Trump and Blair’s ‘Peace Plan’
The ceasefire and the release of hostages and the possibility of aid getting through to a deliberately starved population are all to be welcomed. Still, significant questions remain about what happens next, and much of the detail of the plan and the underlying ideology behind it is being glossed over.
In an era where the Memory Hole is working overtime and facts are optional, reputations and history are open to sanewashing and airbrushing. This explains the re-emergence of one Tony Blair, with two intertwined obsessions: the first that combines digital ID and AI, the second which creates a role for himself in the Middle East,. This new role sees Blair emerge as some sort of modern-day Ramses II, or a Colonial Viceroy armed this time with drones and AI to preside over the carnage of Gaza.
Awash with cash from Oracle’s Larry Ellison [Tony Blair – Larry Ellison’s man in Gaza?], Blair has been in cahoots with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to produce the extraordinary document that is now being touted as ‘Trump’s Peace Plan’. New Left Review’s Oliver Eagleton (author of The Starmer Project: A Journey to the Right) writes:
“Blair has now joined forces with the pre-eminent reality-creator, Donald Trump, to draft a hallucinatory 20-point plan for Gaza. It aims to turn the devastated Strip into what seems to resemble a colonial protectorate: cleansed of armed conflict, buzzing with development projects and a “special economic zone” through which foreign capital can flow, and overseen by an international “board of peace” with Trump himself as chair.”
The details of the ‘peace plan’ and Blair’s involvement are worth unpacking because they represent new forms of old colonialism, this time more brazen, more brutal, more dystopian. The developments are of course all wrapped in shiny language about “economic development zones”, “free enterprise” and “public-private partnerships”, but all are a gloss overlying the lack of human rights, democracy, self-determination or international law.
This is an old story with new tech. This is US-UK colonialism overlayed on top of the charred remains of thousands of people. It’s difficult to imagine anything more grotesque.
As Jeffrey Sachs and Sybil Fares write [A 20 Point Peace Plan without US-UK Colonialism]:
“President Trump’s 20-point plan offers some constructive proposals on hostages, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction. Yet it is marred by an unmistakable colonial framework: Gaza is to be overseen by Trump himself, with Tony Blair and other outsiders cast as trustees for Palestinian governance—while Palestinian statehood is deferred indefinitely.
This logic is not new. It reprises the century-long Anglo-American approach to Palestine since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, when Britain acquired the Mandate over Palestine, and through successive US interventions, direct and indirect, in the region since 1945.
A real peace plan must eliminate the colonial scaffolding. It should restore Palestinian sovereignty by addressing the central issue: Palestinian statehood. The plan must empower Palestinian agency by establishing that the Palestinian Authority holds governance from the outset, that economic planning is exclusively in the hands of Palestinians, that no external “viceroys” intervene, and that a clear and short timeline is set for Israeli withdrawal and for full Palestinian sovereignty by the start of 2026.”
That these basic elements of any credible peace plan are missing, ie putting democracy and economic planning in the hands of the people of Palestine, speaks to the world we live in. Such has the Overton Window shifted, such has the idea of governance by techlords and the super-rich been normalised that people don’t put up much of a defence when such outrageous ideas are floated. It’s also clear that the idea of just degrading and dehumanising the Palestinians has been so effective they are rendered superfluous in their own land, which is reduced to a Riviera opportunity for Trump and his friends. This is partly due to the effects of two years (more) of watching the same people shot, tortured, bombed, displaced, and humiliated with no interference or judgment at play.
Kushner’s new plan is a variant, barely ‘cleansed’ of Trump’s orginal grotesque ‘Trump Riviera’ which foreshadowed the current proposals, which the Financial Times reported, the Tony Blair Institute was a participant in [Tony Blair’s staff took part in ‘Gaza Riviera’ project with BCG].
The new plan, according to Oliver Eagleton were:
“Drawn up with the help of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the 21-page document suggests reconstructing Gaza through “public-private partnerships”, forged by a “commercially driven authority, led by business professionals and tasked with generating investable projects with real financial returns”. Hamas would be demobilised and a small unelected executive would be installed. This would include Blair himself in a prominent role, plus “leading international figures with executive and financial expertise” and “at least one qualified Palestinian representative (potentially from the business or security sector)”. An international stabilisation force would meanwhile put down “threats to public order”.
“As with previous versions of the initiative, the emphasis is on creating a Gaza that is “conducive to attracting investment”, and in which Israel will continue to reign supreme.”
Extraordinarily, this plan is described by the disgraced columnist Iain Macwhirter thus: “It is impossible to know whether Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan will go the distance, but few doubt that it is the best we’ve seen so far. Even the Pope has given it his imprimatur, which can’t be bad.”
The question here is: what is the plan for lasting peace and democracy? What are the consequences for those who have conducted genocide, war crimes and forced starvation? Where is the justice beyond the self-congratulation and monstrous ego of Trump and the power-grab of those seeking a business opportunity out of unspeakable suffering?
