Blair Institute denies former UK PM asked PA to remove 'Palestine' from school textbooks

The Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI) has denied an exclusive Middle East Eye report that the former UK prime minister asked the Palestinian Authority (PA) to remove any mention of "Palestine" from school textbooks.

In an interview with MEE, Jeremy Greenstock, who was the UK's ambassador to the UN between 1998 and 2003, said that US President Donald Trump's Board of Peace had sent Blair to ask the PA to replace "Palestine" with the Jewish designation of "Samaria".

Blair was appointed to the founding executive board of the Board of Peace for Gaza by the Trump administration in January.

Other members of the board include Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, his Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff, and the billionaire Marc Rowan, who has described himself a "proud supporter of Israel" and its military.

In a wide-ranging interview on the David Hearst Podcast, Greenstock said the demand for the removal of the word "Palestine" from text books was rejected by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

The former British diplomat said Blair had been asked by the Board of Peace to go and tell the PA "to remove from the Palestinian curriculum any mention of the word Palestine if they were to be treated by the Board of Peace as capable of coming to an agreement with Israel to end the current conflict that had stemmed from 7 October onwards".

Greenstock said he received this information from a ministerial level source.

Greenstock, who defended his former boss's role during the Iraq war, said Blair was experiencing "difficulties" in his new role overseeing the postwar management of Gaza for the Board of Peace.

When MEE first published the interview on Wednesday, a denial from a spokesperson for Blair was included.

Blair focused on 'supporting the peace process'

On Thursday, Blair's institute tweeted a further denial of the story, deleted the tweet, then posted another tweet alongside a statement offering a more fulsome rejection of Greenstock's claim.

"This story is a complete fabrication. We categorically deny the claims made in a recent media report, attributed to a former British diplomat, alleging that Mr Blair asked the Palestinian Authority to remove the name 'Palestine' from Palestinian school curricula or replace it with another term," the Blair institute statement said.

"This claim is entirely false and without foundation. Mr Blair has made no such request, nor has he conveyed or endorsed any proposal to this effect.

"Mr Blair continues, in cooperation with members of the Board of Peace and relevant parties, to focus his efforts on supporting the peace process, contributing to the implementation of the peace plan, supporting the recovery and reconstruction of Gaza, and working towards a more secure, stable and prosperous future for all the peoples of the region.

"Given the sensitivity of the current moment and the issues surrounding ongoing peace efforts, it is important to adhere to the highest standards of accuracy and professionalism, and of verifying information before publishing claims that could mislead the public or undermine efforts to achieve peace."

Greenstock told MEE that the "very fact that the Board of Peace could ask for that to be done in the Palestinian educational curriculum makes me wonder what principles the Board of Peace is working on, and what understanding they have of justice, of the sense of fairness, of the history of all of this."

Blair is known to have travelled to Israel in mid-August with Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov.

The trio held crunch talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has rejected the roadmap for Gaza, and then travelled to Cairo where they held meetings with a Palestinian technocratic group which is supposed to assume control of Gaza, as well as members of Hamas.