From No 10 to the Middle East: Blair gets a new job
It is looking increasingly likely that Blair will be confirmed as the international community's special envoy to the Middle East later on today, a post he is likely to take up in the Autumn.
I have spoken before about how spectacularly unsuited I think Blair is for such a job, not only because his eagerness to invade Iraq has ruined his reputation in the region, but also because his failure to call for a ceasefire during the Israeli-Lebanon war led many to believe that, like his counterpart in the United States, he has a pro-Israeli bias. This makes putting him in charge of the Palestinian side of the conflict somewhat akin to putting a fox in charge of the henhouse. And that's roughly how it's been greeted in Palestine.
Mr Blair's role would focus on the Palestinian side of the conflict rather than negotiations between Israel and Palestinians.
At the top of his agenda will be an attempt to forge a Palestinian state, despite Hamas's takeover of Gaza.
But an official for the Islamist Hamas group said that 'the experience of our people with Blair was bad'.
His appointment as Quartet envoy 'may even make things worse', said the official, Sami Abu Zuhri.
Now, perhaps the thought is that Blair's role in forging peace in Northern Ireland will aid him in bringing the various Palestinian factions back together, however that is not really as difficult a task as it is being portrayed, after all Hamas are already seeking reconciliation with Fatah.
My real concern, leaving aside my belief that Blair has a pro-Israeli bias which will hinder rather than help any step towards genuine peace, is that Blair has always wanted Bush to seriously engage with the Israeli-Palestine crisis believing it to be the most important single step we could take to drain the swamp of terrorist recruitment for al-Qaeda. So, having been unable to force Bush to take this seriously as British Prime Minister, I am left wondering how he will be able to do so in the greatly decreased position of Special Envoy to the Middle East.
Nor does the remit he has been handed, as reported, give one much faith:
I have already published an article by John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer who has advised the Palestinians on negotiations with Israel, as to why the Palestinians can never accept the notion of Israel's "right to exist" and really would suggest that anyone serious about understanding the Palestinian position read this.It was being stressed last night that Mr Blair's role - in the short term at least - would not be to act as a mediator between the Palestinians and the Israelis, or to become a negotiator for the road map to peace. He might, however, be responsible for trying to persuade the Palestinians to accept the conditions for ending the international boycott of Hamas. The now defunct Hamas government has not received any international aid since its election in March 2006, although aid has been sent directly to the poorest Palestinians through a temporary international mechanism.
The quartet says aid can only be conditional on the Palestinians accepting the right of Israel to exist and giving a commitment to exclusively peaceful means and to abide by all previous agreements.
If Blair's role is to convince the Palestinians to accept Israel's "right to exist" then he is being handed a poisoned chalice, he is being asked to do something which sounds reasonable on the surface - from a western position - but which is impossible to achieve from the point of view of the Palestinians. So I suspect the new role Blair has accepted for himself is to spend the next few years telling the Palestinians how unreasonable they are being.
The only minuscule shred of optimism that I can take from this is that Blair is undoubtedly an intelligent man, albeit one who was schooled on the Middle East by Lord Levy. However, there is always just the shred of hope that, confronted by the Palestinians on a one to one basis, Blair may just begin to see their point of view.
My worry is that Blair always regards "political reality" as accepting the American position, which in this case is indistinguishable from the position of Israel.
The last person to hold this job was Jim Wolfensohn who was backed by Kofi Annan but opposed by Washington. The hope is that Blair's contacts with Washington will put him in a stronger position than the one Wolfensohn found himself in. And he undoubtedly will. My worry is that his position will only be strong as long as he is telling Washington what they want to hear.
Should he take a rush of blood to the head and suddenly insist that international law should be obeyed as it relates to this conflict, I feel quite sure that Dick Cheney and others will quickly find ways to make Blair see the "political reality".
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