|
|
||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 55 Number 22, October 4, 2025 | ARCHIVE | HOME | JBCENTRE | SUBSCRIBE |
Tony Blair has been named as a key figure in the Trump-Netanyahu Gaza "peace plan", proposed to serve on a transitional governing body called the "Board of Peace" that allegedly would oversee Gaza's post-war recovery. It is a plan to attempt to eliminate Palestinian sovereignty, installing Blair as a governor of an Israeli-occupied Gaza after the genocidal removal of the Palestinian people.
Under the 20-point "peace proposal" unveiled by President Trump and endorsed by Prime Minister Netanyahu, Tony Blair is the only named member of an international "Board of Peace" that would temporarily govern Gaza. This board would be chaired by Trump, with Blair as its co-ordinator. The cruelly-named "Board of Peace" would ensure that the Palestinian-free Gaza creates "real financial returns" for individual and corporate investors in Gaza's reconstruction. Blair's involvement is framed as part of a technocratic transitional authority, with only one Palestinian representative slated to be on the board. The plan also calls for Gaza to become a "deradicalised terror-free zone", with no role for Hamas in future governance. The plan for the so-called "Gaza International Transitional Authority" (GITA) was initially drafted by Blair's think-tank, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change and subsequently tweaked by Trump's advisers and others. It envisages a 'hierarchical structure led by an international board' that "exercises supreme strategic and political authority" under a chair leading the occupation as "senior political executive", alongside a group directing investment projects and "housing schemes".
Blair founded the "Tony Blair Institute for Global Change" in 2016 after resigning from his role as special envoy for the "Quartet" of the UN, EU, US and Russia. According to recent reports, TBI staff participated in discussions around a postwar vision for Gaza which included a "Gaza Economic Blueprint" circulated internally, proposing infrastructure development, trade corridors, and artificial islands modelled on Dubai's coastline; and engagement with Israeli businessmen and the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), who drafted a slide deck titled The Great Trust, outlining a redevelopment plan that assumed 25% of Palestinians would "voluntarily" leave Gaza, a proposal widely condemned as ethnic cleansing. This whole vision, dubbed the "Trump Riviera", is totally repugnant, acceptable only to the billionaires and narrow private interests whom Trump and Blair represent, not to the world's people who desire justice and peace.
In Britain, Health Secretary Wes Streeting acknowledged Blair's role would "raise eyebrows", while PM Keir Starmer straightforwardly expressed strong support for the proposal, saying that the initiative was "profoundly welcome". Starmer stated that he was "comfortable with Sir Tony Blair being part of a temporary authority running Gaza". Saying that the focus should be on outcomes, not individuals, he stated: "I'm less concerned with the particularities of who does which bit... If there's a chance of a deal... then I say it is our responsibility to lean into that and try to get it to work." The contradiction with the UK supposedly recognising the state of Palestine could not be more stark. Furthermore, Starmer's sense of judgement of political figures has also come under question, to say the least, with the appointment and then resignation of Peter Mandelson as US Ambassador. Starmer avoided naming Blair directly in his keynote speech to the Labour Party Conference, but gave "strong support" to what he referred to as "efforts to end the fighting", adding, "All sides must now come together to bring this initiative into reality. Because we must restart the hope of a two-state solution..." Starmer linked this solution with what he called the "British values" of "the freedom to live and let live". He reiterated that Britain is working with the US and Arab states to advance the plan. So elimination of Palestinian statehood and even the Palestinian people is called the pathway to peace, reminding us of the Roman historian Tacitus's famous line: "To ravage, to slaughter, to usurp under false titles, they call empire; and where they make a desert, they call it peace."
So, with the appointment of Tony Blair, and his inescapable crimes in the war against Iraq, the man whose policies and warmongering set the Middle East alight under the pretext of "spreading democracy", the Anglo-American powers imagine they are set to eliminate the resistance of the Palestinian people. But the answer is the determination of the Palestinian people to assert their right to be.
Rejection of the Trump-Blair-Starmer-Netanyahu Plan
General Strike for Palestine, Bologna, Italy, September
22 2025
In a recent interview with British journalist Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, himself emphasised that peace cannot be achieved without justice. He critiqued the current international discourse, which, he emphasised, often frames the conflict as a symmetrical struggle between two equal sides. Instead, Husam Zomlot insists that the root cause is Israel's occupation and the denial of Palestinian rights must be addressed. He called for the right of return for refugees, and an end to the blockade on Gaza. The ambassador also challenges Western governments, particularly the UK, to move beyond rhetoric and take concrete steps. He underlined that they must hold Israel accountable for violations of international law, and that Palestinians must be empowered to decide their own future.
The website Declassified carried this report of a Palestinian in his seventies, Abdel Fattah Al Amssi, surviving in his displacement tent in Kahn Younis, which epitomises the stand of the Palestinian people: "When we asked him about Tony Blair, he erupted angrily: 'Blair? Isn't he the one who stood with Bush in the Iraq war? What did he do there except bring destruction? And now they want to send him to rule Gaza? This is an insult to the people of Gaza who have made sacrifices, and an insult to the entire Palestinian people.'
"Al Amssi then gestures with his hand toward the endless stretch of tents, saying: 'No one here needs a foreign ruler. We have our own men and women capable of managing their country. Blair will not come to show us mercy, but to serve the interests of those who want Gaza disarmed, without resistance or dignity. ... Those who have endured displacement and death will not surrender their fate to a man whose hands are stained with the blood of Arabs. We completely reject that, because after this genocide, we trust no one but ourselves.'"
According to reports, Hamas has also voiced strong reservations, calling the plan "unjust and biased toward Israel". Hamas rejected the involvement of Tony Blair, citing his lack of neutrality and controversial legacy. Hamas is also reported to have demanded clarity on governance, weapons, and reconstruction oversight, and is seeking amendments through regional mediators. In a press statement, Abdul Rahman Shadid, a senior Hamas official, said that US President Donald Trump's plan is not aimed solely at Hamas as a faction, but rather targets the entire Palestinian people, their factions, rights, core principles, political identity, and the future of their national cause.