Israel should have a heavier, decisive voice than other members on any Gaza Board of Peace, not because it seeks dominance, but because it bears the consequences.
When decisions fail, it is Israeli towns that come under fire, Israeli soldiers who are deployed, and Israeli civilians who run to shelters. That reality alone justifies giving Israel greater weight than other participants who do not share the same exposure, responsibility, or cost when policies unravel.
This point was underscored minutes after the Gaza Board of Peace charter was officially signed at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, when Gaza technocratic committee head Ali Shaath announced that the Rafah crossing would open on the Egyptian side.
The statement was made without Israel’s approval as far as we know, and it even prompted officials to announce a security meeting on Sunday to discuss Israel’s stance on the matter. That response was not diplomatic signaling or a political reflex. It was the instinctive reaction of a state whose border security can be altered overnight by a single unvetted declaration.
Israel does not observe Gaza from a distance. It shares a live, volatile border with it. Rockets do not land in international conference rooms. They land in Sderot, Ashkelon, and communities across the western Negev.
Israeli reality faces a terrorism threat
Tunnels do not threaten policy papers. They threaten sovereignty, deterrence, and human life. No international actor, technocratic committee, or regional intermediary absorbs those consequences in the same way Israel does.
Yet time and again, frameworks dealing with Gaza’s future treat Israel as one stakeholder among many, expected to defer to humanitarian or diplomatic arguments detached from enforcement realities. This approach confuses procedural balance with strategic responsibility.
Equal representation does not translate into equal risk, and ignoring that imbalance produces fragile arrangements that fail under pressure.
When Israel raises concerns about border crossings, monitoring mechanisms, or the movement of people and goods, it is often portrayed as obstructive or inflexible.
Israel will accept the US’s invitation to join the Board of Peace, the Prime Minister’s Office announced Wednesday, putting it on the same footing as other members, such as Jordan, Qatar, Turkey, and Egypt. These countries in the past have called for numerous security decisions regarding Gaza that neglect Israel’s border reality.
Qatar’s role as a financial patron in Gaza, while often framed as humanitarian, has long been controversial in Israel due to concerns that funds indirectly empower Hamas and entrench its rule.
Turkey, for its part, has repeatedly hosted Hamas figures and adopted rhetoric sharply critical of Israel, calling into question its suitability as a constructive broker in decisions that directly affect Israeli security.
These positions do not necessarily disqualify such actors from regional diplomacy, but they do undermine the assumption that all board members approach Gaza with Israel’s safety in mind.
The potential composition of future board members is even more worrisome. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas met and discussed the PA’s future membership on the board, Russian media reported Thursday.
The issue of Rafah crossing highlights this distortion clearly. Rafah is not merely a humanitarian gateway. It is a strategic pressure point where regional diplomacy, arms-smuggling prevention, and security coordination intersect. Any change in its operation affects Israel’s security environment, regardless of whether Israel is physically present there.
Shaath’s announcement, regardless of intent, exposed how fragile the system becomes when coordination is treated as optional.
Israel’s immediate security response reflected a basic reality: Unilateral declarations in this arena do not exist in a vacuum. They force recalculations that can escalate rapidly, sometimes beyond the control of those who initiated them.
On the other hand, Israel must recognize this threat and anchor its own interests more aggressively. It’s no mistake that the Rafah crossing announcement came minutes after the signing of the board’s charter.
If Israel allows this incident to become a precedent, Jerusalem will be stuck in a perpetual loop of reacting to the decisions of others.
Any peace framework that minimizes Israel’s role is not neutral. It is disconnected from geography and from experience. Israel lives next to Gaza, not across an ocean, and it will remain the first responder to any failure. A process that does not reflect that reality is not building peace. It is postponing the next crisis.