First planned Palestinian city a symbol of pride, but delayed by wrangling over access road

• published: 31 Jul 2015
• views: 6

A state-of-the art Palestinian city with residential towers, a mall and a convention centre is rapidly going up on once desolate West Bank hills and turning into a symbol of national pride. But the West Bank's largest private investment project, totalling more than 1 (b) billion US dollars, has also suffered costly delays because of wrangling with Israel over an access road that still lacks final approval. "We've been five years waiting for a reasonable access road; we've got a small part of the road and a temporary approval, not a permanent approval," explained Palestinian-American developer Bashar Masri. "Although a city requires several roads." Rawabi's bumpy history illustrates the constraints of doing business under occupation, Masri said. It's the first new Palestinian city to be built since Israel captured the West Bank in 1967. But the project is about much more then real estate, Masri said. "It's a message to our people that we can also put facts on the ground," he said, using a phrase associated with Israel's settlement construction on lands the Palestinians want for a future state. "It's a statement for ourselves that we can build a state, we can build a city, we can do large projects, we can create the pillars of the state. (The) economy is part of the pillars of the state; better standards of living is part of the pillars of the state," he added. It's a harbinger of challenges US Secretary of State John Kerry likely will face as he promotes a three-year plan for even more ambitious economic projects in the Palestinian territories, particularly in areas where Israel has restricted Palestinian development in the past. The plan is meant to transform a sluggish Palestinian economy held back by Israeli constraints on access and movement, as Israelis and Palestinians negotiate the terms of Palestinian statehood. But progress on the economic track is unlikely without a breakthrough in the talks, which are stuck after four months. Kerry was back in the region last week to try to break the impasse, but the two sides remain far apart. Rawabi - Arabic for hills - offers a glimpse of what could be if statehood talks succeed. The city looks like the large urban Israeli settlements in the West Bank with neat rows of apartment buildings and will have amenities unheard of in Palestinian towns, at least in such a concentration. Those include an open-air shopping mall, a convention centre, restaurants, three movie theatres, a gym, a five-star hotel, a science museum, a medical complex, an amphitheatre seating 5-thousand and a football stadium. It's the first Palestinian city built according to a master plan, in contrast to the crowded and often chaotic West Bank towns and refugee camps. The Palestinians have lived for the most part under someone else's rule, with limited local authority that didn't allow for large-scale urban design. Construction in Rawabi began in 2011, with 5-thousand labourers working in two shifts. Eventually, Rawabi is to have 30-thousand residents in 6-thousand apartments and homes. Construction worker Ahmed Abu Odeh said he hoped to one day buy an apartment in the new city. "I am a resident of Al-Amari refugee camp. It's a crowded place with a big population and there are no services there. I started working in Rawabi a year and a half ago. It is a nice city and there is a municipality and services here, everything," he said. "If I have enough money I would like to buy an apartment here for me or for my son." Apartments in two of 23 neighbourhoods and parts of the town centre have been completed, and the first tenants are to move in by May. The World Bank has said that less than 1 percent of Area C is open for Palestinian use. You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/827315306d384d0355b0828232a8c588 Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork