Egyptian opposition grows against Tony Blair’s new role in Gaza
Egyptian opposition is growing against Tony Blair’s anticipated leadership role in Gaza’s transitional governance, according to The New Arab plus agencies on October 8th.
As proposed in US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, Blair is set to chair a seven-person International Transitional Authority (GITA) that will oversee governance of Gaza for up to five years.
The board will be composed of billionaires and businesspeople in the highest positions of power, alongside rigorously vetted “neutral” Palestinian administrators beneath them.
GITA will initially operate out of al-Arish, the capital of Egypt’s North Sinai Governate, before eventually shifting operations into the Gaza Strip with a multinational security force once “stability” is achieved.
However, there is growing apprehension and even anger amongst Egyptians, both in the public and political spheres of society, regarding the establishment of an international body in Egypt.
Such resistance stems from the ever-prominent scars of Western colonialism inflicted upon the region. Kamal Abu Eita, who is the former minister of labour and a senior official of the leftist al-Karama (Dignity) Party, voiced considerable scepticism: “We do not trust Blair at the personal level, a man who is strongly connected with colonial heritage.”
He continued in saying that “Egyptians are opposed to all forms of occupation of Gaza, a territory that has to be ruled by its own people only.”
Indeed, a glaring feature of Trump’s plan is the lack of a guarantee that a permanent Palestinian-led governing body in Gaza will be installed.
To some Egyptians, this absence makes the proposal appear as if it was drafted by circling vultures looking for economic opportunity rather than by anyone seeking to secure basic rights for the Palestinians. Egypt’s government was reportedly furious that the Palestinian Authority was side-lined in the plan.
Abu Eita’s sentiment is shared widely across Egypt since Tony Blair is virtually synonymous with Western imperialism, especially due to his central role in the joint US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Many Egyptians and Arabs see a strong resemblance between Blair’s role in Gaza and that of a “colonial viceroy” who is sent to reign over a conquered territory on behalf of the imperial power that controls it.
On October 6th, one Egyptian observer described Blair as the new “British High Commissioner” of Gaza, evoking the British Empire’s imperial infrastructure that occupied then divided the Middle East in the 20th century without the consent or input of Arabs.
Abu Eita lamented that the plan is nothing but “a new form of Western occupation of the Gaza strip”, while others label it as a form of “Western-Israeli partition” that sees Palestinian rights as an afterthought.
Concerns that GITA will merely operate to serve Western interests are substantiated by the powerful figures involved in the transitional process.
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI), founded and owned by Blair, had a significant hand in drafting the initial Gaza plan, which was then presented to Trump who altered and released it under his name.
The New Statesman reported on September 24th that Larry Ellison, who founded the tech company Oracle, has donated or pledged £257m to the TBI, morphing the thinktank into an “Oracle dealership.”
According to The New Arab plus agencies on September 26th, Ellison is an extremely outspoken supporter of Israel who has donated millions of dollars to the “Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.”
Oracle has also collaborated with Israel on surveillance and defence projects, including in Gaza. Furthermore, Israeli news outlet Haaretz reported in September 2021 that Ellison had offered current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu $450,000 to accept a job on the Oracle board.
Given the vast financial incentive for Blair to please one of his largest donors, it is likely that Ellison, and by extension Israel, would wield major influence over Gaza’s administration.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, co-drafted the plan and sat in on the ensuing ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel in Egypt. He previously endorsed Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Gaza, claiming that Gaza’s “waterfront property could be very valuable.”
A Financial Times investigation revealed that the TBI also had a hand in drafting the blueprint for the aforementioned ethnic cleansing campaign, which proposed the construction of artificial islands and various commercial zones, according to Middle East Monitor on July 8th.
This most recent endeavour of Blair’s is not the first time he has used Palestinians as guinea pigs to test his theories of market-oriented state building. After his premiership ended in 2007, he joined the Middle East Quartet.
Whilst ostensibly seeking to nurture the peace process between Israel and Palestine, he proposed a purely economic pathway to stability over a political settlement.
According to The Guardian on October 8th, Blair simultaneously proposed “industrial parks” to attract foreign direct investment in the occupied territories whilst vigorously opposing Palestinian statehood at the UN.
In 2012, a senior Palestinian official summed up Blair’s record on de-escalating the conflict and securing Palestinian self-determination as “useless, useless, useless.”
The New Arab plus agencies, Maghrebi.org, The New Statesman, Haaretz, Middle East Monitor, The Guardian
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