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Four Reasons Why the Tony Blair Institute’s Involvement in “Gaza Riviera” Project Should Surprise No One

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The war in Gaza has “created a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild Gaza from first principles . . . as a secure, modern prosperous society.”

Something rather unusual happened this past Sunday. The Financial Times published an article exposing how Tony Blair’s eponymous foundation, the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (often shortened to TBI), had been involved in consultations with Israeli businessmen and the Boston Consulting Group, one of the world’s largest consultancies, regarding the sweeping post-war redevelopment of the Gaza Strip — once the genocide is presumably over.

Those plans “envisaged ‘kickstarting the enclave’s economy with a ‘Trump Riviera’ and an ‘Elon Musk Smart Manufacturing Zone’” that would boost Gaza’s economic value from “$0 today” to $324 billion. According to a TBI document seen by the FT, the near-total destruction of Gaza had “created a once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild [the strip of land] from first principles . . . as a secure, modern prosperous society”.

This being the tech-obsessed TBI, this “secure, modern prosperous society” would presumably avail of all the digital surveillance and control fittings that Blair and his institute are constantly peddling as the cure-all to all of today’s ills (digital health systems, facial recognition cameras and other forms of biometric tech, all-encompassing digital identity systems and central bank digital currencies, all powered by artificial intelligence programs).

This is not the first time Blair’s name has been linked to the Gaza Strip since Israel began its operations there on October 9, 2023. A report published in early 2024 by the Israeli broadcaster Channel 12 claimed that Israeli leaders were considering Blair as a possible mediator between Israel and some moderate Arab countries on post-war Gaza. One of his responsibilities would be to help oversee the “voluntary resettlement” of Palestinians in other countries.

Blair’s representatives denied the rumours, saying that neither Blair nor his team had been consulted before the story’s publication. But the allegations in the FT are going to be much more difficult to swat away:

The plan outlined in a slide deck, seen by the Financial Times, was led by Israeli businessmen and used financial models developed inside Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to reimagine Gaza as a thriving trading hub.

Titled the “Great Trust” and shared with the Trump administration, it proposed paying half a million Palestinians to leave the area and attracting private investors to develop Gaza.

While the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) did not author or endorse the final slide deck, two staff members at the former UK prime minister’s institute participated in message groups and calls as the project developed, according to people familiar with the work.

One lengthy document on postwar Gaza, written by a TBI staff member, was shared within the group for consideration. This included the idea of a “Gaza Riviera” with artificial islands off the coast akin to those in Dubai, blockchain-based trade initiatives, a deep water port to tie Gaza into the India-Middle East-Europe economic corridor, and low-tax “special economic zones”.

A TBI spokesperson initially told the FT that their story was “categorically wrong . . . TBI was not involved in the preparation of the deck, which was a BCG deck, and had no input whatever into its contents.”

But when presented with documents attesting to the participation of TBI staff and an unpublished TBI document shared within the group titled “Gaza Economic Blueprint”, the institute acknowledged its staff had been aware of and present during related discussions.

However, the Institute insisted that “it would be wrong to suggest that we were working with this group to produce their Gaza plan.” Instead, it claims it was simply in a “listening mode” and that its internal paper, which, to its minimal credit, does not propose relocating Palestinians, unlike the Israeli businessmen’s proposal, was one of many analyses of post-war scenarios under consideration.

A Polarising Figure

The FT’s revelations represent a rare case of a British legacy media outlet taking Blair, or in this case TBI, to task. While broadly reviled by the British public, Blair continues to be feted and fawned over by the British establishment and media. Even after the “crushing verdict” (in The Guardian‘s words) of the Chilcott Inquiry — that the Blair government’s case for the Iraq war was “deficient” — was made public in 2016, Blair remained a go-to person for the British and international media on all manner of topics, including the Middle East.

Perhaps this will be a sea-change moment in which the British media begin to treat Blair and TBI with less reverence. Given the outsized influence both wield over the Kier Starmer government, particularly in areas related to AI, digital identity and digital health, that would be a most welcome development. But it’s unlikely. Blair is a master at seeing off challenges to his power, earning himself the nickname “Teflon Tony” while in power, and he and his foundation serve the interests of some very powerful business groups.

