From ending conflicts to joining wars, ex-British PM Blair vies for Gaza reconstruction job with credentials and controversy

By Tim Lister, CNN

(CNN) — Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is returning to the international limelight as the prospective head of an authority tasked with the reconstruction of Gaza.

Blair would bring years of political and negotiating experience to the task after occupying 10 Downing Street for a decade and later acting as an international envoy in the Middle East.

Just a year into his premiership in 1998, Blair sealed, with US mediation, one of his signature achievements in office – the Good Friday Agreement that brought peace to Northern Ireland. He was then 43, the youngest British prime minister since 1812.

Eight years earlier, in a moment of rare public reflection, the enigmatic Blair was asked why he had gone into politics.

“I suppose you just look at the world around you. Think things are wrong. Want to change it,” he said.

There was never a Blair doctrine or philosophy of government, unlike his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher. But he remained in office until 2007 and has been active in diplomacy and international investment ever since.

His new Gaza appointment is not without controversy, however. Blair led the UK into the Iraq War in support of then-US President George W Bush in 2003. It tarnished his legacy and led to street – and diplomatic – protests. More than 50 former senior British diplomats wrote an open letter in April 2004 criticizing his unwavering support for US-led policies in both Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “doomed to failure.”

An independent inquiry into Blair’s support for the Iraq invasion later found that he had exaggerated the case for war and that there was no imminent threat from the regime of Saddam Hussein. The US invaded Iraq with the stated goal of seeking hidden weapons of mass destruction, but there weren’t any.

In his subsequent post political role as Middle East envoy for what was known as the Quartet, he was disliked by the Palestinians for a perceived pro-Israel stance.

The Quartet comprised the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States, and appointed Blair as its envoy in 2007 with the goal of helping to develop the Palestinian economy and institutions. He spent eight years in the role before resigning in 2015, by which point negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians were moribund and the two-state solution was a diminishing dream.

Amid growing criticism in the later years of Blair’s tenure, the Palestinian Authority’s former chief negotiator, Nabil Shaath, said he had “achieved so very little because of his gross efforts to please the Israelis.”

“He gradually reduced his role to that of asking the Israelis to take down a barrier here or a barrier there,” Shaath said.

The view of Blair from the West Bank has not improved much since. Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestinian National Initiative told CNN Monday: “He claimed there were weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq) and it turned out to be a big lie.”

“I think it’s preferable that he stays in his own country and let Palestinians rule themselves by themselves. And most importantly, let Palestinians have free democratic elections to elect their leaders freely and democratically, rather than subjecting us to another colonial rule,” Barghouti said. The Palestinian Authority, which governs the occupied West Bank, has not held presidential or parliamentary elections in nearly two decades.

During his time as the Quartet’s envoy, Blair’s office responded to claims of his “negligible” progress with the insistence that he “believes passionately in the two-state solution but also believes that can only be achieved by a negotiation with Israel.”

But in recent days, Blair notably did not support the current Labour government in its recognition of a Palestinian state. When asked whether the UK supported his role, the Prime Minister’s office sidestepped the question, saying only, “Our focus is on the peace talks, which obviously we’re playing an active role in.”

Even so, in many ways Blair is well-suited to the role in Gaza. The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), working closely with the Trump administration, has spent months exploring “day-after” scenarios for rebuilding Gaza.

Some of those scenarios were also controversial. A Financial Times investigation this year found that staff from the Institute were involved in a study imagining the redevelopment of Gaza, which would have included paying Palestinians to leave their land.

The institute responded that Blair’s plans had “never been about relocating Gazans, which is a proposal TBI has never authored, developed or endorsed.”

In August, Blair met at the White House with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, to discuss ideas for reconstruction. There is no doubt he has the ear of the Trump administration, and through his former advisory firm had close links with the United Arab Emirates. Those ties already give Blair connections to two of the most important countries set to be involved in post-war Gaza, but only if there’s a comprehensive ceasefire.

He has always been warmly received and respected in Israel. But as the Quartet envoy he rarely went to Gaza. A member of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Husam Badran, told Al Jazeera that Blair was “an unwelcome figure in the Palestinian context, and linking any plan to this person is a bad omen for the Palestinian people.”

Blair had played a “criminal and destructive role since the war on Iraq,” Badran said.

Blair himself has welcomed the 20-point blueprint for peace put forward by Trump as “bold and intelligent,” saying it promises “the chance of a brighter and better future for (Gaza’s) people, while ensuring Israel’s absolute and enduring security.”

Notably, he spoke of “the potential for a broader regional and global alliance to counter the forces of extremism,” an issue that he and his Institute have focused upon.

A negotiator whose intelligence and grasp of detail are acknowledged by detractors as much as supporters, Blair will need all his experience and powers of persuasion in his new role, should it come to fruition.

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