For much of the past three decades, international conflict management has been governed by a comforting assumption: that enough process, inclusion and consensus will eventually substitute for authority. Declarations multiplied, mechanisms proliferated and conferences convened, even as outcomes stagnated. Nowhere has this gap between intention and effect been more visible than in Gaza – a territory endlessly discussed, generously funded and persistently ungoverned.

What failed in Gaza was not attention, nor even goodwill. It was the willingness to consolidate responsibility. Too many actors claimed a voice, too few accepted ownership. In that vacuum, process became an end in itself, and stability an ever-receding horizon.

The launch of the Gaza Board of Peace (GPB) at Davos on 22 January marks an attempt to break with that inherited model. Whether one agrees with its design or not, the initiative reflects a growing recognition that Gaza is not primarily a rhetorical or humanitarian challenge, but a structural one. It is an effort – imperfect, controversial, but serious – to replace diffuse management with concentrated authority, and to move from statements to structures capable of enforcing decisions.

For the United Kingdom and the European Union, this shift is not something to observe from a safe distance. Both have invested heavily in Gaza over decades through diplomacy, aid and political capital, yet with steadily diminishing returns. The GPB offers a rare opportunity to convert that long-standing engagement into influence over how authority is exercised, how reconstruction is governed and how stabilisation is linked to credible political horizons.

That is why the Board matters – not only for Gaza, but for Europe’s ability to shape outcomes in an international system that increasingly rewards those who assume responsibility early and decisively.

For much of the past two decades, Gaza existed in a responsibility gap. International organizations delivered aid without enforcement, with the entirely foreseeable result that assistance was frequently........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)