Blair: Gaza's great betrayer

[Christa]

It's more than a year since Israel launched its immoral attack on Gaza and Palestinians are still living on the verge of a humanitarian disaster. So what has Tony Blair done to further peace in the region? Virtually nothing, argues the historian Avi Shlaim.

Blair is PURE EVIL, just like his buddy Bush.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/03/gaza-tony-blair-betrayal

[Douglas Carpenter]

1. you posted an excellent article by the great Israeli Oxford historian, Avi Shlaim

Partly, however, Blair's failure is due to his own personal limitations; his ­inability to grasp that the fundamental issue in this tragic conflict is not Israeli security but Palestinian national rights, and that concerted and sustained ­international pressure is required to compel Israel to recognize these rights. The core issue cannot be avoided: there can be no settlement of the ­conflict without an end to the Israeli occupation. There is international consensus for a two-state solution, but Israel rejects it and Blair has been unable or unwilling to use the Quartet to enforce it.

Blair's failure to stand up for Palestinian independence is precisely what endears him to the Israeli establishment. In February of last year, while the ­Palestinians in Gaza were still mourning their dead, Blair received the Dan David prize from Tel Aviv University as the "laureate for the present time ­dimension in the field of leadership". The citation praised him for his ­"exceptional intelligence and foresight, and demonstrated moral courage and leadership". The prize is worth $1m. I may be cynical, but I cannot help viewing this prize as absurd, given Blair's silent complicity in Israel's ­continuing crimes against the ­Palestinian people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/feb/03/gaza-tony-blair-betrayal

Avi Shlaim was born in Baghdad in 1945, grew up in Israel, and studied at Cambridge and the London School of Economics. He is a Fellow of St. Anthony’s College and a Professor of International Relations at the University of Oxford. He was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2006. His books include Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine, The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World, and War and Peace in the Middle East: A Concise History. He lives in Berlin.

http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/It%20Can%20Be%20Done.html

Avi Shlaim is perhaps the world's leading academic authority on Israeli/Arab relations and author of the premier defining book on the subject:

The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World By Avi Shlaim

link on Google Books:

http://books.google.com/books?id=CW7GbiUkri0C&dq=avi+shlaim+the+iron+wall&cd=1


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Prof. Avi Shlaim speaks about the Israeli lies after lies during the War in Gaza (Jan 2009) - youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jS1vePtadA

and

DN! Obama Israel-Palestine - interview with Avi Shlaim:

part one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYEOfPO-e1Y&feature=related

part two:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1sYxp8aqps

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