CAIRO: Reaching sustainable peace in the Middle East would increase the average Egyptian household s annual income by $500, a recent report said.
Released in January the Cost of Conflict in the Middle East report also suggested that the Egyptian citizen would earn an average $3,000 a year, instead of the current $1,700, should peace be established in the region. The report was issued by the Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), an India-based think tank supported by the governments of Norway and Switzerland, AK Party of Turkey and Qatar Foundation, to make a comprehensive assessment of costs of various conflicts in the region and attempt to identify the advantages of peace.
The report uses the term peace in the sense of ‘War and Peace’ concept, which stresses not only a lack of aggression, but also cooperation and a mutually respectful, fair and dynamic relationship between the various parties in the region, Ilams Futehally, executive director of the SFG and co-author of the report said in an e-mail interview with Daily News Egypt.
The report however disregards the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, labeling it as a cold, because both countries are merely in a state of non-aggression.
The report measures costs starting 1991 up to 2010.
Since 1991, the report showed, the conflict cost the region and Egypt around $12,000 billion and $800 billion respectively. It suggests that Egypt s national income, as well as other Arab countries , would have doubled had there not been a conflict.
It proposes projects that could have materialized in the case of peace, namely an oil and gas pipeline connecting Port Said to Gaza and Lebanon, hypothetically earning Egypt around $1-2 billion per year.
It also addressed Egypt s dependence on other countries for basic resources.
For the Arab world, the conflict has resulted in over 5 million refugees and internally displaced people, the majority of which are hosted by Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, placing a heavy burden on their economies.
The Arab economic boycott of Israel has resulted in the loss of trade opportunities for both sides. Arab states lost an opportunity to export $10 billion worth of goods in this decade to Israel, said the report
It also found that the Gulf States and Iran together stand to lose $30 billion as the opportunity cost of not exporting oil to Israel in the second half of this decade.
Iraq would have earned four times its per capita income in 2010 – $9,600 without war instead of around $2,400. Lebanon would have also doubled its projected per capita income of $5,600 in 2010.
Family income in Jordan would increase by $1,250 and in Saudi Arabia by $5,000 a year.
The war in Iraq and those between Israel and Hezbollah have resulted in damage to water and sanitation networks. All countries in the region are operating below the threshold levels of water consumption and depend on desalination plants, the report stated.
It used 97 different parameters to measure costs in financial, economic, social, political, military, environmental, diplomatic terms for the entire region.
Data was presented in an unbiased and graphical format with very little editorial content, Futehally said.
Former ministers and heads of think tanks in the Middle East participated in two workshops held in Antalya and Zurich to provide research input and analysis on the subject.
The idea for the report was formulated during a meeting at the House of Lords in June 2007, and was a joint proposal from Ambassador Hesham Youssef, head of the office of the Secretary General of the Arab League, and Richard Kerr, who was a senior member in the former Republican Administration in the United States, Futehally said.
According to the report, costs for Palestinians were grave. Almost 5,000 Palestinians have been killed and over 10,000 imprisoned since 2000 in addition to the demolition of 2,000 houses in Gaza and the West Bank.
Poverty has increased from 23 percent in the mid-90s to 35 percent at present. Health services are stagnant.
For Israel, an average family would have increased its income by $4,429. Also, Israel would have almost doubled its per capita income without conflict at $44,000 instead of $23,000 in 2010.
Israeli tourism lost $15 billion of potential revenue from 2000 to 2006; and housing prices in areas affected by direct hostility have crashed.
The report then examined the effect of the conflict on education stating that almost 900 Palestinian children have lost their lives since 2000 in clashes, more than 3,000 Palestinian school children have been detained by the Israeli Defense Forces and more than 40 schools have been occupied since 2000.
In Iraq, the average monthly salary of school teachers declined from $500 to $100 in the pre-invasion period, and then further declined to between $5 and $40 after 2003. Almost 30-40 percent of students do not attend schools and colleges out of fear; and libraries containing millions of books have been destroyed.
The report suggested that a transition to peace and cooperation will create new sources of water, oil and natural gas for the entire region.
It will also result in the introduction of new railway tracks, airports and a peace canal. This will improve communication between societies, create new employment opportunities, attract investment, and release resources for education and other social needs.
A gas pipeline from Gaza to Israel to Lebanon, railway lines from Jordan and Syria to Haifa in Israel, Aqaba Eilat peace airport jointly managed by Israel and Jordan, and an air link between Gaza and Tel Aviv were some of the projects suggested by the report.
Joint tourism development of religious places by Israel and a future independent Palestinian State will lead to a tremendous increase in the number of tourists to both countries, the report said.
Recognizing that before such cooperation can take place there has to be a level of confidence between states, and to reach that level of confidence Israel must end all blockades and barriers, free all settlements in the West Bank, and hand over to Lebanon detailed maps of the locations of cluster bombs, Futehally said.
According to the report, the conflict left the Middle East the most militarized region in the world with seven out of 10 of the highest military spenders.
The Middle East also has the highest per capita ratio of armed personnel in the world with five to six million armed persons for its 300 million population.
The report is meant to be a tool for policymakers and opinion leaders in the Middle East who want to end the constant state of violent, insecure and unsustainable relationships between people, said Futehally.
Those who want to move towards a positive future can use the report to persuade their allies, enemies and public opinion to adopt their point of view, he added.
