S\u00e3o Paulo \u2013 The dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors to Brazil, Ramez Goussous, who is the ambassador of Jordan to Bras\u00edlia, said on Monday evening (19), during a talk to students at Armando \u00c1lvares Penteado Foundation (Faap), in S\u00e3o Paulo, that the global economic crisis triggered the so-called \u201cArab Spring\u201d, a series of uprisings that spread throughout the Middle East and North Africa this year and that has already resulted in the ousting of the regimes running Tunisia, Egypt and Libya.<\/p>\n
To him, the frustration of the populations of these countries in the economic area caused a \u201cpolitical awakening\u201d. \u201cPoverty is greater due to conflict,\u201d said the ambassador to an audience of Foreign Relations and Economics students.<\/p>\n
According to the diplomat, for some time in the Arab world there has been a debate about political and economic reforms, and he recognized that some of the countries in the region lived many years under dictatorial regimes, but that changes into democratic systems do not change from \u201cnight to day\u201d. \u201cReforms are required for a better future,\u201d he pointed out.<\/p>\n
Goussous added that such reforms should fulfil the desires of the populations for tolerance, law, plural governments, income distribution and education. He said that his country, Jordan, has been trying to progress in the area.<\/p>\n
And in his evaluation, decision makers must eye the future and forget the conflicts of the past, so that the youths of today do not have to face the same problems as their parents and grandparents.<\/p>\n
In this respect, the ambassador said that the \u201cArab Spring\u201d opens an opportunity for resolution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. He pointed out that throughout the process it was always the political leaders who spoke, but now the people are speaking. As an example, he mentioned the recent protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Cairo, which resulted in the Israeli ambassador to Egypt leaving the country.<\/p>\n
To Goussous, the impasse between Israelis and Palestinians is frustrating. \u201cEach day wasted is a day lost to violence,\u201d he said, recalling that the theme has been at the top of the international agenda for decades. On Friday, the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, should present a request for recognition of the Palestinian State by the United Nations (UN).<\/p>\n
He defended the peace proposal approved by the Summit of the Arab League, in 2002, in Beirut, Lebanon, the official position of the Arab countries for resolution of the conflict, forecasting the establishment of a Palestinian State according to the 1967 borders, that is, prior to the Six Day war, when Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Eastern Jerusalem. The ambassador pointed out that if Israel accepted the agreement, the country would be recognised and it could establish relations with 57 Arab and Muslim nations.<\/p>\n
The diplomat also discussed the situation in other countries in the region. He recalled that the Arab League has recognised the National Transitional Council (NTC) of Libya as the Libyan representative and hopes that the people of Libya may progress towards development with the help of the UN and of other Arab nations.<\/p>\n
In the case of Syria, Goussous defended \u201cnational reconciliation\u201d as a way to find an end to the conflict between government and opposition.<\/p>\n
To him, the process for reform and transition in the Arab countries that are living protests must be developed \u201cin the correct manner\u201d so that radicals do not make use of the institutional vacuum to take over power.<\/p>\n
When asked by a student, he criticised the political ambiguity of Iran, which applauds the revolutions on the one hand and supports authoritarian regimes on the other. \u201cIran needs greater transparency, greater sincerity. Peace in the Middle East would be good for all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The debate included Faap professors Marcus Vin\u00edcius de Freitas, of Law and International Relations, and Jos\u00e9 Alexandre Hage, of Brazilian Foreign Policy. The audience included ambassadors Bachar Yaghi, of the Arab League, and Ibrahim Alzeben, of Palestine, as well as the CEO at the Arab Brazilian Chamber of Commerce<\/b>, Michel Alaby, and director Mustaf\u00e1 Abdouni, who is the honorary consul of Jordan to S\u00e3o Paulo.<\/p>\n
*Translated by Mark Ament<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
To the dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors to Brazil, Ramez Goussous, frustration in the economic area triggered a \u2018political awakening’ in the region. He gave a talk to students at Faap college.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1454,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-foreign-affairs"},"wps_subtitle":"To the dean of the Council of Arab Ambassadors to Brazil, Ramez Goussous, frustration in the economic area triggered a \u2018political awakening' in the region. He gave a talk to students at Faap college.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1454"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39333\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anba.com.br\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}