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ANALYSIS: DAILY LIFE IN ISRAEL AND THE PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES
 Living in Israel & the Palestinian Territories
NEAL CONAN, host:
This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
It's less than two weeks since Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and President George W. Bush met in Aqaba, and already the road map for peace in the Middle East has taken a couple of dangerous detours. Almost 60 people died in violence last week, but after a couple of days of relative calm, both sides seem to be creeping back from the precipice. With the help of Egyptian and American diplomats, talks are under way on an Israeli withdrawal from a part of Gaza. As very recent events have shown, it's much too early for optimism, but perhaps it's possible to justify somewhat less pessimism. And whether negotiations or atrocities are in the headlines, millions of ordinary people living in Israel and the Palestinian territories have to go on with their daily lives. Later in this program we'll talk about the demonstrations against the government in Iran and your letters on civilian casualties in Iraq, local delicacies and the weather.
But first, daily life in the Middle East. We're going to check in with a few people we've spoken with in the past, Israelis and Palestinians. Are they still able to go to work? Are they going out for dinner or to the movies? How do they go about their shopping? Can kids go out and play? Are they scared, angry, disappointed? If you have friends or relatives who live there, we'd like to hear how they're getting on. Our telephone number in Washington is (800) 989-8255. That's (800) 989-TALK. And the e-mail address is totn@npr.org.
Joining us now from Ramallah in the West Bank is Saed Saifey, a Palestinian working in Ramallah. He's a software engineer at an Internet company called Palnet. And, Saed, welcome back to the program.
Mr. SAED SAIFEY (Palnet): Yes. Hi. Good afternoon.
CONAN: We spoke with you last in December. At the time, you said things had gotten slightly better in Ramallah, where you live and work, that you were no longer under 24-hour siege. A lot's happened in the last six months. What's life like for you now?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yes. Actually, nothing has changed a lot since six months when we last talked together. But still, I mean, things have not settled down yet. The siege is still there. I mean, the siege has been there since more than six months. We can't get in and out from Ramallah freely. We have to stand in lines. I mean, actually, right now, it's funny, because you have to stand in three lines, depending on your ID color, you know, ID number. It's either red or green or blue. And it's somehow humiliating to get in or out from Ramallah because they have to check you in a way that will let you wait for a long time. But actually, inside Ramallah, once you get inside Ramallah, it's almost OK during the day. But still, the tense is there. You will always be expecting something to happen, a sudden curfew or an incursion or, you know, anything that will, you know, just be abnormal there.
CONAN: What are those color codings you were talking about for the passes as you go through the checkpoints?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yes. I...
CONAN: What do they mean?
Mr. SAIFEY: Exactly. It actually depends on the area where you are living. For example, people living in Jerusalem, they have blue ID, which is almost like an Israeli ID. And people living inside the West Bank, they have two colors, the red one and the green one. The red one was back when Israelis were there and the green one is the new one since--that was issued by the Palestinian Authority after the peace agreement in Oslo. So you have to stand in a line depending on the color of your ID because you will have a different treatment and different measures for checking you. And actually, even when you get out from the checkpoint, that if you have a permit actually, you're not allowed to get in the checkpoint unless you have a permit from the Israelis or from the Israeli authorities.
But once you get out from that checkpoint, say, for example, you're going from Ramallah to Jerusalem, which is like just 15 kilometers away, then you have to be standing in the line--even sometimes I saw people holding their IDs for taxi drivers to know which one, you know, to take because sometimes if you are moving in Jerusalem with a red ID and you don't have the right permission, the taxi driver has to pay a fine which is about 3,000 US dollars. So sometimes, you know, the taxi driver will just check your ID himself.
CONAN: Now how did you feel after the announcement that both sides had accepted the road map for peace and then the idea of the--it was not the idea; the actual event of the summit meeting in Aqaba, Jordan?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yeah.
CONAN: Did that change things for you at all?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yeah. Actually, it was, you know, a skeptic, you know, optimism. We've been through this before. I mean, since the first three years, there was so many trials for this, and there was periods of calm almost more than 40 days, but actually, something will happen wrong after that time, and usually, it is some Israeli provocation, like killing or assassinating someone. I was optimistic for a while, and I was thinking that--you know, I was hoping that this time, the United States is serious, just like they did after the first Gulf War, and they want to do something in the region, which, you know, if we go back to 1991, there was the peace agreement, the Oslo agreement, and we had some sort of a solution that lasted for like about five years. So we were optimistic about this, but it didn't last long actually. It took just like three days for Israel to target one of the leaders of Hamas organization and everything started to go bad again.
