Tony Blair has ruled out talks with Hamas until it recognises Israel and stops firing rockets, on Thursday saying he would not visit the Gaza Strip until he could be sure his trip would ”help rather than harm” peace efforts.
However the former British prime minister, now representing the Quartet of international powers, told MPs that the humanitarian situation was ”dreadful”.
Soon to mark a year as Middle East envoy, Blair defended the policy of boycotting the Islamist movement until it ended violence, recognised Israel and abided by exisiting peace agreements. ”The Quartet principles are very clear. Without Hamas accepting them it is difficult to see how we can make progress,” he said.
Underlining the difficulties, a Palestinian girl was killed in an Israeli airstrike on Gaza on Thursday shortly after Palestinian mortar fire on a nearby Israeli village killed one man.
In Thursday’s Guardian, former Cabinet minister Peter Hain called for the west to open talks with Hamas, saying the veto on the Palestinian movement was crippling the peace process.
But Western policy is to isolate Hamas while shoring up Mahmoud Abbas’s Palestinian Authority in the West Bank — though some EU and British diplomats privately accept the need to bring the militant group into any peace process, as do some Israelis.
On Thursday Blair told the Commons international development committee: ”We need to get a period of calm, to get a ceasefire in Gaza, progressively to start reopening the crossings, start to get proper humanitarian help through and then build our way back out of this to a situation where the people of Gaza can be helped.”
Defending his efforts to remove roadblocks and checkpoints restricting movement in the West Bank, he added: ”I don’t sit here as the person speaking for the Israelis but it’s important to understand their point of view.”
Critics say Blair accepts all Israel’s assumptions about security and ignores its illegal settlements. But he said: ”People on the Palestinian side are just desperate to get some freedom back for themselves and their families.”
He was though accused of ducking the issue of getting help for the Palestinian people. Michael Moore, Liberal Democrat international development spokesperson, said: ”He was at best ambiguous about Israel’s obligations in providing humanitarian access to Gaza. The Israelis’ right to security must never be downplayed, but deliberate isolation of the Palestinians is an outrage the world should no longer tolerate.” – guardian.co.uk