United States President Donald Trump has released his 20-point “peace plan” for the Palestinian territory, which features himself as the head of a “Board of Peace” that will act as a transitional government in the enclave, just as you anticipated the prospects for the future of the Gaza Strip would start to look grim. This from the man who has been actively supporting and assisting Israel’s genocide against Palestinians since he assumed former US President Joe Biden’s office in January.
That’s not all, though. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is reportedly playing a significant governing role in the proposed transformation of Gaza, is also on board for the “Board of Peace.” In a region that is already well aware of the phenomenon, importing a Sir Tony Blair from the United Kingdom to oversee a population of Palestinians smacks rather harshly of colonialism.
Despite this, George W. Bush’s buddy and then-chief of the so-called war on terror, George W. Bush, who was in charge of the region’s notorious performance in the 2003 conflict with Iraq, and Blair himself, are already well-known in the region. Blair led the UK to a war that ended with the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, earning him a deserved reputation as a war criminal after making up his mind about the false allegations of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
In other words, he is not a man who should always appear on a “Board of Peace.”
And while Bush would eventually retire to a quiet life of painting portraits of Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, made a name for himself as the one who could never get rid of, and while doing so, earned a pretty penny.
Blair left his position as prime minister in 2007 and was reincarnated as the Middle East envoy for the “Quartet” of international powers, which purport to work on the Israeli-Palestine conflict on an ongoing basis.
However, the appointment of an envoy with close ties to Israel, the unquestionable aggressor of the “conflict,” also effectively eliminated any progress in the “peace” movement.
Additionally, Blair’s diplomatic activities conveniently overlapped with a number of lucrative business ventures in the region, starting with JP Morgan as a part-time senior adviser in 2008 and moving to the US investment bank. Blair was reportedly paid more than $1 million annually for the latter position.
No one knew which Tony Blair they were seeing when Blair stepped down as Quartet envoy, whether it was Tony Blair the patron of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation or Tony Blair the principal of the consulting firm Tony Blair Associates, as Francis Beckett, said in a statement released in 2016 from Al Jazeera.
But they still pay off, after all. The point of conflicts of interest.
Award-winning journalist Jonathan Cook noted in a 2013 article for the Journal of Palestine Studies that Blair had little to show for his “achievements” as Quartet representative, but that “trumpet one in particular: his success in securing radio frequencies from Israel in 2009 to enable the establishment of a second Palestinian cell phone operator, Wataniya Mobile, in the West Bank.”
However, there was a catch. According to Cook, Israel gave the frequencies away in exchange for a resolution from the Palestinian leadership to drop the Israeli-led war crimes at the UN that occurred during the Israeli-led Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, which in December 2008 killed about 1,400 Palestinians in just 22 days.
What are you aware of? In addition to Wataniya, JP Morgan and other companies were all attracted to the West Bank’s potential to make a significant profit from the opening of the airwaves.
There are undoubtedly many opportunities for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change to completely alter the world in order to screw up the Palestinians, which is hardly exaggeration to say that Blair will try to capitalize on his upcoming governorship of Gaza.
The “many thoughtful investment proposals and exciting development ideas… crafted by well-meaning international groups,” according to Trump’s 20-point plan, are among his main points, omitted, which magically lead to “hope for future Gaza.” After all, why should Palestinians care about having a state and not having Israel repeatedly massacre them when they can benefit from capitalism and foreign investor tyranny?
And Blair may be the face of that oppression, whose association with the Middle East’s massacre of civilians has not prevented him from being once more tapped as a regional peacemaker.
Apart from Trump and the Israelis, Blair has plenty of fans. For instance, Thomas Friedman, a fellow Orientalist and Iraq war cheerleader and former New York Times foreign affairs columnist, once praised Blair as “one of the most significant British prime ministers ever” for choosing to “throw in Britain’s lot with President Bush on the Iraq war,” defying “the overwhelming antiwar sentiment of his own party, as well as public opinion in Britain in general.”
Friedman’s admiration for Blair’s anti-democratic stoicism seemed to be dying: “He had no real support group to turn to.” Even his wife’s involvement in the Iraq War is unknown. (I am aware of the emotion!) “
Perhaps his wife should advise him to pursue painting in place of waiting for Blair and other international war criminals as Gaza’s fate continues to hang in the balance.
Source: Aljazeera
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