Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Times Online:

Hamas must somehow be brought into the Middle East peace process because the policy of isolating Gaza in the quest for a settlement will not work, Tony Blair has told The Times.

The former prime minister implicitly criticises the strategy followed by the Bush Administration and Israel of focusing all peace and reconstruction efforts on the West Bank. “It was half of what we needed,” he said.

In an interview with Ginny Dougary in the Saturday Magazine, Mr Blair says that the strategy of “pushing Gaza aside” and trying to create a Palestinian state on the West Bank “was never going to work and will never work”. He hints in references to how peace was eventually achieved in Northern Ireland that the time may be approaching to talk to Hamas … “My basic predisposition is that in a situation like this you talk to everybody.”

He suggests that the policy was behind last month’s ferocious reopening of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in Gaza that were believed to have left more than 1,000 people dead.

Mr Blair, speaking after talks with the new US envoy George Mitchell, says that Gaza will not be pushed aside because there are 1.25 million people there who want a Palestinian state.

Mr Blair, the Middle East envoy for the Quartet group of the US, UN, Russia and the European Union, clearly believes that the Obama Administration is committed to a fresh effort to secure peace and appears to have been waiting for the change of government to make his strongest criticism so far of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Asked if he was surprised by the devastating events over Christmas, when Israel responded to Hamas rocket attacks by bombing targets in Gaza, he says that he was not. “I have been saying for some time that what was needed was a completely different strategy,” he said.

“Yes, we do need to show through the change we are making on the West Bank that the Palestinian state could be a reality. The trouble is that if you simply try to push Gaza to one side then eventually what happens is the situation becomes so serious that it erupts and you deliver into the hands of the mass the power to erupt at any point in time.”

Thought to be privately critical of the failure of the former US administration to give a full commitment to the peace process, Mr Blair says that the appointment of Mr Mitchell, with whom he worked on the Northern Ireland peace process, indicated a “real commitment” by America.

Hinting at a change of tack he says that with Mr Mitchell as a full-time envoy there will be a better chance of a strategy in Gaza “that offers people the possiblity of rejoining the West Bank on the right terms”.

Mr Blair also receives a warm endorsement today for his Middle East work from Bill Clinton, the former US President. He says that Mr Blair and Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, “will work well together” towards achieving a lasting pieace.

Mr Clinton says of Mr Blair: “He has done really important work as Middle East envoy under particularly difficult circumstances. I have always admired Tony’s willingness to wade into troubled waters and make tough decisions, as he did in helping to end 30 years of sectarian violence and broker a lasting peace in Northern Ireland. He is demonstrating that same dedication and intensity to promoting economic opportunity and political resolution in the Middle East, knowing from experience that the concrete benefits can play a crucial role in making a just and lasting peace possible. As Hillary begins her work as US Secretary of State, I know she and Tony will work well together toward that end.”

Asked whether he had changed his view about talking to Hamas since the Palestinian elections, Mr Blair replies that his “basic predisposition is that in a situation like this you talk to everybody”.

However, he repeats the Quartet position that there can be no talks, official or unofficial, with Hamas until they renounce violence and recognise Israel.

Mr Blair then says that there is a distinction between the difficulty of negotiating with Hamas as part of a peace process if they would not accept one of the states in the two-state solution, and “talking to Hamas as the de facto power in Gaza”.

He declines to answer whether he has talked to Hamas unofficially, although his staff later insist that he has not, and that all contacts have been via Egyptian diplomats. Under intense questioning later he replied: “I do think it is important that we find a way of bringing Hamas into this process, but it can only be done if Hamas are prepared to do it on the right terms.”

Pressed to go further Mr Blair says that he has to be careful how he expresses things because “if you do this in the wrong way it can destabilise the very people in Palestine who have been working all through for the moderate cause”.

He added: “We do have to find a way of making sure that the choice is put before Hamas and the people of Gaza in a clear, understandable, unambiguous way, for them to choose their future. You have to find a way of communicating that choice to them in their terms. Now exactly what way you choose at the moment, that is an open question.”

Diplomats will point out that Mr Blair fully signed up to the Annapolis accord which envisaged the creation of a Palestinain state by the end of 2008 whether Gaza was part of it or not. Even though sceptics said that the goal was unrealistic, Mr Blair insisted that a deal could be done by the end of last year.