Extract from: The Financial Times 11 December 2003
Geneva Initiative rekindles hopes for Road Map
From Mr Mohamed Bin Issa Al Jaber
Sir, I am an Arab businessman based in Europe and the Middle East. As an early supporter of the Road Map, I contributed to peace through the Olive Tree, a scholarship programme for Israeli and Palestinian students to study conflict resolution at City University in London.
Sadly, prospects for peace in the Middle East continue to be hijacked by governments and political officials who have their own agenda at odds with those of their peoples. Now, the launch of the Geneva Initiative provides a glimmer of hope.
The Geneva Initiative for Public Commitment is, as its title suggests, a political act of the people. Along with the Nusseibeh-Ayalon People's Initiative, Geneva represents the first time we have seen the people mobilising for peace against the opposition of the principal governments involved in the process.
When I came to the auditorium for the December 1 ceremony to launch the Geneva Initiative, I was struck by the absence of fellow Arab businessmen and citizens. I came to Geneva because I felt it was my duty to attend and represent the silent majority who could not express themselves in these public policy deliberations.
The Geneva Initiative's great substantive achievement is to make explicit the trade between Israel's return to the 1967 borders in return for the Palestinian de facto relinquishing of their right of return to homes within the pre-1967 borders of Israel. Tactically, this initiative helps to complete the Road Map by providing an opening to the final stage.
Once this final stage of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking is reached, the region needs to continue along a parallel road map for democracy and educational and political reform that will cement a permanent peace and usher in the long-awaited development of the Middle East.
I will not spare any effort in support of the Geneva Initiative and of the process of widespread regional reform that must be its natural conclusion.
M.B.I. Al Jaber