What was in it for Tony Blair when he conducted talks with Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal in Doha?
Of all the bizarre encounters the Palestinian conflict has generated, Tony Blair’s four meetings in Doha with Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal must surely rank as among the oddest.
Here was the Quartet’s Middle East envoy breaking the Quartet’s own rules about not talking to Hamas until it recognises Israel – rules that Blair and Jack Straw enforced as prime minister and foreign secretary by pressing the EU to declare Hamas a terrorist organisation. Two of the four meetings were held before Blair resigned as envoy.