Nidal al-Mughrabi: Palestine scorns the ‘honest brokers’

Unofficial suggestions that Mr Blair be replaced coincide with a Palestinian drive to secure membership of the United Nations, establishing statehood in the face of strong opposition from Israel and its main backer, the United States.

While there has been no official request to the quartet of Middle East peace mediators to have Mr Blair removed as its envoy, some Palestinian officials at the weekend told reporters they had had enough of what they perceive to be his pro-Israel bias.

Bassam al-Salhe, a Palestine Liberation Organisation official who attends the PLO’s high-level meetings, described Mr Blair as “a junior employee of the Israeli government” rather than a neutral envoy of the foursome made up of the European Union, the United States, the UN and Russia.

He spoke of a growing tendency in the Palestinian leadership to boycott Mr Blair after he “lost his credibility”.

Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Palestinian presidential aide Nabil Shaath said Mr Blair was now “of limited usefulness”.

Palestinian chief negotiator Saab Erekat, however, said there had been no official move to boycott Mr Blair or to lodge a request for his replacement.

A spokesman for Mr Blair said diplomatic work was continuing as usual and he was unaware of any formal complaints about the envoy’s work. Mr Blair has represented the quartet since 2007.

“From the calls Tony Blair has been doing with senior Palestinians in the last few days it has been business as usual,” Mr Blair’s spokesman said.

“Our focus is on … a return to direct talks between the parties. It is the job of the quartet representative to interact with both sides.”

The quartet, established in 2002, has played a role supportive of, but secondary to that of Washington in efforts to mediate a negotiated resolution of the 63-year-old conflict.

However, Palestinian commentators last week said America’s vaunted position as “honest broker” in the conflict had been exposed as a sham when President Barack Obama warned Mahmoud Abbas, his Palestinian counterpart, against trying to take “shortcuts” to statehood.

The Palestinians say they have been patient during 18 years of futile talks, in which time Israel has simply continued to build settlements on land they want for a Palestinian state while the major powers did nothing to prevent it.

Mr Salhe said: “Tony Blair has become an unwelcome person. He has no credibility and he is making the quartet weaker than it already is.”

“Blair has violated the nature of his job which requires him to be neutral. He is not neutral,” the PLO official added. Ghassan Khatib, spokesman for the Palestinian Administration in Ramallah, had nothing to say on Mr Blair.

But Mr Shaath voiced clear disappointment.

“We thought [Mr Blair] would really enrich that position and would be a real support to the Palestinians,” he said. But as time went by Mr Blair’s role had shrunk to “asking the Israelis to remove a [West Bank] barrier here or there”.

“He just avoided all the political requirements of his job as representative of the quartet,” the aide to Mr Abbas added. He ended up supporting “that horrible resolution of the quartet, parroting what the Israelis wanted”.

“His main worry is not to anger the Israelis, therefore he’s just selling their programmes, their projects, and if he does that then his usefulness will be limited to us.”

Mr Shaath denied any move to make Mr Blair persona non grata. However, a top Palestinian official speaking off the record said there was “an extreme dissatisfaction among Palestinian leaders with Blair. There is a huge criticism to his policies”.