HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025078.jpg

quite materialized yet (although the
developers have a slight head start:
between 200 and 300 call center-type jobs
currently based in Ramallah are scheduled
to move into Rawabi when the first phase
of construction is complete). If the political
or security situation seriously deteriorates -
- if the checkpoints return, if the Israelis are
forced to re-occupy urban areas ceded to
the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo
Accords, as happened during the Second
Intifada; if Hamas wages a violent takeover
of the Palestinian government -- all bets are
off. The developers don't seem to be
bothered by those possibilities right now.
At the showroom, built at the very top of
the hill, the future is nothing but bright.
I chatted with another site engineer as we
walked through a scale-model mock-up of
a typical Rawabian street, where happy
families in western dress waved from little
video screens inset in plastic apartment
windows. I asked her about the Qatari flags
I had seen around the construction site.
Qatar's state investment fund is footing two
thirds of the nearly $1 billion project bill,
she said. "This is the biggest investment in
the history of Palestine," she explained as
we stepped over a fake valley in the next
room, walking past a mock-up of a
stunning hilltop view contained inside a
mock-up of a future apartment suite. The
Rawabians will apparently own large flat-
screen TVs and stylish coffee tables, and

HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025078