Pakistan, Jan. 22 -- Pakistan's decision to join President Donald Trump's proposed "Board of Peace" on Gaza is best read as an assertion of presence at a table that is already being built, not a departure from its settled position on Palestine. In its formal acceptance, Islamabad tied participation to UN Security Council Resolution 2803 and framed its purpose in plain terms: a permanent ceasefire, scaled-up humanitarian assistance, and Gaza's reconstruction, alongside a "credible, time-bound" pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood on pre-1967 borders with Al-Quds Al-Sharif as its capital.

The debate, hence, is not whether Pakistan should care about the mechanics of post-war governance. It is whether Islamabad's participa...