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Eugene

(62,627 posts)
Sun Oct 15, 2017, 07:25 AM Oct 2017

Tony Blair: We were wrong to boycott Hamas after its election win

Source: The Observer

Tony Blair: ‘We were wrong to boycott Hamas after its election win’

Former prime minister says international community should have tried to pull militant Islamic faction ‘into a dialogue’ over its refusal to recognise Israel

Donald Macintyre
Saturday 14 October 2017 20.01 BST

Tony Blair has said for the first time that he and other world leaders were wrong to yield to Israeli pressure to impose an immediate boycott of Hamas after the Islamic faction won Palestinian elections in 2006.

As prime minister at the time, Blair offered strong support for the decision – driven by the George W Bush White House – to halt aid to, and cut off relations with, the newly elected Hamas-led Palestinian Authority unless it agreed to recognise Israel, renounce violence and abide by previous agreements between its Fatah predecessors and Israel. The ultimatum was rejected by Hamas. The elections were judged free and fair by international monitors.

Blair, who became envoy of the Middle East quartet – composed of the US, EU, UN and Russia – after leaving Downing Street, now says the international community should have tried to “pull Hamas into a dialogue”. The boycott and Israel’s economic blockade of Gaza, which began the following year, are still in force today. A UN report two years ago said the combined effects of the blockade and the three military offensives conducted in Gaza by Israel since 2009 could make the territory “uninhabitable” by 2020. Humanitarian conditions have worsened markedly since the report was written.

Interviewed for a new book Gaza: Preparing for Dawn, out later this month, Blair said: “In retrospect I think we should have, right at the very beginning, tried to pull (Hamas) into a dialogue and shifted their positions. I think that’s where I would be in retrospect.

-snip-


Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/oct/14/tony-blair-hamas-gaza-boycott-wrong
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Tony Blair: We were wrong to boycott Hamas after its election win (Original Post) Eugene Oct 2017 OP
But but Bush said the election was all about democracy and thier freedom to choose lunasun Oct 2017 #1
Poodle unc70 Oct 2017 #2
blair is an idiot Mosby Oct 2017 #3

lunasun

(21,646 posts)
1. But but Bush said the election was all about democracy and thier freedom to choose
Sun Oct 15, 2017, 07:33 AM
Oct 2017

Until the vote results came in

Mosby

(17,383 posts)
3. blair is an idiot
Sun Oct 15, 2017, 09:50 AM
Oct 2017

Hamas could moderate their views anytime they want, Blair's statement comes off as paternalistic and naive to say the least.

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