All that being said, it goes without saying that the Tony Blair Institute’s participation in such a sordid enterprise as the redevelopment of post-Genocide Gaza should not come as a surprise, for (at least) the following four reasons (readers are invited to provide more):

#1: Form

When it comes to committing war crimes, Blair has form — albeit as someone who led the UK, a member of the Anglo-American alliance, into an illegal war based on fabricated lies that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians. As such, Blair, like George W Bush, was never investigated for war crimes, and presumably never will be. Unlike Bush, Blair did not bow out from public life, and arguably wields as much influence today as he did in Downing Street.

“I can’t understand that Blair has an afterlife at all. It seems to me that any politician who takes his country to war under false pretences has committed the ultimate sin,” the late British novelist John Le Carré told Democracy Now in 2010. “We’ve caused irreparable damage in the Middle East. I think we shall pay for it for a long time.”

Whether he’s lobbying for JP Morgan in Gadafi’s Libya, providing advice on good governance to Kazakhstan while its regime tortures and executes its opponents, or cashing in on his contacts from the war in Iraq, Tony Blair is a deeply compromised individual for whom money does most, if not all, the talking.

Given as much, why wouldn’t he — or the institution he heads — support, or even facilitate (on the QT, of course), the redevelopment of Gaza following its genocide?

Boston Consulting Group’s role should not come as a surprise either. As Colonel Smithers, a regular NC commentator who is UK power politics adjacent, pointed out in a comment to yesterday’s Links page, the firm was Netanyahu’s first port of call following his graduation from MIT in 1972. BCG has already come under fire in recent months for its involvement in the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israeli and US-backed body that currently oversees “aid distribution” in the Gaza Strip, as well as its proposals to “relocate” 500,000 Gazans.

As France 24 reports, rights groups have complained that GHF “lacks the expertise to distribute aid in accordance with international law. US and Israeli documents reveal a complex web of military veterans, former intelligence officials and evangelical Christians behind the new aid group that is sidelining the UN and its partners in Gaza.” The program has already seen at least 700 Palestinians killed and more than 4,000 wounded by Israeli forces while trying to access said aid.

#2: Connections

While Blair himself has not been directly named as a participant in the so-called “Great Trust” project, his ties to Israel, and Zionism in general, run long and deep, as Middle Eastern Eye reports:

Phil Reilly, whom Middle East Eye previously reported served as a senior adviser at BCG for eight years and began discussing Gaza aid with Israeli civilians while still in that role in early 2024, met with Tony Blair in London earlier this year…

TBI said Reilly requested the meeting and described Blair’s involvement as limited: “Again, Mr Blair listened. But as you know, TBI is not part of GHF.”

A British charity associated with former prime minister Tony Blair displays a map on its website including the occupied Golan Heights, West Bank and Gaza Strip as part of Israel.

This is not the first time Blair or his foundation has faced controversy. He serves as an honorary patron of the UK branch of Israel’s Jewish National Fund (JNF), which has faced heavy criticism for its activities — including donating £1m to what it described as “Israel’s largest militia” and erasing Palestine from its official maps.

TBI has also received money from a financial fraudster linked with illegal Israeli settlements and an American Islamophobic network.

It’s also worth recalling that Blair formerly served as Middle East Peace Envoy representing the US, Russia, the UN and the EU from 2007-15. What’s more, his obsession with digital surveillance and control tools and Israel’s position as arguably the world’s leader in digital surveillance technologies presumably make for a perfect partnership.

#3: Motives (With Blair, It’s Almost All About the Money)

For a man who, in his own words, is “not interested in money,” Tony Blair has an incredible knack of attracting it, especially through the alliances he has forged with hugely powerful companies, countries and billionaires and the property acquisitions he and his family have made. This is a constant thread throughout Blair’s post-Downing Street career: he will take money from just about anyone, including from some of the world’s most unsavoury regimes.

It’s not hard to imagine TBI taking money from the financial backers behind the Gaza redevelopment project.

TBI’s biggest donor is Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who has pledged to take his total donations to the foundation to $375 million. That’s the equivalent of chump change for Ellison, the world’s second wealthiest man (on paper), but for TBI it represents a significant chunk of its operating income.

Coincidentally, two of Ellison’s biggest business interests are AI governance and digital health records, which also happen to be two of TBI’s most important areas of policy guidance. As we warned before Starmer’s election last summer in our article “Tony Blair and His Associates Are Waiting in the Wings to Seize Back Power“, Blair already wields significant influence over the Starmer government.

In his comment yesterday, Colonel Smithers provided a nice little explainer of how that came to be:

Blair’s influence on the Starmer government should not be underestimated. It’s not an exaggeration to say there’s no such thing as Starmerism, as Starmer has pointed out. As professor David Edgerton said last week, Starmer is reheating tired and inappropriate Thatcherism and Blairism.

