Well, this is the homestretch, ladies and gentlemen — the final installment of these notes from the World Economic Forum on the Middle East. We are in the southern tip of the Sinai Peninsula, at Sharm El Sheikh, in Egypt.

(Used to be Israeli, but that’s a “whole ’nother story,” as we said at home in Michigan — and I guess as we say all over.)

Those who need other parts of this journal can click these links: I, II, III, and IV.

One afternoon, there is a panel on Pakistan. In fact, it is “Eye on Pakistan” — and Pakistan is definitely a country to keep an eye on. It is one of the most critical, volatile, and consequential nations in the world. Some years ago, I suggested that the two hardest jobs in the world — not excluding president of the United States — were prime minister of Israel and president of Pakistan. I think I’m sticking to that.

Although it would be hard to wish the problems of the U.S. president on anyone.

Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, is not here in Sharm. He usually shows up in Davos — up in the Alps, at Annual Meeting time in January. But the new prime minister, Gilani, is here. I discussed him in Part I.

(Incidentally, that G that begins his name is hard — “Ghih-LAH-nee.”)

At Eye on Pakistan, the PM makes an opening statement, kind of an opening speech, or speechlet. He then leaves the panelizing to others — to three others.

One of them is Shamshad Akhtar, governor of the central bank. She is an economist of long experience, having worked and studied all over. She was once at the World Bank, and at Harvard. She is super-sharp, super-articulate — sort of from Central Casting.

Also on the panel is Zakir Mahmood. He’s had a big career, in banking — like Akhtar, studying and working all over the world. He has two degrees from UCLA. I tell him I have just been there, and what an enjoyable place it is. He says, “Yes, it’s hard to study there” — because there are so many wonderful distractions. He would not want his kids to go there, for example. But you can tell that he relished his own experience (or at least I think you can).

Mahmood is president and CEO of Habib Bank, which is the largest bank in Pakistan — private-sector bank — and has branches in 25 countries.

Akhtar and Mahmood are Pakistani. Our third panelist is an Egyptian businessman, and not just any businessman: He is Naguib O. Sawiris, who I’m given to understand is the biggest businessman in all of Egypt. He runs Orascom Telecom. Altogether, his services cover some 430 million people, which isn’t bad.

And he has plenty of experience in Pakistan, which is why he’s on this panel.

Sawiris looks like a businessman, carries himself that way. He is energetic, intense, charismatic, informal, canny, sort of impatient — a goer and a doer. You can perceive a buccaneering quality about him. No wonder he’s a success (although opportunity plays a role too, of course).

As moderator, I ask the panelists about political instability and economic health. Pakistan is an unusual combination: Politics has been turbulent, but the economy is steady, and growing. Can this last indefinitely? The consensus seems to be no: The political classes will have to get their acts together. But for now, Pakistan is prospering, even as it is rocked.

Slightly strange.

At some point in the proceedings, I ask Zakir Mahmood about Pakistani taxation: Is it at about the right level, or could it be lower? He says, “Oh, I’d love to see taxes lowered” — our kind of guy (I say to regular readers of this site).

Sawiris is our kind of guy too (as is Akhtar). He makes the point that when governments lower tax rates, they get more in revenue. He speaks the language of pure, truthful supply-side. I tell him he sounds like Reagan. He goes on to say that people cheat less when they think tax rates are fairer. They are more honest on their returns — and that, too, fills government coffers.

Sawiris tells the story about how he first went into Pakistan. He was told, in no uncertain terms, that he would never make a penny there. The government and the general environment would make it too hard for him. But it has not been hard for him, at all. He wishes Pakistan would loosen up in certain respects — but he tells the crowd there is money to be made there. It is an attractive market.

The Middle East, as you know, is a cellphone-happy region. (I’m not sure that Pakistan, a South Asian nation, is cellphone-happy, but I believe it is.) Cellphones are rife in the Middle East. Everyone has one, or six. And everyone texts like mad. This is the texting capital of the universe. But when, I ask Sawiris, will Middle Easterners get online? When will they e-mail, instead of text (or as well as text)?

He says the problem is affordability of laptops — they are too expensive right now. And the big companies should have a “social conscience” and lower their prices. These companies are making “horrendous profits,” he says.

