Year after year, I participate in the annual session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, to follow politics before economic affairs, especially in what regards the Middle East. In the 1990s, we thought that peace was just around the corner, as they say; the dream, however, died in 2001, after which I did not see Abu Ammar anymore. In the decade that followed, the forum went back to focusing on the economy, its primary purpose as its name indicates, then another decade came. I have no reason to expect that a miracle will happen in the Middle East this decade with Benjamin Netanyahu, the very same man who disrupted the peace process for three years in the nineties, until there was no time left to accomplish anything. He is now back in power, and will disrupt the peace process once again during Barack Obama's first term, just as he did during Bill Clinton's second term. What's more important than my personal opinion in this vein, is when King Abdullah II admits that he is pessimistic, and then warns that the situation will only worsen if the U.S administration does not focus all its efforts in the upcoming months to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Also, the Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad told me that there will be no solution to the conflict with the current Israeli government in place, and I heard from other Palestinian officials that this government considers all the land and beyond to be a part of Israel, and that they believe that the Israelis will have to ‘give up' some of ‘their' lands to make room for the Palestinians. But all the land between the river and the sea is Palestine. There never were any Jewish kingdoms or prophets there, but only biblical myths. All the participants in the forum heard the Arab speakers say that the Palestinian cause is the basis and origin of all other causes, and that making progress in these latter is not possible as long as ‘the cause' remains unresolved. There was limited Arab presence in Davos this year. However, King Abdullah II and Queen Rania attended once again, along with the new Jordanian Prime Minister Samir Rifai, the son of friend Zeid Rifai, and also the Crown Prince of Bahrain Prince Salman bin Hamad, Mr. Salam Fayyad, and the Secretary General of the Arab League Amr Moussa, who appeared pessimistic for the first time in all the years that I have known him. I also read the name of the Egyptian Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, but did not see him. Nonetheless, the Egyptian Minister of Economy Rashid Rashid was present, in addition to the Finance Minister Youssef Boutros-Ghali along with a group of leading Egyptian businessmen. Businessmen from the Gulf were at the forefront of Arab participants, in particular the Bahrainis. As for the Lebanese and the Syrians, I did not see more than two or three participants from each country. While participants from the Arab Maghreb were all but absent from Davos, the World Economic Forum's upcoming regional conference will be held not in Egypt or Jordan this time, but in Marrakech, and perhaps this will encourage businessmen and officials from Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia to increase their participation. The annual meeting in Davos usually witnesses a few hundred sessions in four days or so. The participant must thus choose between these, and I was pleased that King Abdullah II managed to skilfully respond to the questions of the Indian-American journalist Fareed Zakaria, who I felt was asking provocative questions. However, the King answered carefully and intelligently. I also noticed that Zakaria said that al-Qaeda began as a movement to overthrow the Egyptian and Saudi regime, before attaching itself to the Palestinian cause. But according to the King, Zakaria's statement is an acknowledgement of the centrality of the cause, and subsequently, of al-Qaeda's need for the latter's popular weight in order to gain more supporters. Meanwhile, Queen Rania is a combination of splendour, intelligence and skilfulness. She is a champion for the cause of education in Jordan and the entire Arab world. I attended a session in which she participated, along with some of the most prominent international experts in education from the United Nations and other governments and institutions, and she gave a valuable presentation about what is required in order to improve education. The audience in the large hall applauded for her alone, which means that my opinion about the Queen of Jordan is shared by many others, mostly non-Arabs. In the meantime, Prince Salman bin Hamad focused on economic affairs, but without overlooking politics. After attending a session in which he participated, I came out with the conclusion that the global financial crisis did not lead to demands to modify the capitalist system, but rather, that this system should be reconsidered with some reforms in some of its aspects. Also, an honouring ceremony was held for Prince Salman by the ‘Mumtalakat' group, which was attended by a large number of guests, asking him his opinion about the current trends in the Gulf economy. Between this and that, I was attending the meeting of the Media Leaders group, of which I am a member. In a session with David Cameron, I asked the leader of the opposition Conservative Party whether he can say that the latter will not increase taxes if it won in the next elections. He gave me a long response which can be summarized as ‘no'. In the evening, the Media Leaders hosted a dinner that was attended by James Cameron, the director of the famous film Avatar. I thought that he will be a compensation for my conversation with the other Cameron, but he and the guests chose to talk about the film's technology. This confused me, although I had seen the 3D film in London only two days earlier. But all the above is nothing compared to the conditions of the media and the printed press in particular along with journalists like me. We are now facing the danger of going extinct more than pandas themselves. The latter are cute vegetarian animals which find a lot of support among people who are trying to protect them; however, journalists today are like lawyers in popularity, and will not find anyone who will support them or mourn them should they perish. In the end, I want to say that I was pleased to see the Arab figures that attended, and I wish I saw other faces which I usually see in Davos, but who were absent this year, such as the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassem bin Jaber, and the Emirati Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed. They both must have their excuses, but which I do not accept. [email protected]
