A New “Mandate” for Gaza — and Why We Must Resist It
In November, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2803 — a measure presented as a blueprint for “peace” and “reconstruction” in Gaza. Behind the diplomatic vocabulary lies a decision of staggering illegality and profound moral failure.
The resolution establishes an externally appointed “Board of Peace” comprised of powerful states, alongside a foreign International Stabilisation Force vested with sweeping control over Gaza’s political, economic, and security architecture. It removes governance from Palestinians entirely and places it in the hands of outside actors. This is a rogue colonial mandate — a cruel twenty-first century trusteeship imposed on an already shattered population.
Several legal experts, including Ralph Wilde and Craig Mokhiber, argue that the Security Council has no authority whatsoever under the UN Charter or international law to impose such an arrangement. Doing so constitutes an ultra vires act — a step far outside the Council’s lawful powers. It also represents a “flagrant assault on a people’s right to self-determination,” one of the foundational principles that bind all states without exception. Even more incredible — it unequivocally contravenes obligations clearly articulated by its own court, the International Court of Justice, in its latest advisory opinions!
Resolution 2803 does not simply ignore the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the illegal occupation, the apartheid — it erases it all. The Council’s text proceeds as if the devastation has no legal or moral relevance despite the catastrophic destruction, the displacement, the ongoing atrocities, and the staggering death toll, including tens of thousands of children. This erasure is part of the mandate itself: a plan designed to secure quiet without ever confronting the crimes that produced the violence.
This is not merely inadequate or misguided. It is a deliberate attempt to institutionalize control, to deny justice — to lock Gaza into foreign administration at the very moment Palestinians are least able to resist. The resolution is not a framework for liberation but an instrument of domination.
We Will Not Allow It
Every petition, every letter to a representative, every protest, teach-in, conversation, every donation, every boycott, or cultural event is a refusal to accept this imposed control. Every act of solidarity amplifies Palestinian voices and keeps alive the principle that there will never be peace without justice, and no people can be treated as subjects of foreign interests.
History shows that oppressive systems crumble not because the powerful relent, but because people refuse to stop pushing. We are in that moment now.
Stay informed. Stay active. Stay relentless.
Resist the erasure. Challenge the mandate. Defend the right of Palestinians to be free in their own land.
The world is watching — and history is still being written.