May 18, 2004

Jordan Times

WEF's raison d'etre

Editorial

If the participants at the World Economic Forum-Jordan 2004 were expecting signals from the Arab world, one clear pointer is that dictates that may emerge from the G-8 meetings next month will not be embraced in this region.

The most crucial point made was that the Arab people want to see a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. With the failure of so many peace initiatives, recent fluctuating policies on the issue, unprecedented levels of violence, and a peace camp on both the Israeli and Arab sides underground since 1996, there is an urgent need to restore the Arabs' faith that world leaders genuinely intend to move on solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In his closing plenary address yesterday, His Majesty King Abdullah spoke of a vision that can shift behavior patterns and perceptions, of long-term interests of society taking priority over short-term considerations of politicians.

These goals are part and parcel of the reform process that a majority of the Arab world's leaderships aspire to. They comprise the second and related signal that emerged from the three days of deliberations between international officials, businesspeople and civil society representatives convening at the Dead Sea. But, as Prime Minister Faisal Fayez told reporters at the WEF, the Arab world insists on reforms evolving from within each Arab country rather than imposed from outside, particularly from the G-8. The premier added that the US-proposed Greater Middle East Initiative, which takes in countries from Turkey to Pakistan and Afghanistan, is not feasible because Arabs share a common culture and identity that differ from the non-Arab countries in the proposed formula.

In the same context, the Iraq crisis was clearly featured as a source of major concern. The US secretary of state attempted several times to apologies for the atrocities committed by US soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison. He promised that US democratic principles and practices will prevail to correct those aberrations and ensure that they will not happen again. He pledged that the US was committed to rebuilding Iraq and seeing it flourish as a sovereign democratic country. He was, in essence, asking the Arab world for forgiveness and appealing for a new sense of faith so that we could all move ahead with sincere aspirations.

Similarly, in a plenary session yesterday afternoon, WEF Managing Director Frederic Sicre appealed, rather firmly, to the two sides of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to admit their faults, apologies to each other and move on towards establishing a lasting peace. He said the participants to the WEF met here in Jordan not to point fingers of blame but to work for peace. That was the raison d'Ítre of this week's WEF.