Trump seems to be panicking and wants a solution as soon as possible, Martin Jay writes.

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The appointment of Tony Blair as a temporary leader of Gaza is as crackpot an idea that anyone could ever imagine to find a solution to the genocide there and the increasing isolation of Israel by many countries who recently supported the notion of Palestine having its own state. Tony Blair’s history in the region is best described as abysmal given that he led an illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 which is believed to have killed up to a million children there – based entirely on trumped-up intel which his own people wrote.

But when it comes to the region, Blair seems to have the Midas touch for himself and his financial endeavours. In 2007, after leaving office as British PM, he was soon to arrive in the region, courted by world powers – Russia, U.S., UN and the EU – called the ‘quartet’ and given a task of saving Gaza. The job of special envoy was about helping Gazans build their economy and to build a peace process with Israel. In 2015 the so-called ‘peace process’ collapsed under his stewardship and Israel began to realize the limitations of Blair’s communication skills. His term, almost eight years, didn’t produce anything except bitterness from the Palestinians who never trusted him from the beginning, as it was clear he was a staunch supporter of Israel; even the Israelis grew tired of him in the end with some complaining about him never being around. He had effectively turned a full-time job into a part-time one and in the last few years was hardly ever seen in Israel or the occupied territories.

Was it a genuine role or some kind of sham invented by the Israelis? It’s hard to say but what sticks in the minds of a lot of people who supported him in the early days, was how he profiteered from the position to move around the Middle East and pick up hugely lucrative consultancy deals for his own outfit. In those years he became quite rich.

And so now, one has to ask what is the thinking about him coming back to the very same place where he so spectacularly failed the first time around? Could it be that Trump badly wants the genocide to stop so that he can claim credit for stopping yet another war, presumably to position himself for a Nobel Peace prize? Perhaps he is thinking that Blair is the very player who could convince the Netanyahu cabal to give up on the senseless slaughter in exchange for allowing peace to evolve. But it is hard to imagine even Netanyahu agreeing to a Palestinian state emerging as part of what has been reported as one of the main conditions of Blair taking up the post is that Palestinians will not be removed from the Strip. The main thrust of what Bibi is doing is to murder as many as possible and convince Trump that he has to force the remaining few who survive to relocate to Egypt, Jordan or of course Syria.

The idea being floated is that Blair would be an interim prime minister in a team of seven, who, for five years would build a functioning state in Gaza, before handing over to the Palestinian Authority. A number of huge assumptions are being made though by whoever is behind this grandiose plan. The main assumption is that Hamas will no longer operate there. And the second one is that Gazans will accept rule by the PA. And the idea that they will accept Blair as the interim PM is also a difficult one to swallow as they haven’t forgotten what he did the first time around. They know he is Israel’s tool and so it will be hard imagining them cooperating with him.

But it’s interesting how this idea came about so quickly and got support from Trump immediately. True, Trump has always had respect for Blair even though he was heavily critical of the British leader at the beginning of the Gulf War. Trump seems to be panicking and wants a solution as soon as possible to humour the Europeans that there might be a possibility of a Palestinian state and that the killing can stop. The recent declarations by UK, Canada and Australia all on the same day supporting such a notion of a Palestinian state were really just a political posture at best and were not backed up by anything solid, or even threats to Israel if they didn’t comply. Trump understands this but he also understands that those three key old world allies he can’t afford to collectively fall out with. He also has a shocking contempt for the UN, which he is bringing to its knees by pulling out of a number of funding schemes and so a recent announcement just a few days ago which also proposed that an interim government should be installed in Gaza under a UN mandate might have pushed him to act quickly to try and beat the UN at the line.

The idea of Blair being a governor of Gaza, while he would be expected to have an office in Egypt on the other side of the border is faintly preposterous though and seems to whiff of a nefarious scam of some sort. Would he even turn up? What would he be expected to achieve? How long would the Israelis and Palestinians put up with him? Trump’s late night telephone calls to his cronies often produce hair-brained ideas. But you have to go back to the end of the Second World War to observe how Hitler’s chief of staff got the top job in NATO of chairing a prestigious committee to find a comparison of absurd appointments given to those the most ill-qualified.