Brr! The Middle East in Davos

As the sun set on second day of the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, chatter was abuzz at the?Swiss event that manages to wrangle business leaders and heads of states alike in one tiny Alpine village. While the main headlines centered on US national security adviser Jake Sullivan's?remarks on the shipping attacks by Houthi rebels in the Red Sea, sideline panels showed the mood of other Middle East heavyweights.?

Political leaders who ascended into the town wasted no time in addressing the conflict in the Middle East —? Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, called for the peace process to be “time bound,” locking negotiators into a deadline to achieve a two-state solution. Ending the day, Jordanian Prime Minister Bisher Hani Al Khasawneh said that a displacement of Palestinians would be an “existential” threat.?

The uptick in attacks on ships in the Red Sea by the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen is “a crisis the whole world needs to respond to,” Sullivan declared Tuesday, Al-Monitor's Chief Business Correspondent Jack Dutton reported from Davos, Switzerland.

Meanwhile, on another panel, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan also said his country could diplomatically recognize Israel if the Palestinian issue was resolved.?

Global differences played out at Securing an Insecure World, a session that brought together diplomatic A-listers. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock turned to her counterpart, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal, saying, “Where we might disagree, there has to be a call from the whole international community that Hamas must lay down its weapons,” to get the world out of “this vicious circle.” ?

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Let’s keep this strictly business?

Political leaders tapped into what they know best, while other panels Tuesday saw the finance-minded teetering away from mentioning it altogether. Bahraini Minister of Finance and National Economy Salman Al Khalifa said that he will “not comment on politics” at a panel titled?Gulf Economies: All In, despite geopolitical watchers who may be curious as to why Bahrain was the only Middle East country supporting the US-UK strikes.?

Instead panelists such as Henadi Al Saleh, chair of the board of directors of supply chain giant Agility, focused on women’s participation growth in the workforce at?Gulf Economies,?but said that the geopolitics in the region “obviously gets them a little nervous.”??

Others offered their take on financial implications, with Qatar's finance minister saying that from an economics perspective for the Gulf in 2024, “things look good,” nodding to decreasing interest rates as inflation tampers down.?

Al Khalifa touted the adoption of artificial intelligence in 2024, dubbing it as consequential as the “industrial revolution,” a topic becoming a neutral alternative to other Middle East happenings and one where he found a friend in UAE AI Minister Omar Al Olama, who spoke on the matter earlier in the morning at the World Economic Forum.?

Emirati businessman Majid Jafar, the CEO of Crescent Petroleum, said he has his eyes on the Chinese economy in 2024, stating that what happens with it has “global ramifications.” Al-Monitor has not reached out for comment on if he is a reader of Joyce Karam’s China-Middle East Briefing, but perhaps clever marketers would advise we provide?a sign up link.?

A few hours later, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan kept dialogue strictly money-related at a session titled?Regulating Non-Banks, also leaving any mention of his country's January 2024 deadline for companies to?move headquarters to Riyadh by the wayside. His colleague, Saudi Commerce Minister Majid Al-Kasabi, outlined the kingdom’s Vision 2030 strategy, saying that three ministries and over 30 government entities have been created and legal reorganizing was done to make the country “business friendly.”?

European-American approach to the Middle East?

Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said that a number of European countries, Arab nations and the United States are working on a concept for a unified Palestine to attract reconstruction funds, saying that “prefacing everything, it has to be what the Palestinians want.”?

While Eide didn’t name specific countries, American-European messaging has been closely aligned in the midst of the Israel-Hamas conflict, with Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands?supporting the US-UK strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen last Thursday.?

Some European countries remain divided, with Spain’s foreign minister being?critical of Israel’s?tactics and Ireland's Prime Minister Leo Varadkar?saying Israel’s approach was going beyond self-defense and into “revenge,”?showing a lack of unity among members of EU President’s Ursula Von Der Leyen and EU High Representative Josep Borrell’s Brussels commission.?

On the sidelines

On the sidelines, Al-Monitor spoke with Morocco’s Leila Benali, Minister of Energy Transition and Sustainable Development, whose economy might be at the forefront of hydrogen revolution, sinking a whopping $7 billion into the domestic production of green ammonia. Stay tuned tomorrow morning for the interview.?

— Kristen Talman