Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair is no longer under consideration to join the so-called Board of Peace intended to supervise a transitional government in Gaza under U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point Middle East peace plan, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Blair was the only person listed by name in the peace plan as a potential member of the board consisting of “other members and heads of state,” with Trump as its chairman.
Under point nine of the plan, the board will have “oversight and supervision” over the “temporary transitional governance of a technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee” intended to govern Gaza “until such time as the Palestinian Authority has completed its reform program.”
Blair faced objections from several Arab and Muslim states, according to the FT, and is still expected to sit on an executive committee under the “peace board” that will include Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff.
Those objections arose in part from Blair’s backing of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
After all of the remaining living hostages were released from Hamas captivity in October, the longer-term elements of the peace plan have been in limbo.
Hamas continues to hold the body of one dead hostage, and Israeli troops occupy about half of the Gaza Strip at the Yellow Line, the first of three withdrawal lines envisioned in the plan.
While the plan calls for a security transition to an international stabilization force that will “train and provide support to vetted Palestinian police forces in Gaza,” Hamas has not agreed to give up its arms and remains in control of the vast majority of the civilian population in Gaza.
