ABSTRACT
A recent proliferation of attempts to promote economic cooperation in the Middle East has occurred partly as a means of achieving economic development and stability but mostly in order to promote peaceful relations within the region. The assumption is that economic cooperation can contribute to a peaceful settlement and normalization of relations between Israel and the Arabs and within the region at large. Many conferences have been conducted and numerous publications have been produced or planned by academic, semi-academic, and political institutions to deal with this topic. The most recent and probably most comprehensive effort, definitely political in nature, is the Multilateral Conference, which has been designated as the third level of the Middle East peace process. The first session of the Multilateral Conference, attended by 26 nations, was held in Moscow on the 28th of January 1992. It has subsequently branched out into five separate topical conferences as on-going undertakings (to which this forum is dedicated).