Let’s go back a bit.

As the pandemic receded, Blair began to hire civil servants, especially those with experience of the pandemic. He saw such emergency management as the next wave to ride and wanted to sell his firm’s services based on that knowledge. In addition, Blair foresaw the Tories losing, not Labour winning, as in 1997 and wanted his people in place. The Blair team is at all levels of the government, beginning with ministers and advisers like Jonathan Powell and officials like Peter Mandelson (ambassador to Washington and friend of Epstein). Those not seconded to Whitehall are at his office, conducting similar work.

The team that put Starmer at the helm of Labour is really Blair’s team, but with some reporting to Mandelson, like Morgan McSweeney and Wes Streeting. McSweeney and his wife, Imogen Walker, also report to Gary Lubner, a triple citizen oligarch and sanctions buster.

It is easy to see Blair’s sway over certain policies. For example, the Starmer government’s accelerating digitisation of health with its pledge last week that all patients with the NHS app will soon be able to get same-day appointments — not a face-to-face appointment with a real doctor, of course, but rather a digital or telephone consultation. The Starmer government is calling it the “doctor in your pocket app.” Those who don’t it, including many elderly patients, will presumably have inferior access to services. 

All of this bears echoes of a much-publicised TBI report by Blair and former Tory Party leader William Hague on the need to digitise the NHS and sell off its patients’ data in order to drive AI treatment. 

Follow the money: a recent Daily Mail investigation of electronic patients records awarded by NHS trusts revealed that Ellison’s Oracle has already won deals totalling more than £1.5 billion through its Cerner healthcare unit. There will presumably be plenty more in the pipeline.

Meanwhile, the UK’s AI-driven economy continues to gain ground…

As for Tony Blair’s favourite policy tool of all, digital identity, it could soon become mandatory, as we warned over a year ago. Blair has repeatedly called for the development of a digital identity system in the UK, after trying but failing as prime minister to introduce an identity card system in the country:

The beauty for Blair of being able to pull Starmer’s strings, whether through Blairite figures in his government such as Peter Mandelson, Alan Milburn or Wes Streeting, or through TBI itself, is that he will be able to continue expanding his global influence at the same time through his fast-growing political consulting empire. Which brings us to the fourth and final reason.

#4: Britain’s Active Participation in the Genocide of Gaza

If you are British and get at least some of your news from reliable sources outside the mainstream media, you will probably know that the UK government is not just complicit in Israel’s genocide of Gaza but is participating in it on a daily basis. If that wasn’t bad enough, Kier Starmer, the person in charge of government for the past year, is a former human rights lawyer.

The only people feeling the long arm of the law are those speaking out against the genocide in Gaza, including an 83 year-old priest. In May, the government blocked all questions from members of parliament on how British military bases, particularly in Cyprus, are being used to support Israel’s operations in Gaza.

When DeclassifiedUK published a report on some of those operations, the British media — with the exception of Scotland’s The National — completely ignored its findings. The same goes for the more than 500 surveillance flights the RAF has carried out over Gaza, in the service of the IDF’s fighter bombers, since December 2023; the mainstream media have not carried out a single investigation into their extent, impact or legal status.

Few have encapsulated this madness as eloquently as the great British historian William Dalrymple (in his recent interview with Middle East Eye, which I urge readers to watch):

“At this moment, 2.1 million Palestinians, who themselves are the refugees kicked out in 1948 at the Nakba,… are being starved, shunted like cattle from pen to pen, bombed daily, having to queue up for what little aid is now being given in what looks like barbwire pens again. And many of them are being shot.

It’s a completely outrageous situation to happen anywhere, but it’s particularly outrageous in a country that was a former British colony and which the situation today whereby the Palestinians are a subject and occupied people was largely the responsibility of the failures of British policy during the British mandate.

And which continue today with this current British government and the one before it providing not just diplomatic cover but also aircraft supplies, intelligence from the RAF, to a government which is very clearly committing major war crimes of the sort which we rightly condemn anywhere else in the world.

When that is the current reality in the UK, anything is possible. As such, when one hears that an influential UK-based think tank run by a former prime minister who himself helped unleash one of the worst war crimes of the 21st century is having brainstorming sessions with members of the global investor class about what to do with Gaza once enough Gazans have been moved on or wiped out, it is deeply depressing but not at all surprising.

 

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