Tony Blair receives $1,000,000 reward from a Jewish/Zionist organisation in Israel

[I'm not quite sure if Blair is Jewish. He apparently is Jewish on his mother's side but was not raised Jewish. I do however wonder whether he later converted to Judiasm? Jan]

Here is what they write about him and Israel on wikipedia:

Middle East policy

On 30 January 2003, Blair signed The letter of the eight supporting U.S. policy on Iraq.[141]

Blair showed a deep feeling for Israel, born in part from his faith.[142] Blair has been a longtime member of the pro-Israel lobby group Labour Friends of Israel.[143]

In 1994, Blair forged close ties with Michael Levy, a leader of the Jewish Leadership Council.[144] Levy ran the Labour Leader’s Office Fund to finance Blair’s campaign before the 1997 election and raised £12 million towards Labour’s landslide victory, Levy was rewarded with a peerage, and in 2002, Blair appointed Lord Levy as his personal envoy to the Middle East. Levy praised Blair for his "solid and committed support of the State of Israel".[145]Tam Dalyell, while Father of the House of Commons, suggested in 2003 that Blair’s foreign policy decisions were unduly influenced by a "cabal" of Jewish advisers, including Levy, Peter Mandelson and Jack Straw (the last two are not Jewish but have some Jewish ancestry).[146]

Blair, on coming to office, had been "cool towards the right-wing Netanyahu government".[147] During his first visit to Israel, Blair thought the Israelis bugged him in his car.[148] After the election in 1999 of Ehud Barak, with whom Blair forged a close relationship, he became much more sympathetic to Israel.[147] From 2001, Blair built up a relationship[clarification needed] with Barak’s successor, Ariel Sharon, and responded positively to Arafat, whom he had met thirteen times since becoming prime minister and regarded as essential to future negotiations.[147] In 2004, 50 former diplomats, including ambassadors to Baghdad and Tel Aviv, stated they had "watched with deepening concern" at Britain following the US into war in Iraq in 2003. They criticised Blair’s support for the road map for peace which included the retaining of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.[149]

In 2006 Blair was criticised for his failure to immediately call for a ceasefire in the 2006 Lebanon War. The Observer newspaper claimed that at a cabinet meeting before Blair left for a summit with Bush on 28 July 2006, a significant number of ministers pressured Blair to publicly criticise Israel over the scale of deaths and destruction in Lebanon.[150] Blair was criticised for his solid stance alongside US President George W. Bush on Middle East policy.[151]

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Blair

Then in 2009, in the UK they reported how the Jews presented him with this "award". Was this an "award" or was it a bribe paid right in people’s faces? Here’s the British article:

Tony blaid has been given a million dollar award for "leadership" by a political organisation in Israel. Mr Blair made a career out of attacking the enemies of Israel, sending his country into more wars than any prime minister ever before in history as the UK joined the US in fighting the perceived enemies of Israel both militarily and politically, advantaging the Zionist cause. Blair also committed Britain to the "war on terror in which Muslims and Islam are the potential or actual enemies, again demonising the perceived enemies of Zionism. ***

Tony Blair wins million-dollar prize for global leadership

Former PM given Dan David award for his determination to find solutions to areas in conflict

Tony Blair has won a prestigious million-dollar prize for his leadership on the world stage, it was announced today.

The former prime minister, now a Middle East peace envoy, will receive the Dan David prize for "his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict".

The award is presented by the Dan David Foundation, based at Tel Aviv University, and a spokesman for Blair said the money would be donated to the former Labour leader’s charity for religious understanding, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

Blair is an envoy of the international Quartet on the Middle East peace process, which comprises the US, EU, UN and Russia.

His entry as a Dan David laureate on the prize’s website hails him as "one of the most outstanding statesmen of our era".

It praises his role in the Northern Ireland peace process and his "steadfast determination and morally courageous leadership" over Kosovo.

But there is no mention of the divisive decision to support the US-led invasion of Iraq.

Instead, the citation states: "Early in his prime ministership, he came to two beliefs that guide him to today: first, that it is a mistake for the world to wait for America to solve all of the tough questions, and second, that there are some things a state may do within its borders that justify intervention even if the actions do not directly threaten another nation’s interests."

A condition of the award is that 10% of the prize money is used to fund graduate students in the winner’s field.

A spokesman for the former prime minister’s office confirmed that the rest of the money would be donated to the Faith Foundation.

Three Dan David prizes are awarded every year, in past, present and future categories.

Blair has won the present award, and follows in the footsteps of former US vice-president and environmental campaigner Al Gore, who won last year’s prize.

The award will be presented in a ceremony on 17 May at Tel Aviv University.

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2009/feb/16/tony-blair-prize

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