sipping cocktails on sun loungers in their swimwear amid high rises on Gaza’s ethnically cleansed beachfront.

Gaza’s population — impoverished and malnourished by decades of isolation and blockade, even before the genocide — is viewed as an obstacle to the plan’s realisation.

The enclave’s Palestinians must first be resettled elsewhere, on terms that are as yet unclear, seemingly even to the plan’s formulators.

Misleading Tony Blair
Also popping up on the Executive Board, like a bad penny, is Tony Blair, the former British prime minister who misled Parliament and the public to make the case for joining President George W Bush’s illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003.

A subsequent, long, violent US-led occupation resulted in the collapse of Iraqi society, a vicious sectarian civil war, the development of an extensive US torture programme, and the deaths of more than a million Iraqis.

Those seem like exactly the kind of qualifications Trump needs from someone overseeing his Gaza plan.

His administration is therefore selling Blair as a safe pair of hands, a statesman apparently well-acquainted with navigating the yawning gap between the imperious demands of Israel and the forlorn hopes of the Palestinian leadership.

Blair’s skill set, we are assured, will be critically important as the board turns its attention to rebuilding Gaza.

In fact, the last person Gaza needs is Blair, as he proved during his disastrous eight-year stint as special envoy to the Middle East, shoe-horned in by the US in 2007 on behalf of a little-missed, defunct international body known as the Quartet.

At the time, most observers mistakenly assumed Blair’s mandate would be to revive a moribund “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians.

Diplomatic pressure avoided
But Blair avoided bringing any diplomatic pressure to bear on Israel and remained silent about what was then a newly instituted blockade of Gaza in 2007 that rapidly eviscerated its economy and left much of its population destitute and poorly fed.

One of his key battles as envoy was lobbying Israel — over the Palestinians’ heads — to let a British-led consortium drill for natural gas in Gaza’s territorial waters, where large reserves are known to exist.

According to reports, he sought to entice Israel into approving a $6 billion deal by promising that the pipeline would head directly to Israel’s port of Ashkelon. Israel would be the only customer permitted to buy the Palestinians’ gas and could therefore dictate the price.

Israel, preferring to maintain its chokehold on Gaza’s people, refused.

Blair claimed he promoted the Gaza gas project at the behest of the Palestinians. But even the supine Palestinian leadership of the Palestinian Authority, based in the West Bank, had no love for him.

In 2011, Nabil Shaath, then one of Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas’ most trusted advisers, observed of Blair: “Lately, he talks like an Israeli diplomat, selling their policies. Therefore he is useless to us.”

Another official called him “an obstacle to the realisation of Palestinian statehood”.

No interest in Palestinians
Like Blair, Trump has no interest in the Palestinians ever benefiting from their own resources. But doubtless he will be keen to leverage the former UK prime minister’s “experience” as envoy to assist in plundering its gas fields.

The centrality of Israel to Blair’s moral worldview was underscored in a comment by him in 2011 about the Arab Spring, in which peoples across the Middle East tried to liberate themselves from the toxic grip of tyrants. The former British prime minister chiefly saw these democratic uprisings as likely to “pose a problem for Israel”.

Blair has denied any personal dealings with Kushner and Witkoff’s Gaza Riviera plan — now sometimes referred to as the Sunshine Project — of luxury beachfront resorts and a “smart manufacturing zone” named for billionaire Elon Musk.

But a version leaked last July suggests his fingerprints are all over the plan, including a proposed “voluntary relocation” scheme to buy out Palestinian landowners with minor sums to leave Gaza.

It emerged that two key members of his think tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, had been liaising behind the scenes with Israeli businessmen and the Boston Consulting Group on the project.

A statement from the institute welcomed Blair’s role on Trump’s Executive Board, noting: “For Gaza and its people, we want a Gaza which does not reconstruct Gaza as it was but as it could and should be.”

It is hard to believe that Blair’s “should” connotes anything other than Israel’s dream of a Palestinian-free Gaza and Trump’s vision of Gaza as a playground for the rich.

Trumpian world template
The template for a new Trumpian world order is being crafted in Gaza. The US president’s road to the takeover of Venezuela and Greenland is being paved in this tiny Palestinian territory.

Feckless European leaders, like Britain’s Keir Starmer, who helped arm Israel and provided it with diplomatic cover as it levelled the enclave, were the ones who emboldened Trump.

Those now trying to assert the primacy of international law and the “rules-based world order” — whether in Greenland or Ukraine — were the ones who helped Washington destroy that order. They are now suffering from a severe case of buyer’s regret.

They could still stymie Trump’s latest, sinister vanity project by refusing to join the “Board of Peace” and instead defend the United Nations and its legal institutions like the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.

Will they do so? Don’t bet on it.

Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. Republished from the author’s blog with permission. This article was first published by Middle East Eye.

This article was first published on Café Pacific.

Evening Report: https://eveningreport.nz/2026/01/28/jonathan-cook-trumps-board-of-peace-is-the-nail-in-gazas-coffin/