Impact of the current global revolution in communication systems and networks on the social and economic lives in the Middle East

We have demonstrated, in this paper, the potential of the knowledge-based society, opportunities, challenges and risks. It was noted, that there are many open issues, which need to be well evaluated in order to select the appropriate option for our region. Special emphasis, should be given to improve the infrastructure of the Internet backbone to be able to cope with the growing demand for high capacity transmission. Open issues on content, intellectual property rights (IPR) and privacy should seriously be debated and appropriate legislation should be issued. It is to be noted that the Arab world, could not afford to miss the present opportunities and that all effort should be directed to take advantage on the regional and international level of the current IT achievements