Informed sources say GITA is modelled on the international administrations that oversaw East Timor and Kosovo’s transitions to statehood. Initially, it could be based in el-Arish, an Egyptian provincial capital near Gaza’s southern border. GITA would enter Gaza once the strip is stable, accompanied by a multinational force. Under the plan, those sources insist, Palestinians would not be encouraged to leave Gaza, Gaza and the West Bank would be reunited, and Gaza would be gradually handed over to the PA.
But mandates have a habit of lasting longer than planned. In November 1917, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration promising Jews a homeland in Palestine; on the same day, it conquered Gaza, quickly. It used Gaza as an air force base and a stopover for Imperial Airways (a precursor to British Airways). It stayed there for 30 years. Now, some Palestinians fear Britain is repeating the exercise.
Blair’s record in the region hardly endears him to them. As prime minister, he joined America in invading Iraq in 2003. In his eight years as envoy of the Quartet, a group comprising America, the EU, Russia and the UN, tasked with implementing a road map to Palestinian statehood, Israel thumped Gaza four times and tightened its grip on the Palestinian territories.
Tony Blair visits troops in Iraq on December 22, 2005.Credit: AP
Convincing Abbas will be hard. He has the Arab states’ backing to run Gaza after the war and seems willing to see off challengers. When a Palestinian businessman, Samir Hulileh, suggested he should be Gaza’s governor, Abbas had him jailed. Another occupation beckons, warns an adviser to Abbas about Blair’s plan.
Given a political vision, claim Egyptian mediators, Hamas would hand over its weapons and let a technocratic Palestinian government administer the strip. But if its members are barred from working in education and health services, as our sources suggest they will be, the group may balk.
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And then there is Israel. Having taken Gaza at a gruelling cost, its messianic ministers want to hold on to it. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich eyes “a real estate bonanza”. Sooner or later, he argues, the world will take pity on Gazans and offer them shelter elsewhere. Blair often calls Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hoping to persuade him of his vision. But like the two-state solution, he might yet find that talks about the future just buy time for Israel to create alternative facts in the present.
The Economist
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