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"This place is influenced by Reston, Virginia," he said -- Masri is a Virginia Tech alumnus, and had lived in the Washington, DC area earlier in life. It was, he said, influenced by planned suburbs outside of Cairo. "And it's influenced by Modi'in," he added, explaining that the site's engineers and designers (who were entirely Palestinian, we had been told earlier), had traveled to the Israeli city, which is built around similar topography, for inspiration.
Palestinians have long understood that a western-style standard of living was possible in their part of the world. They knew that places like Rawabi already existed minutes from their own homes, but didn't think that the quality of life epitomized by hilltop settlements and cities in Israel -- places they weren't allowed to visit without an official permit from the military -- was accessible to them.
During our phone interview, Masri talked about the astonishment that Palestinians feel when they visit the construction site. "When [Palestinians] come to Rawabi, and they go through the showroom and they see what we have planned for them, and they see it actually being built, they say, 'Wow, this can't be for us. This is not for us. This is too high of a standard for us because we are supposed to live miserably under the occupation'. Then they come to the other

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