Davos 2012 (3) I have a thousand objections to U.S. foreign policy, which is made in Israel. Prince Turki al-Faisal made a bold, frank and accurate statement criticizing U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East at Davos, like he did before in Riyadh and also at a security conference in Bahrain recently. So all I say is that I have the same opinion as Prince Turki and the other Arab friends at the annual session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, as we all agreed in our private meetings that this policy damages the interests of the peoples of the region, and even U.S. interests. Amr Moussa was one of the stars of Davos as usual. I was standing next to him as people flocked to talk to him. More than once, we were approached by participants who shook hands with us and said they were “neighbors”, meaning they are Israelis, and some asked to have their pictures taken with him. Indeed, they could have been Israeli peace advocates who are now under siege from an extremist right-wing government, and we don't want to lose what's left of those. A few years ago in Davos, I met Rabbi David Rosen, when we both took part in the dialogue of Islam and the West that went on for years after that. He is a moderate and fair-minded man of the cloth, and it is quite possible for the Palestinians to make peace with such a man as soon as tomorrow, as he supports the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, and is aware of the extent of the suffering of the Palestinians under the occupation. The Jewish people confuse me. For one thing, I estimate that 80 percent of Jews around the world are liberal, mostly in the center-left. Yet there is in Israel an extremist right-wing government, allied with religious settlers, also despite the fact that the majority of Jews are secular. I asked Rabbi Rosen and other Jews in Davos about this paradox, since the right-wing government in Israel does not represent the majority of Jews. I heard many answers, but none of those was convincing enough to end my confusion. Even when I try to leave Israel and its government aside, I still run into these issues without asking for it. I was in a private meeting with Arab businessmen and politicians, who are also friends, and I told them that there was going to be a session in a few minutes that will be addressed by the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa. They said that this was impossible because they did not see any Qataris inside the conference hall. I asked Amr Moussa to come with me and I read to him the conference schedule at the registration desk. The schedule included the session where the Emir of Qatar was set to speak, so went together to the Grand Hall to hear him, but the doors were closed. I asked one of the staff at the entrance of the hall about the time of the session and who shall speak in it, and he said: Shimon Peres. Quickly, I and Amr rushed away, as the Emir of Qatar did not come after all, and Peres was the last person we wanted to hear in the place of the Emir. The session brought Peres together with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, the dynamic man credited with the good performance of the Palestinian economy in the West Bank despite the Israeli siege. Incidentally, Abu Mazen had phoned me when he visited London two weeks ago, and then I managed to speak to Salam in Davos. Between me and the reader, I want to reveal a secret that I hope will not leave this column: The leadership of the Palestinian Authority does not expect the negotiations with the Netanyahu government to succeed at all, and it does not want the negotiations to begin with. Rather, the Palestinian Authority is coming under sustained pressure, especially from the United States, to enter into futile negotiations. The Authority does not want to be blamed for any failure, or to provide an excuse to those who want to cut off aid to the Palestinians because they object to the so-called peace process. The annual session of the World Economic Forum in Davos brings together heads of states, prime ministers, ministers and senior figures of the finance and business worlds like no other conference can claim to do. I personally believe that the Forum is the second most important political forum in the world after the UN General Assembly and the most important economic forum by and large. I think that the Forum's founder and Chairman Professor Klaus Schwab deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, as he has been tirelessly seeking, for decades now, to improve the state of the world, as the motto of the forum goes. [email protected]
