Hopes high of a breakthrough at last in long impasse

A funny thing happened on the way to the World Economic Forum yesterday. I bumped into John McCain.
The former contender for the US presidency and senator for Arizona was striding in to the convention centre where the Middle East gathering is taking place in Jordan's Dead Sea resort.
He was about to give what turned out to be a pretty bellicose speech on Syria, but his arrival at the resort sparked further chatter about the issue that has emerged here as "the big one". "So will this thing happen? If he's [McCain] here it looks like it just might," drawled an American accent behind me in the queue.
Never mind that he was always on the guest list anyway, Mr McCain's presence was enough to lift already fierce speculation.
Is there a big announcement coming on the Middle East's most intractable problem, the decades-long conflict between Palestine and Israel?
The signs are that some announcement is on the cards at a special late session this afternoon, entitled "Breaking the impasse".
The session will be attended by Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Shimon Peres, the president of Israel, and John Kerry, the US secretary of state. It will be chaired by the WEF supremo and founder, Klaus Schwab.
At yesterday's opening ceremony Mr Schwab gave a tease that indeed "the big one" was on the cards. "We will unveil the results of the past year's work towards peace alongside John Kerry," he proclaimed, without further detail.
What appears to be going on is an effort to revive the political dimension to the peace talks via a business initiative involving leading Israeli and Arab entrepreneurs.
Two important business figures in the region, Yossi Vardi, one of the founders of Israel's booming hi-tech industry, and Munib Masri, the billionaire chairman of the Palestine Development and Investment Authority, are said to be backing the plan; a further 200-plus business figures, it is said, are waiting to be shipped into the resort today to sign up.
With the blessing of the Americans (via Mr Kerry) and the endorsement of the WEF, the plan stands a reasonable chance of success, forum sources believe.
But after many false dawns, there is inevitable scepticism on the part of others. "If we want to do business with Israel, we should just do business. Why would the politicians get involved in that?" asked one Arab executive.
There was also speculation that the WEF was hijacking the peace initiative for its own aggrandisement. "They [WEF] want to formalise it and make it official. It doesn't have to be like that," said a UAE-based executive apparently involved in the talks.
The feeling at the forum is that it's worth backing, in the absence of anything better.
There is even speculation that the WEF, or Mr Schwab, might just be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize, if it succeeds.
 
fkane@thenational.ae