By: Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu – Arutz Sheva

The University of Tel Aviv has awarded Quartet Middle East envoy Tony Blair a $1 million prize for his efforts to make peace in the Middle East, weeks after he said that Hamas must be brought into the solution to the Arab-Israel conflict.

The international Dan David Foundation prize went to the former British prime minister “for his exceptional leadership and steadfast determination in helping to engineer agreements and forge lasting solutions to areas in conflict.”

A spokesman for Blair said that most of the money will be donated to the Tony Blair Faith Foundation for “religious understanding.”

Most of Britain’s newspapers roundly mocked the award, citing Blair as a warmonger for backing the American-led war in Iraq.

As prime minister and Quartet envoy, Blair has been at the forefront in pressuring Israel to make concessions to the Palestinian Authority, and accepts most of the PA’s conditions for a new Arab country on the land of Judea, Samaria and Gaza, including the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem.

Early last month, Blair stated, “I do think it is important that we find a way of bringing Hamas into this process, but it can only be done if Hamas [is] prepared to do it on the right terms.”

He told the Times of London that “pushing Gaza aside was never going to work and will never work.” Although he maintained that Hamas must recognize Israel and renounce violence, he added that his “basic predisposition is that in a situation like this you talk to everybody.”

Blair, who will be honored by the University of Tel Aviv May 17, was roundly criticized in British newspapers. The Sunday Sun wrote that the father of a soldier whose son was killed in Iraq called on Blair to reject the $1 million prize.

“This is a man who has led us into two wars which have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq and Afghanistan and for this he is to be given a million dollars. It really is beyond belief,” John Miller told the newspaper.

London Telegraph columnist Andrew Pierce wrote, “A clue to why he won may be that the Dan David Foundation is based at a university in Tel Aviv. In case you had forgotten, Blair is the Middle East peace envoy. And very good he is at it, too.

“So good that he has yet to set foot in Gaza since he took up the post two years ago. Instead, he is holed up in a suite on several floors of a smart Jerusalem hotel, and when he leaves it is in a bulletproof, bomb-reinforced security convoy.”