Blair backed as Mideast envoy

Tony Blair is keen to become the international community’s Middle East envoy after leaving office today and has the support of the US, Israel and the Palestinian Fatah leadership.

However, a formal job offer depends on the agreement of the international quartet attempting to salvage the Israeli-Palestinian peace process: the US, Europe, the United Nations and Russia.
The greatest obstacle is Moscow, which has had an increasingly combative relationship with the Blair government, particularly over the poisoning in London of the Russian dissident Alexander Litvinenko.
The Bush administration has been the driving force behind the Blair candidacy but many Middle East observers see the job as a poisoned chalice. Since the last quartet envoy, James Wolfensohn, a former World Bank president, resigned in April 2006, conditions in the Palestinian territories have worsened markedly.
Nevertheless, both Israel and Palestinians loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas, said they would welcome Mr Blair as a special envoy.
Manuel Hassassian, the London representative of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, of which Mr Abbas is chairman, said: “It would be worthwhile to see what Mr Blair could do, especially at critical times like this with a rift between Hamas and Fatah.”
Mr Hassassian, who stressed he was expressing a personal opinion, said: “I think Mr Blair as a prime minister to a certain degree tied in his policies to those of the United States. Now he could play a more independent role.”
However, Rosemary Hollis of the Royal Institute of International Affairs said: “It’s a most unfortunate idea. It implies that Tony Blair still has no notion of the repercussions of British intervention in the Middle East.
“It will do Mahmoud Abbas no good and could harm him. Tony Blair will be associated with an approach that wants a Palestinian state that is no more than useful to the Israelis and ends up enabling and sustaining the occupation.”
A former British ambassador in the Middle East said: “I think it will grind Blair down and he will get tired of hanging around in poky offices and not being able to move things forward. It can be very labour intensive. I would have thought this is below his pay grade.
“It’s a nice idea but the peace process needs a lot more effort and some fundamental changes of attitude, especially by the Israelis.”
Uri Dromi, of the Israeli Democracy Institute, said: “It will be a glorious waste of time. The only peace process with a chance of success is one that comes from the people involved, with all due respect (to) Tony Blair and his abilities.”

By Julian Borger and Ian Black