‘No economic peace’ without Palestinian indepedence

The octogenarian also helped to launch the Breaking the Impasse initiative in 2012, which brought together Palestinian and Israeli businessmen and women to discuss political issues in an open forum.

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Munib Al Masri, the chairman of the Palestinian Development and Investment Company (Padico), says that there should be no business links or deals between Israeli and Palestinian companies until Palestine has its own state.

Mr Al Masri, who amassed his fortune as founder of the Engineering and Development Group (Edgo) and is one of Palestine’s richest men, says he has no place for economic peace with Israel.

The businessmen also threw his weight behind the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement which is gaining traction in the United States and Europe.

“As long as you occupy me, I cannot do business with you. We need a state of our own – and after our independence we can do a lot of things together. But I have no place for economic peace. No economic cooperation at all,” he said.

Despite the debilitating effects of Isreal’s occupation, Padico has been able to pay a 5 to 6 per cent dividend every year since inception and Mr Al Masri revealed that this summer the company would be looking to build an investment fund to attract foreign capital to Palestine.

The octogenarian also helped to launch the Breaking the Impasse initiative in 2012, which brought together Palestinian and Israeli businessmen and women to discuss political issues in an open forum.

He says that BTI’s next goal is to secure independence for Palestine, something which he believes is in Israel’s own interest.

“A year and a half ago (BTI) met in Istanbul we were ten people, now we are 400 people in Israel – accounting for 27 per cent of Israeli GDP and 35 per cent in Palestine. Now we are saying that the time is now to give Palestine its independence,” he said.

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