• by IPS Correspondents (jerusalem)
• Monday, December 19, 1994
• Inter Press Service

JERUSALEM, Dic 19 (IPS) - The world may be watching the tense atmosphere in Gaza and the apparent impasse at the negotiating table regarding Israeli re-deployment in the West Bank -- but for Palestinian businessman Hani Abu Dayyeh, it's business as usual.

Abu Dayyeh and several leading Palestinian businessmen from the West Bank, Gaza, and overseas have four companies in the making that will build a holiday village on a Gaza beach, a hotel in Bethlehem and factories and housing projects in several locations that have yet to be decided.

For them, the ups and downs of the peace process and the politics of Gaza -- short of all-out civil war between the Palestinian Authority and the opposition -- will not stand in the way of those plans.

"There's nothing to hold us back right now," said Abu Dayyeh. "We worry, but, look, we invested under the occupation, why wouldn't we invest under the Palestinian Authority."

Optimism toward investing in the West Bank and Gaza was at an all- time high after the peace agreement outlining Palestinian self- rule there was ushered in at the White House in Washington over one year ago.

But since that time, the slow pace of getting foreign aid money flowing into the Palestinian government coupled with rising tension between the Palestinian government has dampened those initial hopes.

There has also been the rising tension with the Muslim fundamentalist opposition which culminated in a bloody confrontation last month between the Palestinian police and civilians that left 14 dead and hundreds wounded.

But Palestinians say they are determined to plug ahead anyway and they are expecting their risky decision to yield results.

"High risk, high returns -- everyone knows that," said Abu Dayyeh. "The people who get in at the ground level and get a footing will do very well for themselves."

"There are possibilities here," Dayyeh said. "We don't expect things to unravel to the point of a civil war because Palestinians are aware that that would not be good for either side. We invested during the intifada so there is a tolerable level of violence under which we will invest."

© Inter Press Service (2014) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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