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Tony Blair 'mediating planned truce' between Hamas and Israel to lift Gaza blockade Palestinians attack Tony Blair for helping Israel strike 'secret peace deal' with Hamas
(about 7 hours later)
Tony Blair is understood to be acting as a go-between in secret talks aimed at lifting the Israeli siege of Gaza. Palestinian officials have accused Tony Blair of serving Israeli interests and undermining prospects for a viable Palestinian state by acting as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, the more radical rival group which controls Gaza.
Since resigning as the Quartet's Middle East envoy in May, the former prime minister has twice held talks with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal, according to Arabic media reports, while Israel's Haaretz newspaper said Mr Blair had earlier discussed his plans with Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) legislator and senior spokeswoman, spoke out after it emerged that Mr Blair was attempting to forge a long-term ceasefire deal in Gaza. Under the terms of the agreement, Hamas would commit itself not to attack Israel in exchange for Israel lifting its eight-year siege of the coastal enclave.
As the Quartet envoy, Mr Blair would have been prevented from holding talks with Hamas, which has run the Gaza Strip since 2007. “Israel wants an agreement that intensifies the split between Gaza and the West Bank, and that is what Tony Blair is doing,” Ms Ashrawi told The Independent. “Maintaining and intensifying the split would spell the end of a unified, viable Palestinian state.”
The meetings have taken place in Doha, Qatar and on the agenda has been a temporary ceasefire deal with Israel that would lift the siege of Gaza, according to reports. Of the former Prime Minister, she added: “Blair is the last person qualified to be a mediator. We know whose side he is on and has been from the beginning. I don’t believe he moves without [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s approval. He’s looking after Israel’s interests.”
According to Al-Hayat, the Arabic-language daily, under the deal Isreal would lift its blockade of Gaza and allow the establishment of a naval corridor between Cyprus and Gaza. Her comments reflect widespread anger on the West Bank that the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority, headed by moderate President Mahmoud Abbas, appears to be sidelined by Mr Blair’s diplomacy, which according to a report in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz is aimed at striking a separate peace between Israel and Hamas.
In return, Hamas would agree to a long-term ceasefire lasting up to 10 years. In two meetings between Mr Blair and Hamas’s political chief, Khaled Meshaal, since May, Mr Blair discussed the reaching of a five-year truce, the lifting of Israel’s siege on Gaza and the establishment of a conduit for goods into and out of the area, probably by sea.
Comments this week by Yasin Aktay, a senior adviser to Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu, appear to confirm the talks between Hamas and Mr Blair. The mooted arrangements give no place to the West Bank, even though PLO agreements with Israel specify that it and Gaza are to be dealt with as a single territorial unit and must be connected by “safe passage” routes through Israeli territory. Gaza effectively split from the West Bank when Hamas staged a coup against Mr Abbas’s forces in 2007 and Israel clamped its siege on Gaza.
Mr Aktay said that, on a visit to Turkey, Mr Meshaal had discussed details of the truce as mediated by Mr Blair. “We want to lift the siege, but this should be in conjunction with unification and maintaining the demographic, territorial and economic links with the West Bank,” Ms Ashrawi said.
Turkey, which has a strained relationship with Israel following Israel's killing of nine Turkish citizens in a 2010 raid on a flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza, has been involved in the Doha talks. Haaretz reported that Mr Blair had emerged as the most significant mediator between Israel and Hamas after he resigned in May from his post as the envoy of the international Quartet. In that role he had been bound by the Quartet’s policy of neither recognising nor negotiating with Hamas.
But as speculation in Arabic media grew, Israel's Mr Netanyahu denied that he had authorised secret talks and said Israel was not in contact with Hamas either directly or through third parties. Before his first meeting with Mr Meshaal, in the Qatari capital, Doha, Mr Blair met Mr Netanyahu. Quoting an Israeli source involved in the efforts, Haaretz said that Mr Netanyahu told Mr Blair he did not view him as a mediator or someone who could pass messages back and forth, but would be ready to hear the details if he reached any results.
Rumours of secret talks have surfaced before, but any such negotiations have had limited effect. A statement from Mr Netanyahu’s office on Sunday night said: “There are no meetings with Hamas. There are no direct contacts, no contacts through other countries and no contacts through mediators.”
But the denial was seen as leaving open the possibility there were indirect contacts in the past and could be in the future. Haaretz said that Mr Blair had not achieved results in his two meetings with Mr Meshaal but was keeping up his efforts.