I somehow doubt that Sawiris is a foe of “horrendous profits.”

The panel has a slightly unreal feel for me — because we are talking mainly economics, as though the focus were Switzerland or Sweden. Instead, we are talking about Pakistan, which, if you follow the news, seems constantly aflame. But most nations have more than one face, as we know.

And I will say this about the Pakistani officials I meet: They seem decent, sober, well-meaning types — the kind of people you want in positions of responsibility. Which, whatever we see on television, is reassuring.

‐Do you want to meet a really, really international man? Okay — I meet a young business whiz whose parents are from India. One is from the north, one is from the south. (Already unusual.) One is Christian, one is Muslim. (Extremely unusual.) How’d that go over with their families? “I have no relatives,” says our friend.

He grew up mainly in America, I gather — Washington, D.C. But he also lived in Saudi Arabia. He went to college and grad school in Maryland and Michigan. And he has worked in Denmark, Belgium, Ireland — he married a girl from Dublin. And they now live in Dubai (like everyone else).

Yes, Joe International — and there are scads of others like him (well, maybe not just like him).

#JAYBOOK#

‐The final morning of the conference includes an interesting session — featuring four mayors from Israel. Yes, mayors. I am not used to meeting or hearing such small fry (forgive me). And I suspect they will have unusual and worthwhile things to say.

The session is moderated by an Israeli journalist, Tallie Lipkin-Shahak, and she notes that these mayors aren’t “world figures” in the sense of playing upon the world stage. They are not on CNN. And “if you’re not on TV, you don’t exist.” (Oh, sing it, sister.) But she insists that these mayors are of highest importance. They are “change agents” in Israeli society, she says.

And, if I’ve heard her correctly, she also says that, in her view, the three most important issues are “education, education, and education.” This reminds me of Rossini’s three criteria for opera singing: “voice, voice, and voice.”

Lipkin-Shahak introduces the four mayors — all men — regretting that “there is not one lady among them.” But so what? We are talking about matters of war and peace, life and death. How can you think about “gender” at a time like this?

The answer is: Some people can think of it — along with race, and possibly class — all the time.

Meir Nitzan has been mayor of Rishon LeZion since 1983. (In other words, Meir’s the mayor.) He was born in Romania, was a “DP” (displaced person) in Cyprus, and made his way to Israel at 16. He became a brigadier general. He seems now an easygoing and affable pol.

There are so many stories like this: stories of Jews in the ghastly and remarkable 20th century.

The next mayor is Eli Moyal, from Sderot — that’s the city that gets hit all the time from Gaza, by Qassam rockets.

The third mayor is Shawki Khatib, of the Arab community of Yafiya. And the fourth is Zvika Cohen, of Elad, an “ultra-Orthodox” community, as Lipkin-Shahak says. It is also a new one. Mayor Cohen does not speak English, so needs translation into and from Hebrew.

We learn from the moderator that Cohen was once deputy mayor of Tiberius — and I think again how incredible it is to hear Biblical names in a modern context.

Mayor Nitzan says that his town, Rishon LeZion, was founded in 1882, by a group of pioneers from Eastern Europe. This was years before the start of the Zionist movement, he says.

He says that “both sides” — the Jews and the Arabs — have “matured” since 1948. But problems are still daunting, of course. He tells of Palestinian kids who came to Rishon LeZion, to get to know the other side a little bit. But they were very nervous on one score: There could be no evidence that they had ever been there, because, if extremists found out, it would be very bad for them.

Nitzan says that Israeli Arabs are perfectly welcome as Israelis. But they must “respect the flag and the anthem and obey our laws. They must be full citizens.” Mayor Khatib says that Israel makes that impossible. Nitzan says that, if Israeli Arabs are not full and equal citizens, it’s because they don’t want to be. Khatib says this is nonsense.

They are very far apart.

As it happens, Qassam rockets have hit the town of Sderot this very morning. Actually, that is a strange way to put it: Palestinian terrorists hit Sderot this morning, with Qassam rockets. And this is, of course, a regular happening.

Mayor Moyal says that, in recent times, his town has been hit by about 7,000 rockets. This has caused many dead and wounded. And “almost 100 percent of the people suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” Sderot is a half-mile from the Gaza Strip. They can see the rockets coming in. They wait for them.

