BICOM

Former-Prime Minister and Quartet Middle East representative Tony Blair said yesterday in an interview with Israel’s Channel Two that a comprehensive negotiated agreement is the only way forward for Israel and the Palestinians.

The nine-month deadline for peace talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) expired at the end of last month without agreement. Blair agreed that a break in talks was unavoidable, saying, “We’re going to have to take stock whether we like it or not.” However, he added that, “We’ve got to find a way back to a negotiation which has a credible chance of succeeding … We still have to try to make it succeed.”

Asked whether he thought the parties should pursue a ‘Plan B,’ Blair dismissed the suggestion saying, “Once you really analyse it [Plan B], you come back to Plan A,” of a negotiated two-state solution. Blair insisted that there is “common ground,” namely the need for a Palestinian state and a secure Israel, but, “What there isn’t, I’m afraid, are the levels of necessary trust [between the sides].”

Blair also addressed the stance of Hamas, following the organisation’s recent agreement to form a Palestinian unity government with the Fatah faction of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. The pact threw the peace talks into disarray, prompting Israel to suspend negotiations given Hamas’ continued commitment to Israel’s destruction. Blair appeared to dismiss the suggestion by Abbas, that Israel should deal with a nominally apolitical technocratic unity government, commenting: “A technocratic government doesn’t handle the negotiation … so that if you really want a peace negotiation, it really only is a negotiation conducted by people who believe in peace.”

Relations between Hamas and Fatah warmed further when Abbas and Hamas chief Khaled Mashaal met in Doha on Monday. The two leaders pledged to work immediately to implement the unity deal. Meanwhile, in Gaza yesterday, the Hamas authority executed two Palestinian men who it said had been spying for Israel.