Examination of Witnesses (Questions 161-179)
THE RT
HON TONY
BLAIR
1 JUNE 2009
Chairman: Good morning Tony, it is very
good to see you here; thank you for accepting the invitation.
Welcome back to the House of Commons.
Mr. Blair: Thank
you.
Q161 Chairman: As you know, we
are doing an inquiry on the Middle East. Members of the Committee
were in the region in March. Today, obviously, we are going to
focus on the role of the Quartet. Perhaps you could begin by giving
us some kind of view of how the Quartet operates in practice.
Mr. Blair: The Quartet operates
in two different ways. First, it operates as a co-ordinating mechanism
for the members of the Quartet—the US, EU, UN and Russia.
Secondly and specifically, I work on Palestinian capacity issues
and economic development issues on the ground in the West Bank
and, where we can, in Gaza. Essentially, with the advent of the
new American Administration, there is a sense that this issue
is going to be gripped from the very outset of President Obama's
Administration. The idea, I think, will then be to regularise
the Quartet meetings and make sure that we get not just an American
Administration who is trying to push this forward, but an international
community that is acting in support of that. So those are the
two essential roles.
Q162 Chairman: Do you have a system
whereby there is a formal process for agreeing statements, or
is it very informal?
Mr. Blair: It is pretty informal,
although before each Quartet meeting there is an attempt to get
an agreed statement. There is a strong desire on the part of the
new Administration to formalise it somewhat more and to make sure
that we have regular Quartet meetings. At the moment I report
back—again, reasonably informally—to the Quartet members
and there is a fairly constant interaction between the different
parts of the Quartet. I think and hope that there will be a Quartet
meeting over the next few months which will set that in a slightly
more formal structure.
Q163 Chairman: Within the Quartet,
obviously for those states that are engaged it is straightforward,
and presumably within the EU role there is a relatively formalised
way of working, but how does the UN decide the role of its representative?
Mr. Blair: The UN representative,
Robert Serry, does an excellent job. He essentially acts in support
of the UN programmes. For example, in respect of Gaza in particular,
where the UN has got a major footprint employing several thousand
people, he will operate very specifically for development programmes
there, where they can. But they also give me support in terms
of the representations we are making to Israel about movement
and access and so on.
Q164 Chairman: The Quartet has
been in existence for seven years. How would you assess the successes
or failures and what it has added to this process in that time?
Mr. Blair: It adds an ability
for the international community to come together. The Americans
and the Europeans are the two key players, along with the Arab
partners, and in and around the Quartet and the AHLC, the donor
community—there is a meeting of that in Oslo—
Q165 Chairman: Will you spell
that out for the record?
Mr. Blair: The AHLC is the Ad
Hoc Liaison Committee, which is the committee of the donors to
the Palestinian Authority. It will have a meeting in a week's
time in Oslo. It is convened by Norway, and we obviously play
a role in it too, in trying to co-ordinate the money for the Palestinians.
The Quartet can only move as fast as the overall process. Since
the Intifada in 2000, there has been an extremely difficult situation,
both internally in relation to the Palestinian side, and also
in respect of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians
in the international community. I think and hope that with a new
American Administration who have set as an objective moving this
peace process forward now, at the beginning of their time, and
also with a renewed desire for partnership on the part of the
Arab world, now is the moment when everybody can come into their
own and play a real part, provided we can get a process moving
that is credible and clear.
Q166 Chairman: You mention the
importance of the Arab world. Is there a case for having a specific
Arab representation, to reflect what has been called the "Arab
Quartet" or the wider Arab League approach, within the Quartet's
deliberations?
Mr. Blair: The issue to do with
the Arab League often comes up in respect of the Ad Hoc Liaison
Committee, and I think that a way will be found of involving it
specifically in that. For the rest of it, we keep in close contact
with the Arab League. I keep in contact obviously with the Secretary-General
of the Arab League. The difficulty is that if you start to try
to define an Arab Quartet—there is a sort of self-defining
mechanism—the sensitivities can be quite acute.
Q167 Chairman: Finally, from me,
how do you see the UK role in the Quartet? Do you think that the
UK is primarily working as part of the EU group within the Quartet,
or through the UN group, or, because of your own particular personality
and history, do you have a specific relationship with the UK?
Mr. Blair: I obviously keep closely
in touch with the UK Government about what I am doing, but the
UK essentially plays a part in two ways: on its own account and
through the EU. Most of the major European countries do the same.
