Tony Blair, who was British prime minister during the 2003 United States-led invasion and occupation of Iraq based on false claims about weapons of mass destruction, and is regarded by many in the Arab world and in the United Kingdom as a “war criminal”, has helped develop “day after” plans for Israel’s war on Gaza.
The highly divisive figure is envisaged in United States President Donald Trump’s 21-point plan presented to Arab and Muslim leaders to become the de facto governor-general of the besieged and bombarded enclave after Hamas is pushed out, according to Israeli and Western media reports.
Some reports say Blair’s ultimate role is not finalised, but the outlines are clear.
Here’s a look at Trump’s plan, what we know about Blair’s role, and what it would mean for everyone involved if it were to all go ahead.
What’s the 21-point plan?
After numerous attempts that have not ended the genocidal war on Gaza, Trump and his team have come up with a new proposal that also purports to leave the door open for the future formation of a sovereign Palestinian state – something Israel has repeatedly rejected.
The plan wants all 48 captives still held in Gaza to be released immediately, in exchange for allowing entry of humanitarian aid, freezing battle lines, and the release of a number of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli military jails.
The plan would also see Hamas disarm, offer fighters who renounce violence amnesty, and allow others who refuse to leave Gaza.
Crucially, it specifies that no Palestinians will be forced to leave their territory, and says anyone who leaves “voluntarily” will be allowed to return to their homes.
If true in practice, this would signal a U-turn for Trump, who shocked the world in February when he openly touted ethnic cleansing by musing about the US “taking over” Gaza and permanently moving out its more than two million residents, about half of them children. He also released a video generated through artificial intelligence to showcase his vision for the so-called “Gaza Riviera”.
The new proposal prides itself on offering a “credible pathway” to Palestinian statehood, marking another departure as the Republican president has been reluctant to endorse the two-state solution amid a surge of Western nations doing so, such as the UK, France and Canada.
The US and Israel reportedly wish to keep the notorious GHF, the humanitarian organisation they founded to push aside the United Nations and other international aid agencies delivering aid to Palestinians on the ground. Many hundreds of famine-stricken people, including children, have been shot by Israeli soldiers and US mercenaries operating at GHF sites.
Israeli figures and a US consulting firm, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), have been linked with the GHF and the Gaza Riviera plans. In a response to a UK parliamentary committee inquiry published in late July, BCG said an investigation it commissioned found that some of its US-based staff sidestepped its risk controls to do work related to GHF and to “post-war reconstruction” for the Palestinian enclave.
Trump’s plan to broker a grand bargain has been presented to the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and Turkiye on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York.
But as the Israeli military continues to systematically destroy and seize Gaza City and starve Palestinians in Gaza while advancing with a vision to annex the occupied West Bank, the plan appears to be provisional at best. Neither Israel nor Hamas has officially commented on it.
Where does Blair fit in?
The former UK prime minister, who fervently backed then-US President George W Bush in invading Iraq, is reportedly involved through his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, which claims it wants to “turn bold ideas into reality”.
Trump’s plan reportedly considers appointing him as the head of a newly established entity called the Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA), which would administer Gaza after Hamas is ousted for a transition period of up to several years.
GITA would seek a UN mandate, something Arab states have emphasised they will require, and would also initially sideline the Palestinian Authority (PA) – as Israel continues to say it will not allow the PA to have a future governance role.
The PA is urged to engage in serious reforms, get a revised constitution and hold elections for a new president and parliament before taking over from GITA, which will oversee the reconstruction of the Palestinian enclave.
An international stabilisation force, largely drawn from Arab and Muslim countries, would be deployed to provide security and train a new Palestinian security force in Gaza.
Prabowo Subianto, the president of Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population, told the UNGA he was ready to send in thousands of peacekeeping forces, and ended his speech with “shalom”.
A demonstrator wearing a mask to impersonate Tony Blair holds bundles of fake money during a protest before the release of the John Chilcot report, which found the UK joined the Iraq invasion on flawed intelligence and without exhausting peaceful options, at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre in London, July 6, 2016 [Peter Nicholls/Reuters]
Blair has not commented on the new proposal. In January 2024, when Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Blair met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former war cabinet minister Benny Gantz in Israel in relation to a “voluntary resettlement” plan of Palestinians in Gaza, his institution said the report was a “lie”.
Why is this hugely controversial?
After serving as the UK prime minister for 10 years, when Blair resigned in 2007, he was immediately appointed as the Middle East envoy for the Quartet – the UN, US, European Union, and Russia. His official remit was to support Palestinian institution-building, economic development, and to liaise on governance and security reforms.
He formally stepped down from the role in mid-2015, but has continued projects through his institution.
So, he has some experience in the region.
However, the experience was not a happy one for most people in the region, especially the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who were killed during the war, or the millions who were marked by the invasion that changed the face of the region.
To this day, critics in the Middle East and the UK brand Blair a “war criminal”, and he remains a toxic figure in some quarters.
Quartet Representative to the Middle East Tony Blair visits a UN-run school sheltering Palestinians whose houses were destroyed by Israeli shelling during a 50-day war in 2014, in Gaza City, February 15, 2015 [Suhaib Salem/Reuters]
Palestinian commentators have also said Blair failed them as peace envoy despite the quintessential British role in the conflict stretching over a century. They have argued that while he oversaw economic projects during his tenure, he did little to halt illegal Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence, or advance Palestinian statehood, with some even accusing him of impeding statehood as a friend of Israel.
Blair continues to be a polarising figure in domestic British politics as well, as his popularity vastly plummeted following the Iraq invasion. His involvement in determining the future of Gaza has been met with shock and scepticism among some commentators.
But beyond Blair, the 21-point plan has been criticised online and in some media as a neocolonial takeover of Gaza with no actual guarantees that a competent Palestinian leadership will be allowed to govern in the future.
The plan has been touted in Israeli media as a relatively better option compared with more extreme ideas floating around in Washington and Tel Aviv, particularly revolving around forcing as many Palestinians out of the enclave as Israel destroys the little infrastructure left in Gaza that supports their means of basic living, as it kills dozens of civilians daily.
For its part, Israel has emphasised it will retain “security control” over Gaza regardless of any future plans.