CONAN: What is it like to live in Ramallah amidst all of this? I mean, do you have a social life? Do you go out with your friends to dinner, to the movies?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yes, definitely. We're trying to move on with our lives, although it's not that good. I mean, in a city like Ramallah, which is a very small city--like I think the population of Ramallah is less than 100,000 people--and the city, the geographical location of the city, it's less than 15 kilometers in diameter, so it's just a small city. There's not much places to go there, but sometimes we will just try to cover with what we have there. There is a theater. There is only one theater there, and we're trying to go every now and then or to go to restaurant or to watch a play in that theater. But to tell you the truth, it's not that good because, for example, even if I go there on a Thursday night, which is like a Saturday night in the States, you will just see like 20 to 30 people watching a movie because everyone is afraid that something will happen while they are inside. And, you know, once you get out from the movie, you will just try to ask people, just phone people, `What's happened?' if things are fine, if the way home is OK, if there is a curfew at some regions. So it's not that good, but we are trying to move on.
CONAN: If somebody's cell phone goes off during the movie, I suspect everybody jumps a little bit.
Mr. SAIFEY: Exactly.
CONAN: Yeah.
Mr. SAIFEY: Exactly. Everyone is expecting something bad.
CONAN: Let's get a caller in. Jamal(ph) joins us now on the line from Columbus, Ohio.
JAMAL (Caller): Hi. How are you?
CONAN: Very...
JAMAL: First-time caller, longtime listener.
CONAN: Well, thanks very much.
JAMAL: I really enjoy your show. I just got back from--I'm Palestinian and I just got back about a month ago from the West Bank. I'm from a town about five miles away from Ramallah, and I haven't been there since '94, and it's the first time I've been there in a long time. And I'll tell you, the cruelty--I've never saw that in any world--how the Israeli army demoralizes the human rights so much. I want to just give you an example. My mother--when I arrived there, she was kind of limping, and I told my mom, `Why don't you go see a doctor?' She said, `Son, I can't go to the hospital, because if I go to the hospital, they'd have to'--she'd have to walk--after the checkpoint, she would have to walk another two miles. She says, `No way I can walk to go to see the doctor.'
Mr. SAIFEY: Exactly.
JAMAL: And so finally, when I arrived there, I passed the checkpoints with American passports and stuff like that, and the doctor said, you know, `Why weren't you here a long time ago? You had a fractured bone--you've been walking on a fractured bone,' you know.
CONAN: Right.
JAMAL: You know, just to show you that there's no human rights over there whatsoever. And I was there for a month and I came back in 10 days. I just couldn't handle, you know, going through checkpoint and being treated so cruel and unjust.
CONAN: Well, Saed, would you say that, you know, those daily kinds of incidents like that are...
Mr. SAIFEY: Definitely, yeah.
CONAN: ...a hugely important part of your life?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yes, exactly. That's absolutely true. I mean, there is a checkpoint to the north of Ramallah, which is called soldier checkpoint. I mean, I'm sure that he knows about it.
JAMAL: Yeah.
Mr. SAIFEY: And where you have to, you know, walk in the sun, in the middle of the heat for more than three kilometers or four kilometers. I've seen like babies and mothers who are trying to protect their little kids from the sun. They have their water with them, and sometimes that--if they have got lucky and just the soldier there did not stop them. They have to walk all that distance, and as he said, like imagine a mother or someone who has a fractured bone or someone is sick. I've seen so many cases, believe me, in going through that checkpoint where people carrying their little kids who have been injured or fallen down, blood coming out from their--and they're just running there, shouting and realizing that it's still a long way ahead.
That checkpoint and, you know, just like every other checkpoint, it's permanent. It's there every day, and we have to deal with it every day. Bielzed(ph), which is a town just like five kilometer away from Ramallah, I have visited my uncle just three weeks ago there, and coming back to work the next day in the morning, I was at the checkpoint at 7:30, and I reached my work around 10:15. It took me more than two and a half hours just standing at the checkpoint...
CONAN: Jam...
Mr. SAIFEY: ...waiting for the soldiers there insulting the people and just waiting for them to go away or just let us pass.
CONAN: Jamal, thanks very much for the phone call. We appreciate it.
JAMAL: Thank you.
CONAN: And before we leave you, Saed, the last time we spoke, you were working for Palnet, an Internet service provider in the West Bank. How's that going?
Mr. SAIFEY: Yes. It is still going OK. I mean, work is not going that fine. We have some difficulties because of the siege and moving around when we need to install some equipment. But I'm still working the same thing and trying to do our best.
CONAN: Well, again, good luck to you and we'll check back.
