From the International Quartet to “economic peace”: Why was Tony Blair chosen to run Gaza?

The name of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has resurfaced in discussions about Gaza, as part of a plan by U.S. President Donald Trump, who said Blair would be one of three officials responsible for administering the territory.

The Hebrew newspaper Haaretz reported on Blair’s plan to administer the Gaza Strip after an end to the Israeli campaign, saying it envisages forming three security forces and carries a budget estimated at $387.5 million.

According to Haaretz, Blair’s plan sets out a multi-layered hierarchical structure in which senior international diplomats and businessmen sit at the top while Palestinians run affairs on the ground. The plan, titled the “International Transitional Authority for the Gaza Strip (GITA)” and running 21 pages, would be run by an international council.

The Hebrew paper added: “The head of the international authority will be the highest political executive authority in Gaza, but will work in close consultation with the Palestinian Authority,” and quoted an unnamed source in the Israeli government as saying: “Blair himself is expected to serve as head of the International Transitional Authority for the Gaza Strip.”

Hamas Political Bureau member Hossam Badran said Blair is “an unwelcome figure in the Palestinian context,” and affirmed that the movement had not received any proposal through intermediaries regarding a ceasefire. He said that “associating any plan with this person (Blair), who is unwelcome, is an ill omen for the Palestinian people, because he is a negative figure and perhaps deserves to face international courts for the crimes he committed, especially his role in the war on Iraq (2003–2011).” The Hamas official described Blair as a “brother of the devil,” saying he “has brought no good to the Palestinian cause, nor to Arabs or Muslims, and his criminal and destructive role has been known for years.”

Blair and the Quartet… entrenching the siege

Blair served as the Quartet’s special envoy for the Middle East from 2007 to 2015, a role that failed to produce peace while Israeli occupation and settlement policies in violation of international law continued.

Blair is widely disliked among Palestinians, who accused him during his tenure at the Quartet of siding with Israel. The Palestinian Authority said it viewed the role of Quartet envoy Tony Blair negatively, especially his attempts to shape committee statements that they said eroded Palestinian rights.

After Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, the Quartet (composed of the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations) issued several decisions that imposed political and economic sanctions on the Hamas-led government in Gaza.

The Quartet conditioned lifting the sanctions on Hamas renouncing resistance and recognizing Israel as a necessary prerequisite for accepting it as a legitimate political actor, and on its commitment to prior agreements, including the Oslo Accords and the Roadmap.

The decisions produced a tight blockade that the Gaza Strip continues to suffer from: funding was sharply cut, the occupation tightened its land and sea blockade, and crossings including Rafah were heavily restricted.

Bias toward the occupation

Blair was appointed special envoy to the Quartet in June 2007 and was tasked with organizing international assistance to Palestinians and overseeing initiatives to support the Palestinian economy and institutions in preparation for a future Palestinian state.

Officials in the Palestinian Authority repeatedly accused Blair of bias toward the occupation and of serving its policies through his work as head of the Quartet.

Hamas, led by the head of its political bureau and former Palestinian prime minister, “martyr” Ismail Haniyeh, repeatedly urged the Quartet to stop imposing dictates on the Palestinian people and contributing to their isolation.

Many viewed Blair’s appointment as Quartet envoy as a reward from the United States for his role in the Iraq invasion, noting his close alignment with Washington’s neoconservative policies.

Blair supported the Bush administration’s decision to halt aid and cut ties with the Palestinian Authority—which Hamas headed—unless it recognized Israel, renounced “violence,” and adhered to previous agreements between Fatah and Israel.

Corruption allegations

British media accused Blair during his tenure at the Quartet of involvement in corruption suspicions that funneled millions into his bank accounts by exploiting his position.

In 2011 the Daily Mail reported that allegations had mounted that he exploited his Quartet role to mediate large deals that brought substantial sums into his coffers.

According to the paper, Blair, who had been Quartet envoy for four years, achieved no political breakthroughs but amassed significant wealth.

The report said Blair was involved in a string of deals that raised questions about conflicts of interest in carrying out his duties.

A comprehensive investigation by Britain’s Channel 4 revealed a series of apparent conflicts of interest, pointing to economic initiatives Blair promoted in Palestinian territories and Gaza that benefited companies known to be his clients, such as investment bank JPMorgan.

A 2014 investigation by The Sunday Telegraph detailed how the former British prime minister accumulated millions, saying he exploited his office to cultivate close ties with Abu Dhabi royals and signed mining contracts in Colombia.

The paper raised questions about the conflict between Blair’s commercial interests and his role as the Quartet’s special envoy, saying he used his position to build strong relationships with Abu Dhabi rulers who now finance his advisory firm’s work in Colombia and other countries.

Blair resigned as the Quartet’s special envoy in mid-2015; the Quartet did not appoint a successor.

It is worth noting that the last round of Israeli-Palestinian talks took place in mid-2013 under U.S. sponsorship in Washington. Those talks were frozen afterward over Netanyahu’s insistence on continuing settlement activity and his refusal to release a fourth batch of Palestinian prisoners.

The Quartet, established in 2002, comprises the United Nations, the European Union, the United States and Russia. Its mandate is to help mediate peace negotiations in the Middle East, support Palestinian economic development and institution-building in preparation for the eventual establishment of a state.

Economic peace

In 2008 Tony Blair proposed a plan for peace based on developing the Palestinian economy and linking it to Western and Israeli interests, within what was later referred to as “economic Islam,” aiming to strip the Palestinian cause of its colonial, occupier, political and historical dimensions.

The project became known for its high costs: the American Colony Hotel hosted repeated meetings over four years, with 15 rooms permanently reserved, high security costs from British protection, more than a hundred visits to the region, and dozens of experts and advisers hired at UN expense. After about eight years, the project ended in failure.

The project centered on building joint industrial zones shared by Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan to create jobs for thousands of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

It also included opening opportunities for Palestinians to work in Israel through employment offices, replacing foreign labor from many Western countries, and forming an international Western umbrella to support the Palestinian Authority’s budget with $1 billion annually. However, the global financial crisis prevented this support and the hoped-for restructuring of the Palestinian economic environment, including granting the Palestinian Authority special powers to facilitate movement across the Jordanian-Palestinian borders.

Haaretz said the project failed because three conditions were lacking for Netanyahu’s government at the time: convincing Palestinians that the economy was more important than statehood, addressing the problem of Hamas’s control over Gaza—given the group’s tendency to build an armed base against Israel—and persuading the international community to back the economic peace project.

On Blair’s plans and approach, former British ambassador to Libya Oliver Miles told the British media that Blair’s repeated talk of plans to develop the Palestinian economy “was nothing more than a cover to avoid addressing the real issues suffered by the Palestinian people under occupation.”

An entrenched stance against Palestine

Tony Blair opposed Palestinian efforts to join the United Nations, calling them a step that would “spark deep clashes,” and he pushed Britain’s Conservative government under David Cameron—known for its closeness to Israel—not to support the Palestinian drive, tying the British position to a set of international and Palestinian guarantees in Israel’s favor.

A belated acknowledgment

In 2017 Blair said for the first time that he and other world leaders had erred by bowing to Israeli pressure to immediately isolate Hamas after its 2006 election victory.

Blair said the international community should try “to draw Hamas into dialogue and that could happen later.”