Elham Asaad Buaras
Former British prime minister Tony Blair was allegedly asked by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to press the Palestinian Authority to remove references to “Palestine” from its school curriculum, former British ambassador to the UN Jeremy Greenstock claimed on September 2.
Greenstock made the allegation during an interview with Middle East Eye editor-in-chief David Hearst on the David Hearst Podcast.
“He recently, I understand, was asked by the Board of Peace to go to Ramallah and ask to remove from the Palestinian curriculum any mention of the word Palestine,” Greenstock said, adding that this was linked to whether the Palestinian Authority would be regarded by the Board of Peace as capable of reaching an agreement with Israel to end the Gaza conflict.
Greenstock said his information came from a ministerial-level source and claimed that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas rejected the request.
“President Mahmoud Abbas said he would do no such thing,” he said.
The allegation was reported on September 2 by the Jerusalem Post and other outlets following the podcast interview.
Some reports subsequently stated that the proposal involved replacing “Palestine” with “Samaria”, the biblical term used by Israel for parts of the occupied West Bank. However, in the remarks quoted directly from Greenstock, he referred only to removing “any mention of the word Palestine” and did not mention “Samaria”.
Blair’s office has strongly denied the allegation.
A spokesperson said the claim was “not true and a complete fabrication”, adding that Blair had neither made such a request nor conveyed or endorsed any proposal to remove the name “Palestine” from Palestinian school curricula or replace it with another term.
The spokesperson said Blair’s team had complained to Middle East Eye, having told the publication before its report was published that the allegation was untrue.
Greenstock, who served as Britain’s ambassador to the UN from 1998 to 2003 and later became the UK’s special representative for Iraq, was critical of Blair’s current role with Trump’s Board of Peace during the interview.
He said Blair would be viewed as prejudiced because of his record on Iraq and his policies towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after leaving government.
The allegation comes after Blair travelled to Israel in August with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Nickolay Mladenov, the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza. The group subsequently travelled to Cairo for meetings with Palestinian representatives.
Greenstock said he believed Blair was facing difficulties in his new role and questioned whether the Board of Peace was sufficiently robust to make decisions concerning the future of the Palestinian territories.
The claim that Blair personally made the request to remove “Palestine” from Palestinian schoolbooks has not been independently verified. Greenstock attributed his account to a ministerial-level source, while Blair’s office has categorically rejected it.