I will not be alone in being sceptical about the longer term outcome. The present genocide in Gaza may be paused. The hostages may be returned and Palestinian prisoners release temporarily.
How long will it be until a frustrated and humiliated Palestinian shoots or blows up an Israeli and it all begins again in the name of Security in Israel?
Dougie – it will be impossible to accurately verify that every Hamas member has been disarmed or left country. Once all hostages have been released I expect Netanyahu to claim that Hamas have not completely disarmed as an excuse to blow up peace process as he has done previously.
This reminds me of Yuval Noah Harari writing not long after Hamas’ October 7th attacks, that an autonomous Gaza could have been a new Singapore – though he admits that would have been difficult under a naval blockade.
I believe that idea originated from the same place as this Gaza riviera plan. While some would look at Gaza and lament that it is not viable as a state, some rich men see its maximum potential as an investment.
This could also be an experiment in governance to be later applied at scale. They seem to wonder: “With the right technology and a business-friendly environment, is dictatorship really so bad?” Something people used to whisper.
I wonder about Armageddon, TheoBros, the tension between evangelicals looking forward to warlike signs of the End Times, and the other (white) Christian nationalists or internationalists seeking theocracy in the material plane, the presumably Anglican British monarchy which has a track record there, and of course the Jewish diaspora many of whom may be quite reasonably fearful of a lot of this.
I mean, the Plan appears to be straightforward worship of Mammon material:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammon
but apparently technology has found a way to shrink a camel to fit through the eye of a needle, or whatever.
Could we be looking at coercive conversion of Palestinians (even of already-Christian ones), as a condition of ‘vetting’ procedures for working as a minimal-waged servant class in hotels even lower-class Western Christians can afford in their fossil-fuel-guzzling future pilgrimages to the Holy Land™? Half-price hols at the Crusader Inn.
https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=1223059119851511&set=a.649131193910976
Military power of US/Israel makes objections to the ending of killing and destruction very difficult. Feels like peace from the barrel of a gun. Further, the environmental impact of the Israeli destruction is enormous. And we know that there will be exploitation in the place of cheap renewable energy for people in Gaza. A dreadful mess and carnage but with Trump-Blair which looks set to continue.
Every silver cloud has a grey lining when you are a miserablist, and my goodness the author hates loads of people. The spoilt tend to have a very dim view of anyone that disagree with their point of view. Maybe Mike would prefer a technocratic Palestinian governance in Gaza overseen by Lorna Slater and Ross Greer to ensure they don’t do any more pogroms and Hamas at least put their weapons in supervised storage?
Why is no-one asking Israel to rebuid Gaza and care for the ill and wounded? What on earth has it got to do with Qataris?
“Why is no-one asking Israel to rebuild Gaza and care for the ill and wounded?”
Such a great question.
English anti-semitism is behind the creation of Israel and, surprise, surprise, it was all the work of “the hammer of the Scots”, Edward I…
“The Edict of Expulsion was a royal decree expelling all Jews from the Kingdom of England that was issued by Edward I on 18 July 1290; it was the first time a European state is known to have permanently banned their presence.[a] The date of issuance was most likely chosen because it was a Jewish holy day, Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem and other disasters the Jewish people have experienced. Edward told the sheriffs of all counties he wanted all Jews expelled before All Saints’ Day (1 November) that year.
Jews were allowed to leave England with cash and personal possessions, but debts they were owed, homes, and other buildings—including synagogues and cemeteries—were forfeit to the king. While there are no recorded attacks on Jews during the departure on land, there were acts of piracy in which Jews died, and others were drowned as a result of being forced to cross the English Channel at a time of year when dangerous storms are common. There is evidence from personal names of Jewish refugees settling in Paris and other parts of France, as well as Italy, Spain and Germany. Documents taken abroad by the Anglo-Jewish diaspora have been found as far away as Cairo. Jewish properties were sold to the benefit of the Crown, Queen Eleanor, and selected individuals, who were given grants of property.
The edict was not an isolated incident but the culmination of increasing antisemitism in England. During the reigns of Henry III and Edward I, anti-Jewish prejudice was used as a political tool by opponents of the Crown, and later by Edward and the state itself. Edward took measures to claim credit for the expulsion and to define himself as the protector of Christians against Jews, and following his death, he was remembered and praised for the expulsion. The expulsion embedded antisemitism into English culture of the medieval and early modern period; such antisemitic beliefs included that England was unique because there were no Jews, and that the English had superseded the Jews as God’s chosen people. The expulsion edict remained in force for the rest of the Middle Ages but was overturned more than 365 years later during the Protectorate, when in 1656, Oliver Cromwell informally permitted the resettlement of the Jews in England.”
From Wikipedia…