For Tony Blair, the former British prime minister whose name has surfaced as a potential figure in the reconstruction of Gaza, the Middle East is one of the most consistent, if contentious, chapters in a busy post-Downing Street career.
Mr. Blair served for eight years as the envoy for the Quartet, a diplomatic group composed of the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia that tried, with little success, to broker a peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.
His appointment to that post, which came immediately after he stepped down as prime minister in 2007, was divisive from the outset because of his support for President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq, as well as his close relations with Israel, which led many Palestinians to distrust him.
But Mr. Blair has also worked closely with Arab leaders, including those of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, through his nonprofit organization, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. He defended his ties to the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, despite evidence that the Saudi royal had been responsible for the killing of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
“I don’t think any of us who believe we should engage with Saudi Arabia has ever dialed back our disapproval of that,” Mr. Blair said in an interview in 2024. “But I do think that what is happening in Saudi Arabia is a social revolution which has immense and positive implications for our security, and for the Middle East.”
Mr. Blair pointed in that interview to the three-way negotiations among Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel over normalizing relations as proof of the value of engaging with autocratic leaders such Prince Mohammed. Those talks have been put on hold by the war in Gaza.
Since then, Mr. Blair has been trying to build support for a plan that would create a Gaza International Transitional Authority, a U.N.-mandated administration that would include a multinational security force to stabilize the war-torn enclave. Now he has emerged as a candidate to head that authority.
Mark Landler is the London bureau chief of The Times, covering the United Kingdom, as well as American foreign policy in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. He has been a journalist for more than three decades.
The post Tony Blair Emerges as Potential Figure in Postwar Gaza appeared first on New York Times.
