Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Quartet Envoy Tony Blair in Ramallah, September 2007.
This article by Ali Gharib, The Electronic Intifada, 26 September 2008, describes a report from over 20 international humanitarian organizations, which have been ultimately involved in alleviating Palestinian suffering and/or supporting their cause for a fair and just peace in their conflict with the Israelis, who continue to confiscate their lands.
So what has the Quartet done in over a year’s period of time with Tony Blair at the helm?
Not a thing. Israel remains on a trajectory to annex the Palestinian territories and give the conflict a new face: Apartheid. And Blair along with the Quartet he represents will be thanked for their complicity to the injustice.
WASHINGTON, (IPS) – A new report from several international aid organizations blasts the Quartet, an international group assembled to facilitate the Middle East peace process, for failing to meet their goals in advancing a lasting peace between Israel and Palestinians.
“The Middle East Quartet is failing — making inadequate progress towards improving the lives of Palestinians nor improving the prospects for peace,” said a press release from the involved aid organizations announcing the report.
The report, “The Middle East Quartet: A Progress Report”, says that none of criteria laid out by the Quartet itself have seen significant improvement, and some have even experienced backsliding. In all of the objectives listed by the report, which are based on the most recent statements of the Quartet, most were graded by the report as failures, with a few achieving the qualified status of “partial success.”
The report, assembled by a coalition of 21 aid agencies including Oxfam International, Save the Children UK, World Vision Jerusalem, and CARE International UK, notes that 2008 was viewed by all parties involved as a crucial year for the peace process.
Read the rest of this article, HERE.
Blair, as the Quartet representative, has been quite a joke, in fact. Photo ops aside, even his sister-in-law, as part of the Free Gaza Movement boat expedition, was able to contribute more in just a few weeks than Blair himself in years. It could not be believe when Blair became a committed Islamophobic, whose main concern is the Iranians rather than the people yearning for freedom and self-determination in their own lands: the Palestinians.