Mr. SAIFEY: Yes. Thank you, Neal.
CONAN: Saed Saifey was with us from Ramallah in the West Bank.
Joining us now is another person whom we met and spoken with over the past year. Tali Taperberg is an Israeli who owns a small travel agency in Jerusalem. And welcome back to you.
Ms. TALI TAPERBERG (Travel Agency Owner): Hi. Good evening.
CONAN: Tell us what life for you is like in Jerusalem. We haven't spoken for six months now.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Well, life is not that simple, because first of all, I want to say that I'm very sorry to hear that the life of the Palestinians described now are very bad, and I'm very, very sorry that their life is so bad. But things seen that--we saw last week that a bus was bombed and 16 people, you know, innocent people just, you know, two minutes from my office, were dead, including, you know, all people, children. You know, there was a young couple there who were in love, two blind people and, you know, all kind of innocent people, and they were using bus number 14 that my daughter--she sometimes takes this bus because it comes to my neighborhood. So, I mean, I am deeply, deeply sorry that things in Ramallah are so bad, but we have to understand that, as Israeli, we live under such terror, which is inhuman, and I'm not saying that the way that our army is defending and humiliating the other people in the West Bank, but the story has two sides, you know. That's--I wanted to mention...
CONAN: That there may be a reason that checkpoint is there.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Look, they stop every day. You have to see that in the news every day from 40 to 50 suiciders are being caught with this (unintelligible). Every day, they are on their way to have a bomb. When you hear that there is a bus blast ...(unintelligible) on bomb, there were 50 others on the way for their mission that did not manage because the security got them, but...
CONAN: And this latest explosion, I understand, was just a couple of blocks from your house.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Exactly. Not my house, my office, because my office is in the middle of the town.
CONAN: Tali, can you hang on with us? We have to take a short break, and we'll continue with you after a minute or so.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Sure.
CONAN: OK. We're talking with people about what it is like to live your daily life these days in the West Bank. We were just speaking earlier with a resident of Ramallah, and now we're on the line with Tali Taperberg, who's with us on the line from Jerusalem, and we're taking your calls, (800) 989-8255, (800) 989-TALK. Our e-mail address is totn@npr.org.
More after we come back from a break. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC
CONAN: This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
We're talking about daily life in Israel and the Palestinian territories with people who live and work there. If you have relatives or friends who live there or if you've just been, give us a call, (800) 989-8255, (800) 989-TALK that is, or you can send us e-mail, totn@npr.org.
Still with us is Tali Taperberg, an Israeli who owns a small travel agency in Jerusalem. Earlier, we spoke with Saed Saifey about his life in the Palestinian city of Ramallah. And, Tali, we were talking about the bus...
Ms. TAPERBERG: That's...
CONAN: ...explosion last week. Are you there, Tali?
Ms. TAPERBERG: Yeah, yeah. I'm with you. Of course.
CONAN: OK. The bus explosion last week and it was just a couple of blocks from your office.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Yeah.
CONAN: Could you hear the explosion when it went off?
Ms. TAPERBERG: No. On that moment exactly, I was at home, which is a little bit far, but the girls who work for my office, they heard.
CONAN: In the past, you've talked about your daughter and you mentioned she does ride that bus every now and again. Is that an easy decision for you to allow her to go out and take the bus?
Ms. TAPERBERG: I am not allowing her. Even today, I was fighting with her, `Take 52nd.' You know, it's like, you know, 20 bucks. `Don't go without money.' I give a lot of money for my kids. `Don't go on buses, only cabs, only cabs.' But, you know, they're a teen-ager and they like to show off. You know, they like to argue. You know, teen-agers, they don't want to go on with this, and I'm telling them, `Look'--you know, if we look at the bombs, statistically, I think 60 percent of these, you know, bombs were on buses. Even though this time the people who were on the bus were just 10 people who got killed, some of the people who were around the bus were killed also, you know, walking in the street. But buses are a dangerous thing, you know. It's like I'm begging them not to use buses. I'm terrified.
CONAN: Let's get a caller in. David joins us on the line from Haywood, California.
DAVID (Caller): Hi. Thank you for taking my call. And I just think this is a phenomenal program, and I thank you guys for not only just sharing one perspective but both sides, which is too often forgotten.
CONAN: Well, thank you. But go ahead.
DAVID: I recently returned from a trip to Tel Aviv. I'm Jewish-American, and I've been living in the States most of my life. I've been pretty much brought up with the belief that, you know, as a Jewish-American, there's that natural commitment towards the state of Israel, and I needed to go firsthand and sort of see what life was like, a day in the life. And in my travels in Tel Aviv, which I spent about seven days, I then went into the West Bank and saw firsthand sort of what occupation was really like because I really didn't know what that was like, other than what I hear from the papers and the radio, and it was an eye-awakening experience.
