The Economic Consequences of Peace in the Middle East

Abstract

In his Economic Consequences of the Peace, John Maynard Keynes wrote: The great events of history are often due secular changes in the growth of population and other fundamental economic causes, which, escaping by their gradual character the notice of contemporary observers, are attributed the follies of statesmen or the fanaticism of atheists. Keynes' brilliant polemic attacking the Versailles Treaty at the conclusion of the First World War has a haunting relevance the unfolding contemporary drama of the search for a peace settlement in the Middle East. Whereas the statesmen at Versailles presided over the restructuring of a destroyed Europe, the statesmen at Camp David have sought devise a compact designed avoid yet another round of destruction which could make even the devastation of the First World War seem pale. It was Keynes' conviction that the task of the Peace conference was to honor engagements and satisfy justice; but not less re-establish life and heal wounds. His focus therefore was the establishment of economic rewards that could facilitate and reinforce the dynamics of the peace process. subsequent hyperinflation in Germany, the eventual collapse of the world economic system during the Great Depression, and the final catastrophe of the Second World War, attest the failure of these efforts. It was not until the creation of the enlightened Marshall Plan that the nations of