'War Criminals Are Proposing a War Criminal': Tony Blair Floated to Lead Gaza Transition

Amid reporting this week that former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair could head a postwar transitional authority in the Gaza Strip, with support from US President Donald Trump, critics of the proposal are blasting the ex-Labour Party leader as a war criminal.

"It's the war criminal in chief now planning to assist in ethnic cleansing and persecution. After his successes in Afghanistan and Iraq," Lindsey German, convenor of the UK's Stop the War Coalition, said on social media Friday, sharing a BBC article about the development.

While serving as prime minister from 1997 to 2007, Blair played a key part in the US-led War on Terror, sending British troops to Afghanistan and Iraq. Though the 72-year-old has never faced formal charges for war crimes, critics from the UK to the Middle East and beyond have long argued that he should "be sitting in The Hague on trial" for his role in the illegal invasion.

As The Guardian noted Thursday: "After stepping down as prime minister in 2007, he took on the role of Middle East envoy until 2015, and he enjoys a high standing with many Gulf leaders. But Blair is bitterly resented by many Palestinians—who see him as having impeded their efforts to attain statehood—and more broadly across the region for his role in backing the 2003 US invasion of Iraq."

"The Palestinian people have the same right as all people to determine their own future, free from foreign interference or occupation."

Blair began working on a postwar proposal just months after Israel began bombing Gaza in October 2023 and met with Trump at the White House in August. In response to The Guardian's report that the president "is backing" a plan for Blair to lead the proposed Gaza International Transitional Authority, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said: "War criminals are proposing a war criminal as head of.... Gaza. It would be precious comedy if it were not so tragic."

Scottish historian William Dalrymple—co-host of the podcast Empire, whose recent episodes have focused on Gaza—quipped, "Given Blair's superb record in the Middle East, what could possibly go wrong?"'

Edward Ahmed Mitchell, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the largest US Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, said in a statement: "The suggestion that Tony Blair—a key architect of the disastrous Iraq occupation and an apologist for Israel's war crimes—should take control of Gaza is insane and obscene. The Trump administration should reject this neo-colonial proposal, which insults the people of the region and threatens to spark more conflict."

"Palestinians do not need a British war criminal to govern them. They need freedom, justice, and an end to the decades of brutal occupation and apartheid. Any attempt to impose outside Western leadership on Gaza after the genocide would almost certainly lead to more disaster," he added. "The Palestinian people have the same right as all people to determine their own future, free from foreign interference or occupation."

Chandni Desai, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto working on a book titled Revolutionary Circuits of Liberation: The Radical Tradition of Palestinian Resistance Culture and Internationalism, pointed to the UK's control of Palestine in the 20th century.

"The UK 'recognizes' the state of Palestine—but is the British Mandate back?" Desai said. "Tony Blair, who helped kill a million Iraqis, is now the US' pick to 'manage' Gaza. The empire never left. Gaza doesn't need a colonial viceroy, its people want liberation and self-determination."

Abdullah Omar, a 24-year-old Palestinian who has been documenting his experience "trying to survive the genocide" on social media, similarly wrote: "Tony Blair, who killed a million Iraqis. He is the one America wants to appoint to manage the Gaza Strip."