4 hours ago
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By Dominic Penna
July 7, 2025 — 7.30pm
London: Former British prime minister Tony Blair’s think tank worked on a post-war plan for Gaza that included a “Trump Riviera” inspired by Dubai.
The Tony Blair Institute (TBI) worked on a project led by Israeli businessmen in which a manufacturing zone named after Elon Musk was also discussed.
A Palestinian girl stands atop the rubble of a family home destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip last month.Credit: AP
Fighting between the Israeli military and Hamas has been ongoing in Gaza for 20 months since the terror attacks of October 7, 2023.
Donald Trump this year proposed redeveloping Gaza as “Middle East Riviera” and shared a provocative video of a vision for Gaza that included skyscrapers, bearded belly dancers and golden statues of the US president.
Members of staff at the TBI had input into Boston Consulting Group (BCG)’s “Great Trust” project.
One document written by a TBI employee included the idea of a “Gaza Riviera” with artificial islands. A similar concept was shown in the video shared by 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”.
Tony Blair won three elections and served as prime minister for more than a decade from 1997 to 2007.Credit: AP
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, a controversial new aid distribution group that had the backing of Israel and the US.
The BCG would later go on to distance itself from the project.
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A spokesman for Blair 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.”
The Telegraph, London
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