Tony Blair's think tank worked on ‘Trump Riviera' plan for Gaza
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) fed into a project led by Israeli businessmen in which a manufacturing zone named after Elon Musk was also discussed.
Fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas has been ongoing in Gaza for 20 months since the terror attacks of Oct 7 2023.
Earlier this year, Donald Trump, the US president, released a provocative video of his vision for Gaza which included skyscrapers, bearded belly dancers and golden statues of himself.
Members of staff at the TBI worked on lengthy dossiers for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) as part of its 'Great Trust' project.
One document written by a TBI employee and shared with the group included the idea of a ' Gaza Riviera ' with artificial islands. A similar concept was shown in the video created by Mr Trump.
The Financial Times, which first reported the plan, said the document suggested trade initiatives based around cryptocurrency and 'special economic zones' with low-tax regimes.
It went on to claim that the war in Gaza, in which tens of thousands of people have died, had created a 'once-in-a-century opportunity to rebuild Gaza from first principles'.
The document suggested the Strip would be able to go forward as a 'secure, modern, prosperous society'.
Staff from the TBI also took part in a 12-person messaging group used for the budget, as well as producing a 'Gaza economic blueprint'.
The TBI did not author or endorse the final-slide deck, which was submitted to the Trump administration and suggested paying half a million Palestinians to leave Gaza.
Last week, it emerged that the BCG had previously modelled how much it would cost to relocate Palestinians from Gaza.
This prompted a backlash because the group was involved in establishing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which had the backing of Israel and the US. The BCG would later go on to distance itself from the project.
A spokesman for Sir Tony said the former prime minister had neither spoken to the people who prepared the plans nor commented on them.
The spokesman added: 'The TBI team speaks to many different groups and organisations with post-war 'plans' for Gaza, but had nothing to do with the authorship of this plan.
'TBI staff participated in two calls, as they have done with many other people with 'Gaza plans' and interacting with them doesn't mean endorsement.
'The TBI document referred to is an internal TBI document looking at proposals being made by various parties covering all the different aspects of what a post-war Gaza could look like [...] but it was not produced in connection with the BCG work nor given to BCG.'
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