On
February 22, 2000, the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies organized
a one day conference on "Lebanon and the Middle East Peace Process",
at the Riviera Hotel in Beirut. The aim of the meeting was to examine,
in an informal and interactive format, the implications for Lebanon
of the current peace process under a variety of scenarios.
The conference brought together an invited group of over seventy current
and former government officials, policy advisers, experts, academics,
senior journalists and diplomats who had a wealth of experience and
an active interest in the matters of concerns and who contributed
to a substantial debate about the issues and policies at stake. The
Center invited also a group of distinguished experts from Europe,
the United States and the region to give introductory presentations
and to moderate the debate with the Lebanese participants.
The
conference addressed issues such as the prospects and challenges of
peace in the region, the negotiation issues and their implications
for Lebanon, the economic challenges of peace for Lebanon and the
region, the future of the Palestinian refugees, the Egyptian experience
with peace and the role of the United States and Europe in making
peace a reality.
As for any meeting discussing issues at the heart of a political process
fraught with difficulties and tensions and alternating between advances
and setbacks, the debates reflected to a certain extent the current
impasse of the negotiations, after the renewed hope of progress, at
the resumption of the Syrian-Israeli negotiations, in December of
1999.
In spite of that impasse, and while strongly reaffirming their belief
in the legitimate right of Lebanon to resist Israeli occupation and
to recuperate its occupied territories, the Lebanese participants
engaged into a rational, rich and forward-looking discussion of the
issues at stake for Lebanon in the peace process, and in the post-settlement
context. In this, they were faithful to the strategic choice for peace,
based on justice, international law, and United Nations resolutions
that Lebanon, Syria, and the Arab World committed to since the Madrid
conference of 1991.
Publication:
Lebanon and the Middle East Peace Process- Conference
Report, The Lebanese Center for Policy Studies Publishing, 2000