Life is simply hell.

Moyal says that 80 to 85 percent of people in Sderot are for a two-state solution. “We know that a Palestinian state is in our future. We are practical, we are realistic. We know that the Palestinians will have an independent state, and we hope it’s a democratic one.”

He continues: “I did not believe in a separate state 15 years ago.” That is an interesting admission, I think. “But I’ve changed my mind. The question is, ‘Have our neighbors changed their minds? Are they willing to accept a two-state solution?’”

He talks about two “crucial moves”: Israel’s pullout from Lebanon in 2000, and its pullout from Gaza in 2005. And what resulted from those moves? “Do not blame war on us,” he says. And now, Israel is talking with Mahmoud Abbas about giving up 95 percent of the West Bank.

The moderator does not want Moyal to talk about big issues. She wants him to talk about little issues, local issues: education and the like. She wants to know his vision of Sderot 15 years from now.

I feel sorry for Moyal, in many ways. His vision should be, “To stay alive.” His city is under attack. What does he care about collecting taxes, sweeping the streets, and picking up the garbage when there are rockets falling? These are all secondary issues, at best.

He assures the audience that Sderot residents do not hate Arabs, do not hate Palestinians. There is laughing and tittering. He says, “No, no, it’s true. Our religion forbids such hatred.” I guess I am sympathetic to the laughers and titterers, for this reason, only: If the residents of Sderot are without hate, given what they are having to endure, they are super-human. And if they are, they’re models for us all.

When his turn comes, Mayor Khatib is keen for us to know that he is no Israeli: “I am a Palestinian Arab with an Israeli passport.” He goes through recent history — his version of it — saying that Jews are responsible for great dispossession and sorrow. I have a feeling he is doing what he thinks he must before this audience. I wonder how he talks back home, less fettered.

He complains about George Bush, saying that the president is completely one-sided: He cares only about Israel. But that is a slightly odd thing to say, seeing that Bush is the first president to call for an independent Palestinian state. That is the American position: two independent states, side by side.

And to be against Hamas: Isn’t that to be for Palestinians? It is, in my view.

About Sderot, Khatib says something interesting: He is against the bombing of those people — because the bombs “do not help, and they are not part of the Palestinian strategy.” I can’t help wondering, “What about the morality of it?”

Addressing a question to Mayor Cohen, the moderator says that his town is “homogeneous” — all ultra-Orthodox Jews. And the first thing he says, in response, is that Elad is not homogeneous: There are different types of people there, and new groups are coming in all the time. He lists them.

Translating, the moderator cheats, I believe, in that she adds commentary. She says that these are “minor differences” that would mean nothing to us, and mean nothing to her, for that matter. I’m sure this is true. But it strikes me as a little snarky. And then she mocks Cohen a bit about his “pluralistic” society.

In any event, 60 percent of people in Elad are under 18. Cohen says that, every school year, he has to open 90 new classrooms. And that is no small challenge. But, apparently, he does it.

I must say that I leave this session about 20 minutes before its scheduled end. I’ve had enough. And I think of something a veteran American journalist told me yesterday. He spent five years in Jerusalem. And, “after a while, you just get sick of the Arab-Israeli conflict.” I know what he means.

But the Jews and Arabs cannot get sick of it. Or rather, they can, but they have to live with it until it is resolved.

I’m told that, toward the end of the session, when it was the audience’s turn to question, fireworks erupted. I have missed them. Oh, well: There are always fireworks — and worse. (For a report from Bloomberg.com, go here.)

Later, in a lounge, I see Mayor Moyal of Sderot and chat with him. He talks about those Palestinians — those Gazans — living a half-mile from him. They have his cell number. (And here he taps his pocket.) And when the rockets fall, he says they call him and say, “Mayor, it’s not us. We’re not the ones doing it. It’s these few extremists, these bastards. There’s nothing we can do about them. If we speak out against them, they will kill us. But please: Know that it is not us. We want peace with you.”

True, true. But for how long can the “few” ride high? Indefinitely?

Friends, thank you for joining me for these Davos in the Desert notes — this exploration of the Middle East (and a bit beyond). I’ll see you soon, in this space or elsewhere.