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Blair gives speech on possibilities for regional peace

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The former Quartet Middle East Envoy has called for all sides in the region to seize the opportunity for a regional peace, which includes Israelis and Palestinians.

Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, a guest of Israel Yozemet – the Israeli Regional Initiative organisation – was the keynote speaker in the closing session of the second day of the 17th annual IDC Herzliya Conference.

Blair told delegates “there exists today a new path to peace,” not only on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations “but on the potential for a new relationship between the Arab nations and Israel. It is an opportunity of unprecedented promise”.

Blair said that a new relations between Israel and the Arab states is possible, but warned that the “key to a true relationship, where there is overt, public and strategic collaboration – remains the Palestinian question”.

Blair stressed the importance of a regional cooperation in any future peace process, saying: “The new way forward is to integrate the regional approach with a traditional negotiation. The engagement of the region provides the strength to help carry any peace process. What is necessary is not only Arab support for a traditional peace negotiation but active engagement with it.”

Referring to the situation across the region, Blair spoke of the battle between “those who want a narrow, sectarian and essentially totalitarian view of religion to determine that future,” and “those who are striving for economies based on the rule of law and societies of religious tolerance, connected to the modern world not in opposition to it”.

He also warned about humanitarian crisis in Gaza and said that “leaving [Gaza] in its present condition… threatens all we wish to achieve”. He added: “I cannot over-state that any peace process which ignores Gaza is a process doomed to fail.”

Following Blair’s address, the Israel Regional Initiative organisation presented a poll in which 84 per cent of the Israeli public accept the “regional package deal” whilst 50 per cent of the public vary between “supportive” and “highly supportive,” and 34 per cent stated they “could live with such a deal”.