Tony Blair no longer considered for key position on Gaza ‘Board of Peace’
There are suggestions that certain Arab countries had opposed his involvement - the possibility remains that he may be involved at a less senior level
Tony Blair is no longer being considered for a board position in the interim authority the United States has proposed to run Gaza, with a number of Arab states reportedly expressing their opposition to his involvement.
According to a report from the Financial Times, the former UK prime minister, whose Tony Blair Institute was believed to have been involved in the creation of Donald Trump’s 20-point plan to end the Israel-Hamas conflict, was no longer being considered as a member of the US president’s ‘Board of Peace’.
The board, announced by Donald Trump in September, is intended to aid in the transition of Gaza away from Hamas control. Its proposed role would be to oversee the efforts of a “technocratic, apolitical” committee of both Palestinians and international experts, who would help move Gaza towards a place where the Palestinian Authority could retake control of the Strip.
In Donald Trump’s initial announcement of the Board, Blair was the only person the US president specifically named in connection to the project, other than himself, saying that “one of the people that wants to be on the board is the UK former Prime Minister Tony Blair – good man, very good man – and some others.” However, both Arab and Muslim countries were said to have opposed the idea, citing Mr Blair’s involvement in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as a lack of achievements in his Middle East envoy role as representative of the Quartet – UN, EU, US and Russia – in the 2010s. By October, President Trump had noticeably cooled on the idea of Blair’s direct involvement, saying “I’ve always liked Tony, but I want to find out that he’s an acceptable choice to everybody.”
There has been further suggestion that while Blair will not sit on the board itself – which it is believed may contain a number of current heads of state once finalised – he may play a role in a smaller executive committee working at the direction of the Board. Others rumoured to have been considered for that smaller committee include President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and the current US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff.