‘Following Trump’s diktat to stay in his good books?’ Why Pakistan joining Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ is backfiring at home

Pakistan’s decision to join Trump’s “Board of Peace for Gaza” has sparked backlash at home, with critics calling it a surrender of sovereignty and a move that undermines Palestinian agency, reflecting desperation rather than strategic foreign policy.

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Pakistan’s hurried decision to join US President Donald Trump’s newly created “Board of Peace for Gaza” has triggered a political backlash at home, exposing deep unease over Islamabad’s growing instinct to align itself with Washington’s latest global experiments. The move reflects diplomatic desperation rather than strategic thinking, driven more by a desire to stay in Trump’s good books than by any coherent foreign policy vision.

Instead of strengthening Pakistan’s standing in the Muslim world or defending Palestinian interests, the decision has reopened old accusations that Islamabad routinely trades principle for proximity to power. For many inside Pakistan, the optics are damaging: a country struggling with legitimacy, debt and internal instability now attaching itself to a US-led structure that bypasses the United Nations and centralises authority in Washington.

The government confirmed on Wednesday that Pakistan had accepted Trump’s invitation to join the board, a body Washington says will oversee Gaza’s post-war governance, reconstruction and political transition. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif was invited as a participant in the initiative, which the White House has framed as a new global mechanism for conflict management.

The reaction inside Pakistan was swift and hostile.

Senate opposition leader Allama Raja Nasir Abbas described the move as a moral and political failure. On X, he wrote: “The initiative was problematic from the outset. Conceived as an externally managed arrangement for post-war Gaza, it effectively removes the right of governance from the Palestinian people themselves. By placing reconstruction, security and political oversight in the hands of outside actors, the project carries the unmistakable imprint of a neo-colonial enterprise. Such frameworks rarely end at administration.”

Tehreek-i-Tahafuz-i-Ayeen-i-Pakistan leader Mustafa Nawaz Khokhar attacked the government for bypassing parliament and public debate, accusing it of surrendering sovereignty for diplomatic optics.

In his post on X, he said: “The so-called Board of Peace is a colonial enterprise to not only govern Gaza but create a parallel system to the UN. The board will have the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed. It will be a more nimble and effective international peace-building body, in its own language. The charter of this Board of Peace gives Trump czarist powers to implement his personal as well as US agenda without any mechanism to prevent such one-sided outcome.”

Former diplomat Maleeha Lodhi called the decision strategically reckless. Writing on X, she said:

“An unwise decision for many reasons. The govt has overlooked the fact that Trump wants states to join the board to secure international support & legitimacy for what are & will be unilateral actions by him. The board's remit is v broad and beyond Gaza, another reason not to join.”

Author and journalist Zahid Hussain was even more blunt, arguing that Islamabad had rushed into a trap. Speaking to Dawn, he warned that Pakistan risked becoming a prop in Trump’s global power theatre.

“Are we just following Trump's diktat to stay in his good books?” he asked, saying the move could make Pakistan complicit in “Trump’s adventurism” and a structure that weakens the UN system.

Pakistan’s Foreign Office tried to defend the decision, claiming Islamabad hoped the board would deliver a permanent ceasefire, humanitarian relief and reconstruction in Gaza, and eventually lead to Palestinian self-determination “through a credible, time-bound political framework consistent with UN resolutions”.

But for critics, the contradiction is stark. Pakistan is aligning itself with a US-led body that centralises power in Washington while publicly claiming loyalty to multilateralism and UN processes. Invitations to other leaders, including India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, only deepen the sense that Islamabad has rushed to join a project whose real shape, authority and consequences remain unclear.

For many in Pakistan’s political class, the fear is simple: in trying to curry favour with Trump, Islamabad may have signed up to a structure that weakens its moral standing, sidelines Palestinian agency, and further exposes Pakistan’s foreign policy as reactive, transactional and driven by survival instincts rather than strategy.