Louis J Sheehan 80031

A man for all factions


The billionaire businessman Munib al-Masri is being touted as the man to lead the Palestinian Authority out of crisis. Conal Urquhart talks to him

Conal Urquhart in Nablus
Friday November 10, 2006
Guardian Unlimited


Palestinian billionaire Munib al-Masri. Photograph: Jamal Aruri

When he arrived in New York for the first time, he asked a taxi driver to take him to Texas. Munib al-Masri can laugh at his naivety now as he sits in his Italianate palace, surrounded by his collection of artifacts, which includes works by Picasso and Modigliani.
Mr Masri's journey began in the old city of Nablus and took him to the University of Texas where he studied geology. When he returned to the Middle East, he founded an oil services company, which now has offices in more than 20 countries. Now at 72, he devotes much of his time to developing the Palestinian economy and preparing its government for independence.

Yasser Arafat asked him to be prime minister three times and he declined. Now once more, the billionaire Palestinian businessman is one of the names being touted as the man to lead the Palestinian Authority out of crisis. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, has been seeking for months to form a new government that will be acceptable to the international community, which will be able to trigger the international donations that the PA needs to pay its employees and rescue the economy.

Hamas, currently in control of the government, accepts the need for a new government but has not been able to agree with Mr Abbas' Fatah faction as to what form it should take. Mr Masri is pushing for a short-term technocratic government to bypass international sanctions while the politicians decide what they want to do.

According to Mr Masri, the interim period of a year would allow Hamas, Fatah and the international community to hammer out an agreement on a unity government without the Palestinian people continuing to suffer because of political indecision. Unlike the Hamas government, the technocratic government would have no difficulty recognising Israel.

He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement from its inception and was a close friend of Arafat all his political life and a constant companion in his last days. For a brief period, he was minister for public works in Jordan.

"Arafat asked me three times to be his prime minister but he didn't understand management so I declined. Now I am pushing for a young government," he said. He is reluctant to be drawn on the post of prime minister. "I am happy to be a consultant," he said. The new government should have seven to 10 ministers and would prioritise law and order. "If the situation gets calmer then the wheel of development can begin to turn. The emigration of the talented will stop, poverty will fall and we can get unemployment down to a reasonable level," he said.

He believes Palestinian disunity is damaging the cause for independence. "Our internal problems make people forget the biggest issue, the occupation and state terror that accompanies it. They are trying to turn our serious and legitimate cause into a humanitarian case. We have a hell of a cause, to exist as an independent state but now they are sending us food supplies as if we were Somalia. That's why we need to get our act together," he said.

Mr Masri has already made a strong personal impact on the West Bank and Gaza. Following the creation of the PA, he led thousands of expatriate Palestinians home with their foreign-made fortunes to invest in what he hoped would become an independent Palestine.

"In the first years of the peace process there was a tremendous euphoria here. People from the diaspora returned with lots of money. We were determined to set up new industries, not competing with existing ones, such as telecoms, tourism and industrial estates. We thought development would work hand in hand with the peace process. We also thought that the Israelis had the same hope in their hearts but that did not prove to be the case," he said.

As disappointment turned to uprising, Mr Masri increased his investment in his homeland. In his birthplace of Nablus, he started work on the most spectacular house in the region, a university faculty and a pediatric ward, employing 500 people in construction. His house was built 300 metres above his former home in the kasbah on Mount Gezirim and like hundreds of other Nablus homes it was occupied by Israeli soldiers.

In an echo of Israeli settlers, he emphasised the need to build and develop as a political statement. "Where the Israelis destroyed one olive tree, I plant 100. Where they destroy I create," he said.

The home which Mr Masri calls the House of Palestine is now finished. It is based on an Italian palazzo in Vincenza and in the garden is a summer house that Napoleon had built for Josephine, which was imported along with most of the building materials from France. In the basement are the preserved mosaics of a Byzantine church, which were discovered during construction.

The juxtaposition of wealth on the hill and poverty in the valley could not be stronger but it is a gap that Mr Masri works very hard to bridge. In addition to the large projects he has funded, he is also the patron for a charity that provides for the needs of people whose lives are damaged by Israeli incursions and funds reconstruction of damaged buildings.

Mr Masri has been criticised for being part of a group of businesses and businessmen that has a dominating position in the Palestinian economy but it is clear that his interest in investing in his homeland is more emotional and political than financial. One of the companies in which he is a major investor is building a luxury hotel in the Gaza Strip, a project which requires a great deal of optimism, given the violence, crowding and pollution that is currently prevalent.

Mr Masri said he now spends more than half his time in Nablus and he plans to build a college on his 70-acre estate. His aim is to invite professors from all over the world to the West Bank to teach Palestinians how to run a democracy and an independent state. Louis J Sheehan