Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister who led his country into the war in Iraq and whose eight-year tenure as a Middle East envoy got — at best — mixed reviews, raised eyebrows on Wednesday when he attended a White House summit on the future of Gaza.
The contents of the meeting have not been made public, although President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News ahead of the gathering that it would focus on the administration’s “comprehensive plan” for Gaza after the war ends.
To the casual observer, Blair’s presence may have been a surprise. While he is a former world leader with experience in the Middle East, his official activities in the region over the past decade have been mostly limited to private business ventures and sporadic media appearances.
Husam Zomlot, the ambassador who heads the Palestinian Mission to the UK, would not comment on Blair’s attendance at the Gaza summit, but it’s clear that the former British leader inspires little confidence among Palestinians.
After leaving Downing Street in 2007, Blair served for eight years as the Middle East Envoy for the so-called Quartet, a group of world powers seeking a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians.
By the time Blair resigned from the post in 2015, the Quartet was largely seen as an ineffective body with no real power.
Blair’s track record as the envoy won few plaudits. While the Palestinian Authority (PA), which governs parts of the occupied West Bank, initially welcomed his appointment, their relationship soured quickly.
Blair became unpopular figure and was close to being declared a persona non grata in the West Bank city of Ramallah, because of what the PA saw as his bias towards Israel.
Shibley Telhami, a professor at the University of Maryland and non-resident senior fellow at Brookings, told CNN that while Blair’s presence at the meeting could help Trump get the attention of wealthy donors, it will hurt public opinion in the Middle East and internationally.
“(Blair’s) legacy of backing the Iraq war and his financial and political ties to rulers in the Middle East have undermined his reputation in the Middle East and elsewhere,” Telhami said.
Palestinians are already deeply distrustful of the Trump administration and its plans for the future of Gaza and Blair’s involvement in the discussions is unlikely to ease their concerns.
In the UK, the leader of the centrist Liberal Democrat party, Ed Davey, demanded Blair briefs the UK parliament on the meeting, saying that the UK must “leverage all the information at our disposal to make (Trump) do the right thing.”
Trump has previously floated the idea of a US takeover of Gaza, which would include the removal of its residents and redevelopment of the completely devastated narrow strip of land into what has been described as a “Middle Eastern Riviera.”
Earlier this year, the president went as far as sharing an AI-generated video on social media, which promoted a transformation of Gaza into a Gulf state-like resort featuring a golden statue of himself.
One of the biggest proponents of such a plan is Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Like Blair, Kushner holds no official role. And like Blair, he was also at the meeting on Wednesday.
According to reports in Israeli media, Ron Dermer, Israel’s Minister for Strategic Affairs, who has close links to both Kushner and Blair, is also in Washington this week.
As the then ambassador to the US, Dermer played a key role in negotiating the 2020 Abraham Accords that saw Israel normalize relations with several Gulf states. The Abraham Accords deal was spearheaded by Kushner and was seen as a key success of the first Trump administration.
Dermer has worked with Blair in the past, and the two are said to know each other well.
Telhami told CNN that while Dermer has been coordinating with Blair and the Trump team on Gaza, no Arab representation was present at the meeting.
“There is no heavyweight Arab representation in the room, even though Arabs will be heavily impacted by any Gaza outcome, especially Israel’s neighbors, and wealthy Arab states will be expected to foot much of the bill,” he said.
The “Riviera” suggestion, first made by Trump during a visit of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Washington, has been widely condemned, with the PA calling it a “serious violation of international law.” European leaders called it “unacceptable.”
But Telhami said Blair’s presence at the meeting could lend weight to Trump’s plan.
“Blair could give the appearance of broadening Trump’ group of advisers which includes Witkoff and Kushner, given Blair’s prominence and international visibility,” Telhami said.
He said that Trump’s reconstruction plan – if it were to materialize – would require “enormous amounts” and Blair’s close financial and political ties to wealthy Gulf states could be useful to Trump.
While the plan was initially seen as an off-the-cuff remark by Trump, the wheels were put into motion.
A study imagining the redevelopment of Gaza, which would include paying Palestinians to leave their land, was eventually put together and presented to the Trump administration, according to a Financial Times report.
The FT later revealed that while the project was led by Israeli businessmen and used financial models developed by Boston Consulting Group (BCG), staffers from Blair’s think tank, the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change (TBI), were involved in discussions about it.
In a submission to the UK parliament, BCG confirmed that one of its senior partners, who acted in breach of the company’s rules and direct orders, assembled a team to model and analyze post-war reconstruction scenarios for Gaza and that this team “interacted during this work” with the TBI.
The institute told CNN it speaks to many different groups and organizations with post war plans for Gaza, but stressed it was not involved in creating the plan in question.
A spokesperson for the institute would not comment on Blair’s presence in the meeting, only highlighting that the institute has “always been dedicated to building a better Gaza for Gazans.”
“Tony Blair has worked for this since leaving office,” the spokesperson said. “It has never been about relocating Gazans, which is a proposal the TBI has never authored, developed or endorsed.”
As they wait to learn more about Trump’s plan for Gaza, people in the devastated territory can only hope that Blair conveyed these positions to the men assembled in the White House as plainly as his institute has.