Greek House Davos Forum: The economics of peace in the Middle East

"Speaking of the World Economic Forum, billions of dollars have been directed to the Middle East and especially to Gaza and the result is a new war every 5 or 10 years. So we are here to explore the best-practice model to prevent that in the future, and for the investments of the United States, Europe and all investors in the Middle East to bear fruit and bring the message of peace through our efforts," said the director of the Inter-Parliamentary Coalition for Global Ethics (IPCGE), Shoshana Nicole Bekerman.

Assuming the role of moderator in the discussion, Nadeem Amar, founder and president of the Ohr Association, spoke about the Druze community in Israel, to which he himself belongs. "We are not Jewish. The best place to live as non-Jews for us is Israel. And if we can do that, if this community can live peacefully in harmony with the Jew, with the Arab, I think everyone in the Middle East can live without these vicious wars, the crimes and the terrorists. Therefore, we are the best example and the best model for spreading cultural peace. We are the bridge between the Jew and the Arab within Israel and in the Middle East. This is because the nature of our faith, the nature of our religion, is tolerance, acceptance and acceptance of all different religions," he noted.

Taking the floor, Rabbi Abrahamson, founder and president of the Alsadiqin Institute, pointed out that religion always plays an important role in any conflict, but time is lost in promoting solutions. "When we want to talk about solutions, everybody has ideas, but no one wants to discuss which idea really works," he explained.

In terms of educating future leaders, raising awareness of peace among peoples, and cultivating their rulers' acceptance of decisions that would lead them to peace, he estimated that "this requires generations of education, testing, examination, and experimenting whether it works or not." He noted that it is useless for any study curriculum for peace to be produced in English when it is trying to solve a problem in the Middle East, therefore it should be written in Arabic. 

Imam Mohammed Tawhidi, vice-president of the Global Imams Council and one of the first to participate in the Abraham Accords initiative to promote peace in the Middle East, while presenting the best-practice model offered by IPCGE spoke about building a collaborative framework for global economic recovery. 
"The Abraham Accords present the cooperation and economic partnerships between historically divided countries, offering possibilities for overcoming regional or ideological fissures in the global economy. And Davos is a key platform for discussing these kinds of solutions," he said. "The Abraham Accords demonstrate how diplomacy and peaceful negotiations can achieve significant progress in conflict resolution, which directly affects economic stability and investment - G7 leaders often discuss global security concerns. The agreements could serve as a case study for deescalation and cooperation, potentially informing approaches to other conflict zones affecting the global economy," he added.

Head of the British Arab Network Dr Wafik Moustafa spoke about the need to eliminate the culture of hate from textbooks and about the reform of the education system in Middle Eastern countries. "I grew up in Egypt, I went to schools in Egypt where hate was in all the books I read [...] Education makes a big difference. If I didn't live in the West, if I had not been a doctor in London for 50 years, I would probably be like anyone else in Cairo or Amman or Damascus who behaved in a really absurd way for the world," he noted, while noting that "the Abraham Accords are the first serious, much-promising initiative of normalization between Arab states and Israel."

Martin Oliner, president of the Culture for Peace Institute, expressed the view that "education has essentially failed, and it is time to focus anew on things, to stop blaming religion, to stop blaming different things."  

"Education is critical, but we need to look at education in new ways [...]. We therefore need to explore what are the parameters, how does economy play a role, how do leaders play a role? We talk about the Abraham Accords, but if we want to be honest about it with each other, the only success that the Abraham Accords have had is in creating a new kind of culture," he said. 

According to Khalid Janahi, head of Vision 3, education is important, but the issue that emerges is the lack of leadership on the warring sides. "The problem we have is that we have bad guys at the top," he said, adding that "education should basically bring in real leadership, as the entire world is missing leaders today."

The need to promote an agenda of sustainable peace from generation to generation was mentioned by Swedish Eurodeputy Michael David Alexander Lega. "The stability and expansion of the framework of the 2020 Abraham Accords ultimately depends on significant progress between Israelis and Palestinians. Of course, the lessons taught to children from their early days in school are vital," he pointed out. 

"The events of October 7 also showed us, on the other hand, that significant progress between Israelis and Palestinians is not possible without the support of the partners in the Abraham Accords. Indeed, it would not be far-fetched to say that a viable two-state solution now depends on the strength of the framework of the Abraham Agreements. This is a step forward, although it may be difficult to see it with the war still raging," he explained.