Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair is returning to the international spotlight as the future director of the authority tasked with rebuilding Gaza.
Blair brought years of political and negotiation experience to the challenge after occupying 10 Darning Street for a decade and later serving as an international envoy in the Middle East.
In 1998, just a year after his prime minister, Blair sealed off one of the fruits of his signature, the US mediation. He was then 43 years old, the youngest British Prime Minister since 1812.
Eight years ago, in a rare moment of public reflection, the mysterious Blair was asked why he entered politics.
“I think you’re just looking at the world around you. I think things are wrong. I want to change that,” he said.
Unlike his predecessor, Margaret Thatcher, he never had the doctrine or philosophy of Blair in the government. However, he remained in office until 2007 and has since been active in diplomacy and international investment.
However, his new appointment of Gaza is not without controversy. Blair led Britain into the Iraq war in 2003 in support of then-President George W. Bush. More than 50 former British diplomats wrote an open letter in April 2004, criticising his unwavering support in both the Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts as “destined to failure.”
An independent investigation into Blair’s support for the Iraqi invasion later found that he exaggerated the war lawsuit and that there was no immediate threat from Saddam Hussein’s regime. The United States invaded Iraq with the stated target of seeking hidden weapons of mass destruction, but nothing.
In his subsequent post-political role as a Middle Eastern envoy to what is known as the Quartet, he was disliked by the Palestinians for his perceived pro-Israel attitude.
The Quartet, consisting of the United Nations, the European Union, Russia and the United States, appointed Blair as an envoy in 2007 with the aim of supporting the development of the Palestinian economy and institutions. He spent eight years before resigning in 2015. So negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians were dying, and the solution for the two states was a dream decline.
Amid growing criticism in Blair’s later years of office, Nabil Shars, former chief negotiator of the Palestinian authorities, said “it was accomplished little because of a significant effort to please the Israelites.”
“He gradually decided to ask the Israelites to drop the barriers here or there,” Shars said.
Blair’s view from the West Bank has not improved much since then. Palestinian National Initiative Mustafa Barguti told CNN on Monday:
“I think it is desirable for him to stay in his country and have the Palestinians control themselves, and most importantly, the Palestinians will have free democratic elections to elect their leaders freely and democratically, rather than exposing us to another colonial rule,” Barguti said. Palestinian authorities governing the occupied West Bank have not held presidential or parliamentary elections in nearly 20 years.
In his time as a quartet envoy, Blair’s office responded to his claim of “ignorable” progress with the assertion that “I believe in solutions for the two states passionately, but that it can only be achieved through negotiations with Israel.”
However, recently, Blair has not supported the current labour government, particularly in the perception of the Palestinian state. When asked whether Britain supported his role, the prime minister’s office declined to question, saying, “Our focus is on peace negotiations.
Still, in many ways, Blair is good for Gaza’s role. The Tony Blair Institute of Global Change (TBI), which works closely with the Trump administration, spent several months exploring the “daytime” scenario to rebuild Gaza.
Some of these scenarios were also controversial. This year’s Financial Times survey found that lab staff were involved in research imagining Gaza’s redevelopment.
The Institute replied that Blair’s plan was “never about the relocation of Gazan, a proposal that TBI has never written, developed or approved.”
In August, Blair met at the White House with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle Eastern envoy Steve Witkoff to discuss the ideas for rebuilding. There’s no doubt he has the ears of the Trump administration. He was closely linked to the United Arab Emirates through his former advisory company. These ties have already given Blair connections to two of the two most important countries set up to be involved in post-war Gaza, but that is only in the event of a comprehensive ceasefire.
He has always been warmly greeted and respected in Israel. However, as a quartet envoy, he rarely went to Gaza. Husam Badran, a member of Hamas Politburo, told Al Jazeera that Blair was “an unwelcome person in the Palestinian context and that it would portend any plan for this person a bad for the Palestinians.”
Blair “has been playing a “criminal and destructive role” since his war with Iraq,” Badran said.
Blair himself welcomes the 20-point blueprint for peace, which Trump proposed as “bold and intelligent,” and promises “the possibility of a brighter and better future for the people of Gaza, while ensuring the absolute and lasting security of Israel.”
In particular, he spoke of “the possibility of broader regional and global alliances to counter extremist forces.”
Intelligence, a negotiator whose intelligence information and grasp of details is as much recognized by detractors as its supporters, requires all his experience and persuasiveness in his new role if it were to happen.
