The same western architects who plunged Iraq into flames are now assembling a Zionist-led management team to control Gaza. Their blueprint: liquidate Palestinian resistance, seize real estate, and call it peace.
With the announcement of US President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 29 September, two notorious figures re-emerged from the shadows: Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and former British prime minister Tony Blair – the Iraq war criminal who, alongside former US president George W. Bush, plunged West Asia into decades of bloodshed.
During Trump’s first term, as a senior advisor, Kushner drafted what he called the “Deal of the Century” for the complete elimination of Palestine through the annexation of the occupied West Bank. His father-in-law, along with family friend Netanyahu, unveiled this plan in January 2020 under the title “Peace to Prosperity: A Vision to Improve the Lives of the Palestinian and Israeli People.”
The Blair–Kushner axis
The failure of that plan was recovered in September 2020 by the signing, under Trump’s mediation, of the Abraham Accords, which was also orchestrated by Kushner and normalized relations of Arab states such as the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan with Israel.
Kushner has returned with a new scheme to remake Gaza in the image of Trump’s idealized “Riviera of the Middle East.”
Blair, who infamously ordered British intelligence to “sex up” false claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, secured London’s participation in the 2003 invasion despite mass protests and parliamentary dissent. The war killed hundreds of thousands and shattered Iraq, but Blair walked away to build a fortune on the postwar wreckage. His stint as the Quartet’s West Asia envoy was a thinly veiled vehicle for pro-Israel diplomacy and personal enrichment.
Now, Blair returns to chair Gaza’s so-called “Board of Peace,” completing an axis of settler-colonial ambition whose mission is clear: liquidate Palestinian resistance and install a governing body handpicked to serve Tel Aviv and western investors.
At the top of this “colonial” hierarchy is the “Blair Board,” and below it is a local commission composed of Palestinians, selected through Israeli screening, selection, and approval. The former British prime minister commissioned his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change think tank to prepare a plan for “governing post-war Gaza.” He visited the White House for consultations on 7 July during Netanyahu’s visit, and then formally presented it to Trump and Kushner on 27 August.
Liquidating Gaza
The plan, as described in Article 9 of Trump’s proposal, envisions Blair chairing the board that supervises Gaza’s transition. A technocratic Palestinian committee would administer daily affairs, but remain under the tight oversight of this external board. The Palestinian Authority (PA) may be reintroduced, but only after it completes a reform process dictated by foreign powers.
According to the Blair plan, “the Gaza International Transitional Authority (GITA) will be administered by an international body with the supreme political and legal authority for Gaza during the transition period.” It was characterized as “at least one qualified Palestinian (potentially from the business or security world), a senior UN official, prominent international figures with managerial or financial experience, and a strong representation of Muslim members to enhance regional legitimacy and cultural credibility.”
The mere fact that Kushner and Blair are joining forces is enough to give us an idea of Trump’s plan. The 20-point plan, which fails to consider the views of the Palestinians, calls for Hamas to surrender its weapons, the disarmament of Gaza, and the exclusion of Hamas and other resistance groups from Gaza’s governance. Palestinian news agency Shehab News described it as “Trump’s favorite combination,” and that “It brings together figures who combine the worlds of business and investment with politics and loyalty to Israel in the name of ‘peace’ in the Middle East [West Asia].”
A handpicked junta of billionaires, Zionists, and collaborators
Among Blair’s proposed team are Kushner-linked billionaires and unwavering Zionist loyalists, selected for their alignment with US-Israeli objectives. These include Marc Rowan, one of Wall Street’s richest men with a fortune of $10.2 billion, Jewish-American founder and CEO of Apollo Global Management, a private equity giant managing $840 billion in assets, including significant investments from Saudi Arabia and the UAE. A self-declared “proud supporter of Israel” and its military, Rowan called the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood an “opportunity” to target Iran. He has actively worked to suppress pro-Palestinian advocacy on US campuses, including through campaigns that pressure universities to label such activism as “antisemitic,” and has used his influence at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is a major donor and Wharton board member. Rowan was also considered by Trump as a potential Treasury Secretary candidate in 2024 and donated $1 million to his 2020 campaign.
Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, Kushner’s former advisor and CEO of the Abraham Accords Peace Institute, co-founded the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which replaced UN aid channels and has been complicit in Israeli massacres at food distribution points, as documented by Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Lightstone was appointed US special representative for economic normalization by the State Department in 2020 and “represented American interests in the normalization of economic relations between Israel and the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, Morocco, and Kosovo.” He also played a key role in implementing the Abraham Accords, participated in White House “post-war Gaza” planning, authored a book promoting Gaza’s coastal real estate as part of Trump’s Gaza plan, and served as head of Shining City, Israel’s US front organization that donated $1 million in 2015 to Im Tirtzu, an Israeli group targeting peace advocates, while also educating US officials on the “dangers” of boycotts of Israel.
Naguib Sawiris, Egypt’s richest man and Blair’s longtime business associate, has profited from US military contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sawiris advocates for turning Gaza into a free capital zone akin to Dubai, reflecting UAE-led ambitions to redesign the strip for profit. The Egyptian billionaire, who incurred significant financial losses recently, criticized Israel and the US, even meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Earlier this year, he said, “Israel does not wish good for Egypt, nor does the US. No one wants good for Egypt except the Egyptians themselves”.
Sigrid Kaag, the UN’s current coordinator for Gaza reconstruction, though nominally independent, has played an enabling role in the process. She recently criticized Israeli policies, but remains embedded in a structure designed to facilitate foreign control.
Gaza repackaged for profit
Blair’s return has nothing to do with humanitarian concern. It is driven by profit, power, and control. The Gaza coast – described by Lightstone and Kushner as an untapped jewel – is being carved into a playground for regional elites. The so-called “Middle East Riviera” represents another settler-colonial project to erase Palestinian life and memory under the banner of reconstruction. This vision dovetails with the ambitions of the UAE and other Arab states of the Persian Gulf, whose capital underwrites the scheme. Kushner, whose firm received $2.5 billion from Gulf monarchies, now sits at the heart of negotiations in Cairo alongside US envoy Steve Witkoff. Their mission is to enforce subjugation and open Gaza to exploitation, presenting the seizure of Palestinian land as “economic development.”
More than a century after the 1917 Balfour Declaration, Britain once again takes up the role of colonial administrator in a western-backed project to erase Palestine. The mandate era has simply been rebranded, soldiers have become consultants, and imperial officers now wear suits. Yet the objective remains unchanged – to rule a people while denying them sovereignty. Palestinians have not consented to this design, and no foreign plan will decide their future. Resistance, as history shows, endures long after empires fall.
Link : https://thecradle.co/articles/blairs-second-coming-gaza-under-colonial-trusteeship
