Afrasianet - Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has joined the "raptors that feed on the Palestinian Holocaust," and nearly two years after the genocide, Western leaders are discussing plans to build massive Dubai-like reconstruction projects on top of Palestinian death fields.
It has been nearly 18 years since Tony Blair, then Middle East envoy, presented a 34-page document that defined a "corridor for peace and prosperity," stretching from the Red Sea to the occupied Golan Heights. Blair's plan included the establishment of an agro-industrial zone near Jericho in the occupied West Bank to facilitate the movement of goods into the Gulf via Jordan. Another industrial zone, or "quick-impact project," was to be established in Tarqumia in Hebron, and a third in Jalameh, north of Jenin. This was not new. The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 and 1995, provided for the establishment of up to nine industrial zones along the Green Line from Jenin in the north to Rafah in Gaza.
Optimistic about the support of the Palestinian National Authority, the United Nations, the European Union, USAID, and Japan, Blair declared as a true visionary he has always known: "If the above package succeeds, other similar packages will follow. In this way, over time and gradually, the burden of the occupation can be reduced, but in a way that does not endanger Israel's security." "I firmly believe that these steps will also facilitate the ongoing negotiations between the two parties, with the aim of reaching a viable and lasting peace agreement between two countries, living side by side in peace and prosperity," he added.
Today, little remains of the Blair industrial zone at the Jalameh crossing with Israel. For years, the fenced site remained vacant until the Palestinian Authority, with the support of Turkish investors, attempted to establish an "industrial city" in Jenin. Now, there are only a few roads and a few warehouses left of those dreams. In 2008, Blair credited himself with reducing the number of roadblocks in the occupied West Bank, which at the time numbered around 600. Today, there are 898 military checkpoints, including dozens of gates that close Palestinian towns and villages for most of the day, and economic life is completely disrupted.
Settler militias roam the land, terrorize Palestinian towns and expel Palestinians from vast tracts of land, allegedly illegal "shepherd farms", in coordination with Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who has taken control of the Civil Administration in the occupied West Bank.
All of this is seen as a prelude to the widely anticipated announcement of Israel's annexation of Area C, including about two-thirds of the West Bank. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been displaced by the demolition of refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarem and Nour Shams, in an Israeli military operation known as the "Iron Wall", which has entered its eighth month.
In 2009, Blair received an award in recognition of his Stillborn Plan: a $1 million "leadership" prize, most of which went to his own foundation for "religious understanding."
Blair returned to work after 23 months of genocide and demolition in Gaza.
After nearly two decades, he is re-establishing himself as a seasoned expert on Middle East affairs. He is said to be advising the White House and in talks with Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, about the US president's latest plan on Gaza. The strategy, or at least a 38-page version of it, was unveiled, as it contains a vision for postwar Gaza.
Since October 2023, Gaza has become a death lab for the 21st century and a horrific lesson in how to rewrite the rules of war, how to use drones and robots to maximize collateral damage, how to leverage artificial intelligence to set targets, how to use famine and aid distribution points to break the will of a people to resist, how to dismantle health and education systems, and how to displace an entire nation. Joseph Mengele, the Nazi physician who conducted lethal experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz, recognized many of these performance standards as achievements. Now, another human experiment is being conducted on the Palestinians of Gaza, with a focus on how to build $324 billion of Dubai-style "mega projects" over their graves.
He said that the first thing that struck the offer made by the new "kings of Gaza" was its brutality. It is devoid of any recognition of Gaza as a Palestinian homeland. In this, his authors returned to the moral standards of Tsarist Russia, and to what happened in a field outside Moscow just four days after the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II. As many as half a million Russians gathered in Khodenka for free food and gifts from the Tsar, which reportedly included bread rolls, sausages, pretzels, gingerbread and souvenir cups. When rumors spread that there wasn't enough beer and pretzel for everyone, and that the enamel cups contained gold coins, a stampede ensued, killing more than 1,200 people and injuring as many as 20,000.
However, the emperor and empress went ahead with their plans. They appeared before the crowd from the palace balcony in the middle of the field, by which time the bodies had been removed. This is similar to the way emperors behave today towards the starving and dying people of Gaza, but the magnitude of today's tragedy makes Nicholas II's indifference to the fate of his people seem disciplined.
Trump plans to build a Dubai-style wonderland over the graves of 63,000 dead (and the number is growing). This psychological lack of empathy extends to the living and the dead alike: the paradise that would transform Gaza from a "destructive Iranian proxy" to a "prosperous Abrahamic ally" would be not only "free of Hamas," but also free of most Palestinians. In fact, the more Palestinians leave, the lower the cost of the project. For every Palestinian who leaves, the plan calculates saving $23,000 and for every 1 percent of the population that moves, this amounts to $500 million in savings. To urge Palestinians in Gaza to leave their land, the plan proposes giving each person $5,000 and subsidizing their rent in another country for four years, plus their food for one year.
The first draft of the Gaza redevelopment plan is believed to have been completed last April and presented to the Trump administration. It is not known whether this proposal was discussed during the last meeting between Kushner and Blair, who have been discussing similar ideas, but the course of action is clear.
Hearst reminded Blair of what happened in the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland. A plan to make Gaza "Hamas-free" is doomed to failure.
He should devote his days as Prime Minister and his government's efforts to negotiate with the IRA. Imagine if someone suggested that Short Strand, home of the Irish National Liberation Army, or the whole of West Belfast be de-republicanized as a precondition for peace. But Britain negotiated with a party it classified as terrorists, which led to a peace formula.
If we apply the formula that brought peace to Northern Ireland to Gaza and Hamas, which is designated as a terrorist group in the United Kingdom, what would happen? Direct talks with Hamas on the release of a large number of prisoners and abductees, followed by talks with all resistance factions on the formation of a technocratic government, along with the return of all UN aid agencies, an end to the blockade, and a huge international influx of money and concrete for reconstruction. In the long term, Hamas could offer a "truce" to stop the armed conflict indefinitely.
This is the Irish version applied to Gaza. But what is happening in Gaza now is the opposite of that path. Because all thinking about Palestine is seen from the perspective of the need to defend and arm the expanding State of Israel.
Peace in Northern Ireland would not have been possible without the active participation of Dublin and Washington. Today, the United States, represented by its Democratic and Republican presidents, is the main supporter of Greater Israel, and the main obstacle to lasting peace.
Hamas has been excluded from the broader political process since it won the last free elections held in Palestine in 2006. The behavior of the Palestinian Authority and the leaders of every Arab government has greatly facilitated Blair's task in this regard. He is not alone in trying to implement a solution that ignores the Palestinian people and goes against their will.
Over the past 23 months, Israel has forcibly tried to achieve what it failed to achieve during 17 years of increasingly brutal blockade through deprivation and bouts of bombardment. Today, Blair is a very wealthy, dark-skinned man, quite comfortable in the company of other millionaires like Kushner. Today, a million dollars doesn't mean anything to him. The series failures in the Middle East have been a lucrative business for Blair. But Gaza cannot be cleansed of Hamas, just as England cannot be cleansed of the English or France of the French.