Incidentally, for those of you who wondered what Tony Blair, the Hope of Peace in the Middle East is doing at the moment, go here.
And here he is inteviewed in Haaretz on Christmas Day:
Blair supported the truce with Hamas and encouraged Barak and Olmert to agree to an Egyptian proposal. He says that at the time he thought it was the right thing to do. Today, however, it is evident from his remarks that he too has reservations about continuing the truce in its previous form. "I argued for the calm and I think it was a sensible thing that it happened, but we need to get a resolution of this issue in a way that allows progress toward peace. Any Palestinian state needs to [include both] Gaza and the West Bank. Nothing else would work."
I ask him several times what he proposes. Here Blair stops and goes silent. "I have ideas about this," he says, "but it is not sensible to talk about it at the moment." Reading between the lines, one can see that for him, unlike other European leaders, all options are on the table regarding Gaza. Livni and Vice Premier Haim Ramon are also against the status quo in there, I say to him. They want to topple the Hamas government by force.
Here as well, Blair replies circuitously: "I think we should be clear that we have got to get to a place where we are offering the people of Gaza a clearer way out." But are you concerned about the possibility of a military operation in Gaza? "All the options for Israel are difficult, but the present option is difficult, too. I have already said enough." Gaza, he notes, "is not staying still, because there is no doubt that Hamas is strengthening its grip at the moment, and my own view is that if the people of Gaza thought that there is an alternative and that they could actually rejoin normality again, I think that they would opt for it, so the reason I am being coy about solutions and strategies is that I think that the time to discuss this publicly is not now.
I ask him several times what he proposes. Here Blair stops and goes silent. "I have ideas about this," he says, "but it is not sensible to talk about it at the moment." Reading between the lines, one can see that for him, unlike other European leaders, all options are on the table regarding Gaza. Livni and Vice Premier Haim Ramon are also against the status quo in there, I say to him. They want to topple the Hamas government by force.
Here as well, Blair replies circuitously: "I think we should be clear that we have got to get to a place where we are offering the people of Gaza a clearer way out." But are you concerned about the possibility of a military operation in Gaza? "All the options for Israel are difficult, but the present option is difficult, too. I have already said enough." Gaza, he notes, "is not staying still, because there is no doubt that Hamas is strengthening its grip at the moment, and my own view is that if the people of Gaza thought that there is an alternative and that they could actually rejoin normality again, I think that they would opt for it, so the reason I am being coy about solutions and strategies is that I think that the time to discuss this publicly is not now.
The usual weaseling, very similar in tone to his position in the Lebanon attack back in 06. But it sounds like he knew something was up.
"Bombing Gaza flat" = "offering the people a clearer way out". It's a Blairoid classic.
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