Pay to pray for peace by Gabriele Schmitt

The idea that peace could be franchised, priced, and sold like a luxury condominium is grotesque but it is also perfectly on brand for the political culture that Donald Trump has cultivated for nearly a decade. According to recent reporting his administration has floated the notion of a “Board of Peace” to oversee Gaza, with membership carrying a billion-dollar price tag. The White House denies it, of course. It always does. But denial is cheap, and credibility is not. In an era where public office has been treated as a branding opportunity, the question is not whether the scheme is real but whether it feels real. And it does.

We have been trained to recognize the pattern. A crisis emerges. Cameras gather. A bold proposal appears, wrapped in the language of strength and deal-making. Then come the fees, the private interests, the quiet meetings in gilded rooms. It is governance as a cover charge. If you want influence, stability, or a seat at the table, bring your checkbook. The moral vocabulary of diplomacy is replaced by the language of invoices and “value propositions.” War becomes a networking event. Suffering becomes leverage.

Supporters will argue that this is just hard-nosed realism, that the world runs on money and pretending otherwise is naïve. But realism is not the same as auctioning off responsibility. A billion dollars is not a symbol of commitment to peace; it is a barrier to participation, a velvet rope drawn around human tragedy. It tells smaller nations, poorer states, and anyone without sovereign wealth funds that their voices are irrelevant. Peace, in this model, belongs to the highest bidder.

The deeper problem is not even the number. It is the mindset behind it. Trump’s political career has been built on the idea that everything is transactional, that loyalty can be bought, silence rented, truth negotiated. He does not see institutions; he sees storefronts. He does not see alliances; he sees subscription services. So why not peace itself? Why not slap a price tag on stability, offer platinum access to diplomacy, and call it innovation?

The administration’s defenders insist that critics are exaggerating, that no such plan exists. Perhaps. But trust, once eroded, does not regenerate on command. This is an administration that blurred the line between public duty and private profit so often that the distinction became theoretical. From hotels hosting diplomats to policy announcements that sounded like sales pitches, the message was consistent: access has a price, and proximity is a perk. Against that backdrop, a pay-to-play peace council does not sound outrageous. It sounds inevitable.

There is something uniquely corrosive about applying this logic to Gaza, a place already crushed under decades of blockade, war, and political abandonment. To suggest that its future might be managed by a club whose membership fee could rebuild the territory several times over is not pragmatism; it is obscenity. It reframes human lives as bargaining chips and rubble as an investment opportunity.

Even if the story proves false, its plausibility is the indictment. A healthy democracy does not casually entertain the monetization of ceasefires. A credible government does not have to issue reflexive denials every time reporters describe a scheme that sounds like it came from a casino boardroom. The fact that so many people shrug and say, “That figures,” is the real scandal.

We should not accept a world where peace is a luxury product, bundled with prestige and sold to the already powerful. We should not grow so accustomed to corruption that it no longer shocks us, only amuses us. Whether or not this particular proposal ever crossed an official desk, it captures a truth about the moment we are living in: that the language of markets has begun to replace the language of morals, and the logic of profit has invaded even our most fragile hopes. If peace ever comes to Gaza, it will not be because someone wrote a very large check. It will come despite that instinct, not because of it.

Until we demand leaders who treat human lives as more than revenue streams, rumours like this will keep surfacing, half-believed, half-dismissed, floating through the news cycle like toxic exhaust. They will linger because they fit too neatly into the story we have been watching unfold, a politics emptied of shame, filled with price tags, where even the promise of quiet skies and sleeping children can be reduced to a line item on someone’s balance sheet. And that is unforgivable.