Is Tony Blair really the man to bring peace to Gaza?

Some may question why Trump wants somebody directly responsible for decades of instability in the Middle East to play peacemaker – but the former PM has dealt with some of the most unpleasant, ruthless, brutal and maverick regimes in the world. Worth a go, says Sean O’Grady

So now we know why Tony Blair was, slightly puzzlingly, in on that session at the White House in August about the future of post-war Gaza. Also there with Donald Trump was the US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law and former senior adviser for the region, Jared Kushner, who was prominent in Trump’s first term but not so much this time around. There was a parallel meeting in DC between the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar.

So you could see that a game was afoot, and Witkoff even admitted as much at the time: “It’s a very comprehensive plan we’re putting together on the next day that I think many people are going to ... see how robust it is and how well-meaning it is, and it reflects President Trump’s humanitarian motives here.”

But Blair? Tony Blair? Responsible for an illegal forever war in Iraq? What’s he doing there?

Blair has a wealth of experience in the region through his work as a Middle East envoy for the UN, EU, America and Russia (PA)

Having a job interview by the looks of it, to run the new “transitional authority” in Gaza, in effect a sort of Viceroy for the Gaza Strip, helping to implement a “21-point plan” that will get rid of Hamas and, in due course, rebuild the area and begin the long process of achieving the two-state solution, and just at the moment when that seems more improbable than ever.

The transnational authority will have the full backing of the United Nations (makes a change, some might add) and of the wealthy Gulf Arab powers such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE. It is only they that can have pressured Trump to pursue this course, and it is further proof that Trump is now perceptibly moving away from being Benjamin Netanyahu’s unconditional supporter. Netanyahu has rejected a two-state solution outright and wants to annex and thus divide parts of the West Bank, if not all of it, to prevent any possibility of such a thing happening. Trump has vetoed Israel’s annexation of the West Bank and tacitly signed up to the two-state solution. On the basis of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas’s speech to the UN, it should also win the backing of the Palestinian Authority. What the reaction of Hezbollah is, we shall see.

So, this is good news, which even Blair’s many enemies (mostly, it must be said, on the British left) should welcome. If nothing else, it marks the end of the previous Trump plan, the bizarre idea of turning Gaza into an American protectorate, demolishing anything that’s left, “doing a number in it”, and turning it into a beach resort. That was as evil as it was bizarre, because it carried the probability of mass expulsion of the Palestinian population, a forced exodus that would see them scattered across the region. We know what the International Court in The Hague would call such an enterprise, don’t we?

If Blair and Kushner have helped dissuade Trump from that cruelly mad scheme, then they should be handed the Nobel Peace Prize immediately, whatever happens next. But what will that be? It is an unlikely moment for optimism, in the midst of mass murders and a worsening famine, but there is some hope here. Blair does have a wealth of experience in the region – not entirely a euphemism – through his work as the official representative of the “Quartet”: the UN, EU, America and Russia, which he took on after his premiership.

He played a key role in the Northern Ireland peace process, once thought impossible and always halting, intractable and frustrating. Through his Tony Blair Institute, and his time as premier, he’s dealt with some of the most unpleasant, ruthless, brutal and maverick regimes in the world, so he knows how to get along with them, and nothing shocks him. Such are the necessary skills, and he still has them in abundance. The vision is of a multinational region tied together through an Israel-Palestine settlement, a network of peace deals extending Trump’s Abraham Accords, and a prosperity sphere bridging Europe and Asia, such as Netanyahu was campaigning for before the 7 October atrocities.

Of course, it may all fail, just as Blair’s work for the Quartet did, and better men and women than him have seen their dreams almost literally blown up for decades.

The putative posting does have the colonial feel of a “Second British Mandate in Palestine”, the first one having ended rather badly back in 1948. It might be quite a long haul before the area can be handed to Palestinian sovereign control, but while Team Blair is ensconced in Gaza City, with the full backing of the US and most of the world, the inhabitants won’t be bombed and starved to death, and their lives can be rebuilt where they want to be. The illegal settlements in the West Bank may end. The State of Palestine could become a reality, as it must do for there to be peace and a more secure future for Israel. Worth a go.