Valdai Club

Every crisis carries with it an opportunity for a solution. This current US crisis in managing the world we live in today, with the chaos it has generated in Europe and the Middle East, has presented a clear opportunity. This opportunity has manifested in the distancing of all the main forces from US dominance and the emergence of a new trend to reshape their regional system in a more independent and balanced way.

The world is in perpetual movement, and societies are continuously changing and developing without regard for the rules of history and geography. Indeed, history is no longer inspiring, geography is no longer binding, social and collective behavior no longer follows specific values and concepts. On the contrary, it is more liberal and chaotic, while relations between States are no longer governed by red tape and moral etiquette, but are driven by selfish interests and objectives, writes Amal Abou Zeid, Adviser to the President of Lebanon, for the 19th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club.

There are few regions on Earth, unanimously, considered and realized by the population of the planet as a strategic area. The Gulf is one of those regions, if not the oldest and most prominent.

After about three months of crisis, Lebanon has a new government, a technocratic new cabinet of ministers, as called for by the demonstrators on the streets.

On March 25-26, Lebanese President Michel Aoun paid his first official visit to Moscow in order to discuss the relations between the countries and the situation in the Middle East. Recently, another thing happened that could aggravate it: the United States recognised the disputed Golan Heights as Israel’s territory. valdaiclub.com spoke in an interview with Amal Abou Zeid, a former Lebanese member of parliament, about these and other issues.

In the absence of any political change or agreement, Syria is unlikely to witness large-scale funding given the abstention of most donor countries from allocating the amounts needed to launch the reconstruction. Therefore, it would be preferable to adopt a smaller-scale, yet more realistic and efficient policy by encouraging the creation of specialized funds for specific sectors and activities, focusing mainly on agriculture, manufacturing and construction at the expense of tourism.

The Arab-Israeli conflict is a protracted conflict that is unfolding for more than a century. All attempts to bring a peaceful solution of the conflict failed. The so-called Arab Spring, as well as fighting terrorism have moved the Arab-Israeli conflict to the sideline of international attention both regionally and internationally. Nevertheless, the Arab-Israeli conflict remains a major source of potential violence in the Middle East.