“Peace Maker” and War Criminal Tony Blair: Gaza and All That Offshore Gas

What was in it for Tony Blair when he conducted talks with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Doha? 

Of all the bizarre encounters the Palestinian conflict has generated, Tony Blair’s four meetings in Doha with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal must surely rank as among the oddest.

Here was the Quartet’s Middle East envoy breaking the Quartet’s own rules about not talking to Hamas until it recognises Israel – rules that Blair and Jack Straw enforced as prime minister and foreign secretary by pressing the EU to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation. Two of the four meetings were held before Blair resigned as envoy.

Here was Blair, the man linked in mind, body and soul to the military coup in Egypt (he said the army intervened “at the will of the people” to bring democracy to Egypt) attempting to mediate between Hamas, Israel and Egypt – the two countries that have kept a stranglehold around Gaza’s neck. The Egyptian leader has been an even more zealous enforcer of the blockade than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a British context, Blair’s dialogue with Hamas took place as his supporters accused the left-wing candidate in the Labour leadership race, Jeremy Corbyn, of making Labour unelectable if he became leader. Corbyn had advocated talks with Hamas and Hezbollah – a crime of which the man who won power three times was a repeat offender.

Blair did not just talk to Meshaal. He invited him to London, offering him a specific date in June, on which the current prime minister, David Cameron, must have agreed. This is the same prime minister who has strived and failed, so far, to publish a report branding the Muslim Brotherhood presence in Britain as extremist. Bizarre.

And yet Blair kept going, even after the existence of the talks was revealed by Middle East Eye. In the last few days he has still been pushing the deal in Cairo. Why?

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