I saw firsthand sort of--and my heart goes out to the Israelis and my fellow Jewish-Americans and everyone else in the area who has lost a life or a family member. But it's almost not even equated to the loss of lives on the Palestinian side and the number of deaths as a result of the occupation. So I think--and a lot of the Jewish-Americans that I was with in my travels realized that it really is the occupation that is causing a lot of this, and there is a lot of tit-for-tat on both sides. But I think once we eliminate the occupation and illegal settlements, there could be peace between the two great people...
CONAN: OK.
DAVID: ...of the Middle East in Israel and Palestine.
CONAN: David, thanks very much.
DAVID: Thank you.
CONAN: Bye-bye.
Tali Taperberg, one of the things that happened in the, like, last couple of weeks that has been quite interesting, David was talking about the word `occupation.' It was a word used for the first time by Minister Sharon.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Mm-hmm.
CONAN: What did you think about when he used that for the first time?
Ms. TAPERBERG: I was very, very happy because, for the first time, he's allowing himself politically, he's strong enough to give up to the radicals in our country, which are less than 15 percent, and just to say the truth because the majority of the people do think that we are occupying a land which not belong to us, and we should leave it, and I think that there are settlers, but they are really, unfortunately, radicals. I disagree with their way of living. And I do think that if we have enough strength to come and to tell them leave--you know, because, you know, they are not normal. You try to evacuate them and they are just, you know, fighting even against their own army or own soldiers. If we are strong enough to tell them, `No, we have law. We want to obey. We want to give Palestinians their land. This is our land,' then we might have a chance, because otherwise, this circle will go on and on and on and on, and God's know how many innocent people will pay the price.
CONAN: Let's get another caller. Colin joins us now from Sioux City in Iowa.
COLIN (Caller): Hello.
CONAN: Hello.
COLIN: A longtime listener, first-time caller.
CONAN: Well, thanks very much.
COLIN: I was just calling in to say that I have friends who are sitting at the university in Jerusalem, and about two years ago they felt that Jerusalem was one of the safest places in the world to be, and now their views have changed quite a bit, especially after the bombing in the university, and they try to continue with their life as they have in the past, but it has become more difficult for them to do so.
CONAN: I can understand why it's so difficult. How are their plans changing, Colin?
COLIN: I have several who have been more nervous to get on buses, for example. Also, they lay more precaution to their lives.
CONAN: Yeah. Tali, could you talk to us about that for a minute?
Ms. TAPERBERG: Yes.
CONAN: There must be a sense of going through your life looking over your shoulder.
Ms. TAPERBERG: I don't understand the question.
CONAN: There must be a sense of constantly being aware, of being on the lookout for something unusual, possibly threatening.
Ms. TAPERBERG: No, I don't think so. I mean, personally, I'm not because, you know, a person is becoming the--I don't know the word, but, I mean, like, you get used to things, you know. I mean, if I give you to carry one kilo and tomorrow two kilos, you get used to things, you understand? You get used to things. And I learned to be a very fatalistic person because you don't know from where you're going to get your knockout, you know. It's either a bus or--today it's in Jerusalem, yesterday it was in Bein Haifa(ph), so you don't know really. So, I mean, you try to avoid certain things, but I do believe you cannot be immune out of it, so I am afraid that my kids are going on buses. Mainly I'm afraid for them, you know?
CONAN: Sure.
Ms. TAPERBERG: But for me, I don't know. I mean, I learn to live with this. And you know something funny? My mother, she used to have a shop in Jerusalem in the center of the city, and now my father is dead, but, I mean, and all that I remember--I was to be afraid that maybe something will happen to them, terror, or something in the middle of the city of Jerusalem. And I'm continuing with the same kind of life, so unfortunately--but you get used to it, you know. It's sad.
CONAN: Well, Colin, thanks very much for the call.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Yeah.
COLIN: Thank you.
CONAN: And before we let you go, Tali, same question we had for Saed at the end of his conversation. His company continues to get along. How is business in the travel industry there in Jerusalem?
Ms. TAPERBERG: They're not bad, thanks God. I mean, well, I used to have four employees. I have now two, but that's going on since the intifada. And, well, first of all, people do travel because this is their only way to have some good time, you know, just to forget, even though, you know, traveling become more and more expensive. I don't know if you feel it also in the United States...
CONAN: Sure, yeah.
