Hypocrisy, thy name is Blair

[Albus]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/06/gaza-tony-blair-hamas-israel

Having done the diplomatic groundwork for Israel's assault on Gaza, the quartet's Middle East envoy now talks of ceasefire

The appointment of Tony Blair as George Bush's Middle East peace envoy – well, technically, the US-UN-EU-Russian Quartet's representative – was a masterful stroke of postmodern irony. And his interview on Tuesday morning's BBC Today programme was a reminder of just how spectacularly unsuited for such a role he really is.

Speaking from his suite at the American colony hotel in east Jerusalem – a respite from earning £12m a year on the American corporate speachmaking circuit – the old warmonger appeared to be putting the case for an immediate halt to Israel's bloodbath in the Gaza Strip. But just as in the days when he was Britain's prime minister, nothing was quite what it seemed.

Blair had three main points. First, there could be a ceasefire, he said – but only if there was "clear action" to cut off Hamas's arms and cash supplies through tunnels under the Egyptian border. Second, there had to be Palestinian unity to achieve a Palestinian state – but only "on the right terms". And third, that such a state had to built from the "bottom up" – just as was currently taking place in the northern West Bank, where Palestinians were now "doing" security.

On all counts, his comments reeked of the savage hypocrisy that underpins the west's role in the current carnage. In fact, so long as Hamas survives in Gaza, there will be no ceasefire based on the closure of tunnels because that would amount to the elected administration's unilateral disarmament. Such a demand is therefore simply a call for what Blair described as the only alternative: "a protracted conflict".

As for Palestinian unity, it is indeed essential for any viable settlement. But the US, Britain and the EU have all played a central role in destroying it – by imposing sanctions on the elected Hamas government, sponsoring attempts by its Fatah opponents to challenge it by force and then demanding that Mahmoud Abbas dissolve the Hamas-Fatah unity administration negotiated in Mecca. All this happened when Blair was prime minister.

Finally, the security that Blair says the broken Palestinian Authority is currently "doing" in the West Bank includes the detention of hundreds of Hamas supporters, the banning of Hamas flags and symbols and the suppression of pro-Hamas demonstrations – all by forces trained and paid for by the US and EU. Which hardly reflects either the democratic values or Palestinian unity Blair and his sponsors claim to be promoting.

In reality, far from being any kind of peacemaker, Tony Blair is effectively one of the architects of Israel's war in the Gaza Strip. For months, he has been telling anyone who would listen that Hamas had to be seriously weakened before there could be any progress in the region. Last month, before the Israeli onslaught began, he made clear in an interview with the Israeli Ha'aretz, he believed the western-backed blockade wasn't working and that Hamas would have to be dealt with, probably by force.

As the one-time high priest of the "third way" put it on the radio this week, it was obvious in advance that a war in the overcrowded Gaza Strip would lead to a "humanitarian catastrophe". After the stunning success of such policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, Tony Blair has now got what he wanted in Gaza.