STAFF at an institution founded by the former prime minister Tony Blair participated in plans to develop a postwar Gaza into a “Trump Riviera”.
The Tony Blair Institute, a non-profit organisation founded in 2016, is involved in a project led by Israeli businessmen which used financial models developed inside the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to envision Gaza as a trading hub, according to the Financial Times.
Plans outlined in a slide deck, titled the “Great Trust”, were shared with the US president proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and replacing them with private investors to develop Gaza.
According to the Financial Times, the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) did not author or endorse the final slide deck, but two members of its staff were involved in message groups and calls as the project developed.
One “lengthy” document on post-war Gaza, written by a TBI staff member, was reportedly shared within the group for consideration, according to people familiar with the work.
The document included a proposal of a “Gaza Riviera” with artificial islands off the coast, blockchain-based trade initiatives, a deep-water port to tie Gaza into the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, and low-tax “special economic zones”.
The TBI document reportedly claimed that Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza had “created a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild Gaza from first principles . . . as a secure, modern prosperous society”.
Although the Israeli businessmen’s slide deck, which is more than 30 pages long, differed from the paper written by TBI’s staff, there was some similarity the Financial Times reported.
The institute’s document did not refer to the relocation of Palestinians.
When first approached by the Financial Times regarding TBI’s role in the project, a spokesperson said: “Your story is categorically wrong . . . TBI was not involved in the preparation of the deck, which was a BCG deck, and had no input whatever into its contents.”
TBI was then provided details of a 12-person message group used for the project — including two TBI staff, BCG consultants and the Israeli businessmen — and an unpublished TBI document shared within the group titled “Gaza Economic Blueprint”.
TBI said that when meeting groups to discuss post-war plans, it is “essentially in listening mode”.
The “internal TBI document” looked at proposals “being made by various parties . . . [and] is one of many such internal documents”.
“TBI emphatically did not provide its own internal document for the purposes of the BCG work,” it added.
TBI staff “saw” the slide deck but “didn’t create it”, the spokesperson said.
“It would be wrong to suggest that we were working with this group to produce their Gaza plan.”
TBI said Blair had sought a “better Gaza for Gazans” for the past two decades: “It has never been about relocating Gazans, which is a proposal TBI has never authored, developed or endorsed.”
One of the firms that were involved with developing the plans, BCG, have already been at the centre of an international controversy as it helped establish the new Israel- and US-backed aid scheme Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
The GHF began distributing limited food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of deliveries which the UN says is neither impartial nor neutral.
More than 130 humanitarian organisations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty International, demanded the immediate closure of the GHF last week, accusing it of facilitating attacks on starving Palestinians.
Last week, figures from the United Nations showed that more than 600 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces at GHF aid sites and near humanitarian convoys.
The team working on the “Trump Riviera” were in direct contravention of an order not to do the project,BCG said.
“The work was not a BCG project, and BCG categorically told the lead partner not to do the work,” BCG said.
“It was orchestrated and run secretly outside any BCG scope or approvals. We fully disavow this work. BCG swiftly exited both partners involved in this work.”
The group of Israeli businessmen behind the project, including tech investor Liran Tancman and venture capitalist Michael Eisenberg, had earlier sketched out and helped set up the GHF, according to people familiar with their role.
Details of the plans showed all of Gaza’s public land being put into a trust for development, whose assets could be sold to investors via digital tokens traded on a blockchain.
The slide deck prepared by the Israeli businessmen was “an economic exploration of the ideas brought by President Trump”, according to one of the people familiar with its preparation.
It contains “flourishes” specifically designed to attract the attention of the US president and Gulf leaders who might support aspects of the plan.
