WEF denies snubbing Arafat

Last year's WEF summit was a high moment for the now isolated Yasser Arafat (second from left) Keystone Archive

For the first time in nine years, the World Economic Forum (WEF) has not invited the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, to its annual gathering.

Explaining the decision to the Wall Street Journal, the president of the forum, Klaus Schwab, said: “at the present moment it is very important to de-emphasise the role of specific individual persons”.

However, WEF Director, André Schneider denied the decision was a snub to Arafat.

He told swissinfo that both Arafat and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, had been sent invitations to Davos 2002 before the September 11 attacks.

He added that because of the situation in the Middle East, Sharon decided not to travel to New York. It was then decided jointly with the Palestinians that Arafat would not represent them at the summit, which kicks off on Thursday.

“We place great emphasis on having an equal representation of the Israelis and Palestinians,” Schneider said.

House arrest

Whether Arafat would have been able to come is an open question. For several weeks, the Israeli army has effectively been keeping him under house arrest in his compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

For the first time in the forum’s 30-year history, its annual summit is being held in New York. The decision to move it from its traditional location in the Swiss resort of Davos was taken partly because of security fears in Davos, but mainly out of solidarity with the US city following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11.

The forum is the first major gathering of global economic leaders since the September 11 attacks and organisers are billing it as an opportunity to conduct “a dialogue among civilisations”.

Clash of civilisations

Schwab said he made a special effort this year to invite several religious leaders and experts on clashing civilisations to examine Islam’s relationship with the West. However, despite the fact that he has been a regular at the forum since 1993, Arafat was not among them.

At last year’s forum, which took place shortly before the Israeli elections, Arafat made an impassioned anti-Israeli speech, with the current Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, in the audience.

The Wall Street Journal said the conference organisers feared that Arafat’s presence in New York could spark big street protests. Schneider denied that the forum organisers had come under pressure from the Americans, though he did say that “we did not want to overrule our hosts”.

Tomorrow’s leaders

The WEF has invited Ahmad Qurei, alias Abu Ala, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, to New York, along with some 40 other Arab figures – people Schwab describes as “Arab leaders of tomorrow”.

However, the Palestinian Authority’s chief representative in New York, Hasan Rahman, said the WEF’s decision to exclude Arafat was “unfortunate”, adding that WEF invitations “should not be motivated by Israeli-Palestinian politics”. He was quoted as saying he doubted whether Qurei would attend.

Schneider said that as far as he knew, Qurei would be in New York for the forum.

by Roy Probert