Tony Blair will not occupy a key position on Donald Trump’s Gaza “peace council” after Arab and Muslim nations were reported to have objected to the involvement of the former UK prime minister.
According to the Financial Times (FT), Blair has been quietly dropped from consideration for Trump’s “board of peace”, which Trump has said he would chair himself.
It had previously been reported widely that Blair had been canvassing behind the scenes for a prominent role in Gaza’s interim administration, amid leaks of a plan drawn up in part by his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) with Trump’s son-in-law and informal envoy Jared Kushner.
While Blair’s backers had pointed to his role in ending decades of violence in Northern Ireland, critics had pointed his lacklustre record of achievements while serving as the representative of the socalled Quartet – the UN, EU, US and Russia – to help mediate Middle East peace.
In the wider Arab world Blair was also viewed with scepticism and hostility over his role in the disastrous US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Blair had been the only person publicly identified for a potential role on the board when the US president unveiled his 20-point plan to end the war between Israel and Hamas in late September, with Trump saying Blair was a “very good man”.
The plan, in which the TBI had input, had been criticised for its lack of a clear timeline to Palestinian statehood, and suggesting Gaza be run under a separate legal framework to the West Bank leading to fears that Palestine’s two non-contiguous elements risked no longer be envisaged as a single polity.
Acknowledging that Blair remained a controversial figure, Trump conceded in October: “I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he’s an acceptable choice to everybody.”
The reported withdrawal of Blair comes despite claims that he had an unpublicised meeting with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in late November to discuss plans according to a report in the Times of Israel.
A source who spoke to the FT suggested Blair could still play a less central role. “He could still have a role in a different capacity and that seems likely,” the person said.
“The Americans like him and the Israelis like him.”
Blair’s office declined to comment, but an ally said the former prime minister would not be sitting on the “board of peace”.
“That will be made up of serving world leaders and there will be a smaller executive board under that,” the source told the FT.
If confirmed, Blair’s non-involvement would suggest the latest chaotic episode in Trump’s plans for Gaza, which have seen continued deadly Israeli strikes on the coastal strip, as the White House has struggled to recruit nations for its proposed peace-keeping force.
