Former British prime minister Tony Blair said Thursday it was "vital" that a new US President should engage with the Middle East issue immediately after the November election, according to dpa. "It will be a real problem if the new American president takes a couple of years to work his way into it," said Blair, who was answering questions before the international development committee of the British parliament. "With this new American president, it is really important that focus is kept on this all the time," said Blair, who also admitted that his own view of the Middle East conflict had changed since he took on the job of special envoy for the region almost a year ago. Blair was appointed special envoy of the so-called Middle East Quartet of the United Nations (UN), the United States, the European Union (EU) and Russia the day he stepped down as prime minister on June 27 last year. He was Thursday called to give evidence on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza in what was his first appearance in the British parliament since he stepped down. "We have to alter the current state of events fundamentally," Blair told the committee. "It is fundamental to peace between the world of Islam and the West." "What we need to do is to get a period of calm, to get a ceasefire in Gaza, progressively to start reopening the crossings, start to get proper humanitarian help through and then build our way back out of this to a situation where the people of Gaza can be helped and secondly, and very importantly, the situation in Gaza does not disrupt other possibilities of progress," Blair said. His view of the situation had been transformed as he now recognized the vital importance of the situation on the ground to enabling constructive political dialogue, Blair said. He also said there was "a lot more Israel could do and has to do," but added that this was difficult while the country remained under hostile rocket attack. "I have my own very strong views about how Israel has got to go further and faster, particularly on the West bank. But it is important always to recognize that they are subject to these terrorist attacks; they do have a genuine security threat." Blair said the Berlin Conference on the Middle East later this month was a "really important" opportunity to move the process forward by establishing a proper plan for Palestinian security forces and the implementation of proposals for the civil police force, prisons and courts. Most Israelis now accepted that a negotiated two-state solution was the only way to stop the violence, he said. "I believe the majority of sensible Israelis know that there is no alternative to a two-state solution but a big fight continuing for a long period of time," Blair told the committee. In an earlier television interview, he drew a parallel with efforts to bring peace to Northern Ireland, in which he played an active role. "If we were able to resolve it the way we did Northern Ireland it would make probably the biggest difference to peace in the Middle East," he said, without elaborating. Decades of conflict in Northern Ireland were ended, through international mediation, by the disarmament of paramilitary groups and the formation of a power-sharing government between Catholics and Protestants in the province.