You will find that France has a relationship with the Palestinians
and the Israelis but operates within the EU as well. The UK Government
have been both immensely supportive of my role and of the process
overall and have a very strong and good standing in the region— Chairman:
May I make sure that everybody has their phones off please? Thank
you.
Q168 Mr. Horam: Before we go on
to the issues, may I press you a little further on your own role
in this situation? There are now quite a few envoys. You have
mentioned Robert Serry, who represents the UN Secretary-General,
and there is also Marc Otte, who represents the European Union,
and most recently President Obama's representative, former Senator
Mitchell. How do you co-ordinate with those three people?
Mr. Blair: The other representatives,
such as Robert Serry and Marc Otte, have been there from the beginning
of my time there. The addition is Senator Mitchell, which I welcome
greatly. I spoke to him yesterday on the phone. We interact in
a very—
Q169 Mr. Horam: Do you meet?
Mr. Blair: Yes, of course.
Q170 Mr. Horam: Collectively?
Regularly?
Mr. Blair: We probably will meet
in the context of the Norwegian—
Q171 Mr. Horam: So you have not
met yet. You have not had a meeting of the four.
Mr. Blair: I meet the four; I
am not sure how often Senator Mitchell has, but no doubt he will—he
has only just been appointed. Of all the issues that we have to
deal with and the challenges, which are immense—
Mr. Horam: That is the least.
Mr. Blair: Yes, that is the least.
Q172 Mr. Horam: I read in the
press that you spend a week a month on this.
Mr. Blair: I spend about a week
to 10 days a month. I am probably there a couple of times a month.
Q173 Mr. Horam: Is that enough?
Mr. Blair: Yes, it is enough to
get things moving along. The issue is not the time commitment,
but getting the politics in the right position.
Q174 Mr. Horam: Are you set targets?
You have been there for two years now. What does the Quartet expect
of you?
Mr. Blair: It expects me to be
on the economic side and the Palestinian capacity-building side.
We do not have a set of specific targets.
Q175 Mr. Horam: Why not?
Mr. Blair: A delivery unit is
not sitting on my shoulder.
Q176 Mr. Horam: Presumably, you
want to show some progress?
Mr. Blair: Of course. I was just
about to say that in the packages that we outline—for example,
the one in May last year—we set out a list of issues from
which you can fairly easily see what is happening and what is
not. Significant progress has been made, but it has been extremely
difficult in the last nine months because there has been a situation
of virtual political paralysis on the Israeli side. First there
were the difficulties in Israeli politics, then there was the
transition in the US and then the divisions in the Palestinian
side. Having said that, there is a chance now to move forward,
because we have a new Administration in the US, a new sense of
momentum towards peace and an Israeli Government, which you may
or may not agree with, who are settled.
Q177 Mr. Horam: How do you report
back to the Quartet? I am just trying to get it clear in my mind
exactly how the mechanism works.
Mr. Blair: I report back informally
both by sending Quartet members a communique describing what we
are trying to do and at the Quartet meetings.
Q178 Mr. Horam: Does it give you
a set of instructions, or do you have an input into what its thinking
is?
Mr. Blair: It gives me a mandate,
and of course I have an input into what its thinking is. I would
say that what we need to do, both as a Quartet and as an international
community, is fairly clear. The hard thing is doing it. What we
need to do is very obvious. We need a credible political process
of negotiation, major change on the West Bank and a policy towards
Gaza that helps the people and harms the extremists, and not the
other way round. That is basically the Quartet position and it
is the American position.
Q179 Mr. Horam: I appreciate that
that is the position, but may I come back to the point that the
Chairman made at the beginning? How far do you feel that you have
made progress, and how much have you personally contributed to
this in the last two years?
Mr. Blair: Over the last two years,
we have been able to do a number of things. First, we started
off with the Paris conference—the main donors' conference—in
which we raised more money for the Palestinians than ever before.
In 2008, the Palestinians received their highest ever contributions
of money and support of the Palestinian Authority. Then there
are a whole set of specific issues around housing, industrial
parks, tourism and mobile telephony where we have been able to
make some progress. We have even made progress on access and movement,
which I can take you through a little bit later. However, I have
to say that until the political framework within which we are
operating instils a momentum into this, progress will be limited.
So, I would say that, yes, the Palestinian economy in the West
Bank will have grown last year, and not insignificantly, as Prime
Minister Fayyad will tell you. On the other hand, you have to
get the politics right for the economics to work.
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