Economic Sectors

Casablanca

The Casablanca seminar was unprecedented. Unlike any other conference in the past, its purpose is not to negotiate peace politically, or militarily to keep the peace, but peace to develop economically.

Building peace requires us to address the reasons that prevented it, arid there are basically two such factors: the territorial dispute caused by the war and result from the war, and want - a growing crush on the growth of population, resulting from poverty, desertification and lack of proper education.

The collapse of communism terminated the strategic East-West divides, and the economic success in Asia and South America end the North-South dichotomy. The unity of these two developments rendered obsolete military blocs, and regional conflicts deprived of external support resources.

Even in the Middle East - deemed hopeless by many - is crossing the threshold into a new era. Here, the regional war ended in disappointment or doubt. Five Arab-Israeli war was disappointing in the armed forces militarily, and politically disappointing to those who sought accommodation.

The first to agree on the futility of militancy is Egypt and Israel, which followed 15 years later by agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, and the Peace Treaty between Israel and Jordan signed only in last week.

It became clear that the work is most expensive. Furthermore once a land is occupied, it's not conquered, and war is even more expensive and more destructive.

It became clear, too, that the source of energy and resources now lie in expanded territory but concentrated sciences. And scientific accomplishments can not be achieved by force of arms. Lack of hope can not be overwhelmed by military might and the parents of despair - poverty, disease, deprivation, discrimination, bullying - can not be conquered by armies or political negotiations.

The whole world is gradually evolving from a world of enemies in an arena of opportunities and challenges and, yesterday, we fought each other, now we face a common enemy. If yesterday's enemy is a host of threats from outside, the source of violence is now principally the threat from within: poverty breeding despair. Our goal is to address ourselves to a Middle East, where his people have a higher standard of living and a lower standard of violence.

This conference is the first attempt to view economic regions with eyes, with the aim of improving the lot of people. Marshall Plans, in themselves, can not salvage our region: the resource requirements are too broad, and the Middle East has its own resources. No outsiders can or should expect to do that which we can and must do ourselves. It is up to us to unleash the potential of our region and launch our place in a policy of "Seven Good Years", which is the policy of Joseph in Egypt.

But to achieve this we need to reduce the unjustifiable spending of the arms race. In the past ten years, 700 billion dollars have been invested in this region for the purchase of metal of anger, the arms do nothing but fear and destruction. Together, we ...