Ms. TAPERBERG: ...because it does. This industry become more expensive. And unfortunately, a lot of young people, they go one way. This really upset me. All the like good people, not fanatics, not extremes, not radical religious, you know, just regular people of the West, unfortunately lots of them, they want to emigrate and to start their lives in Australia or in the United States or in Europe. You know, they're young people--or in Canada. And that's make me really sad because we're having, you know, the young, brilliant with good future, brains, are leaving the country, and that's sad, you know, because this is our future, the good brain, the young people, you know what I mean?
CONAN: Yeah. Same thing's happening on the Palestinian side as well.
Ms. TAPERBERG: In their side, I do believe that it is, but less because they get less options.
CONAN: That's...
Ms. TAPERBERG: Remember that a lot of Israelis--they have connections abroad. Like maybe they have in the family a European passport or American passport. They have more changes to leave, to emigrate. On the other side, technically it's more difficult. I'm sure if it was technically more easy, I'm sure it would happen a lot too, yeah.
CONAN: Well, Tapi, again our continued good wishes for you and your family, and thanks very much again for speaking with us.
Ms. TAPERBERG: Thank you so much. I hope. Thank you.
CONAN: Tali Taperberg speaking with us on the line from her office, I guess, in Jerusalem.
The economy is uppermost on the minds of many Israelis and Palestinians. Many of them think that no solution is going to be possible unless people make some more money and more people go to work. Last August, we spoke with a Palestinian-American who eight years ago moved to the West Bank with an ambitious plan to open a shopping plaza in the city of Ramallah. At the time we talked, Sam Bahour had just received the loan he needed to get his project off the ground, and Sam Bahour joins us now from Ramallah.
And welcome back to TALK OF THE NATION.
Mr. SAM BAHOUR (General Manager, Ramallah Shopping Centers): Hi.
CONAN: How are things going today, 10 months later?
Mr. BAHOUR: Oh, so much has happened, it sounds like 10 years later. We've made a lot of progress in some very, very volatile times. Our construction is completed and the shopping center, our first of five hopefully, will be open on the 1st of July.
CONAN: Congratulations.
Mr. BAHOUR: Thank you.
CONAN: How many tenants do you have and who are they?
Mr. BAHOUR: Well, we have 50 outlets for rent and we already have, now, six that have been contracted. Of course, the issue of contracting at this stage is something very, very sensitive because everyone is watching the political scene, and as people feel that things may start moving in a positive direction, we see an influx of people coming and being interested in the building. And as soon as we have either an incursion or a suicide bombing, people rather take a backseat and wait to see what happens. So really sitting in my office is almost as a barometer for the political arena here.
CONAN: So again, who were the tenants that you do have who are signed up?
Mr. BAHOUR: We have a list of different kinds of tenants from candy stores to fast food. We have clothing stores, office supply stores, toy stores. We as a company are opening the largest supermarket within the plaza, as well as the first indoor children's play area, something that's very much needed in our environment right now, given that children have almost no entertainment and are not allowed to leave the city to reach either the sea or the Mediterranean.
CONAN: Normally most shopping centers have one store that's sort of the anchor of the shopping center. Is that the case--What?--for the grocery store?
Mr. BAHOUR: Exactly. We have two anchors, both of them that we will operate. One is the supermarket that we have and the other is the children's area. These are both four times bigger than anything that's existing here in the Palestinian Authority areas, and we plan on creating the first chain of them in other areas within the West Bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem as well, as the conditions permit.
CONAN: Now with the economy so bad, how were you able to raise the money for all of this?
Mr. BAHOUR: This is all private-sector funds. We had a very difficult time keeping our investors involved. However, I'm proud to say that the vast majority of our investors are here, knowing that we are still in a crisis, that occupation still exists. And I think they have an edge more than just looking for financial return. They're also looking to participate in the building of the forthcoming Palestinian economy. And I think that kind of economic steadfastness is their way of contributing to the intifada, which is employing people, creating opportunities and hopefully building for the future because definitely what we've built here, this $10 million project, would not have been built if we felt that we're going to live in this crisis forever. We definitely are building for the future.
CONAN: We're speaking with Sam Bahour about his project. His shopping plaza opens in Ramallah on July 1st.
You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
And, Sam, if you could tell us, is most of the money that's invested--does it come from the local area or does it come from outside of the country?
Mr. BAHOUR: The majority of it is from the local community. We have some Palestinian investors in Jordan and Saudi Arabia that have invested in the project as well. We're a publicly traded company. There's a Palestinian stock exchange here, and we are traded on that exchange. We have a loan facility from a local bank. Also, something that's, to me, something very heart-warming, that a local bank was also able to calculate the risk that the environment is facing and take a conscious decision to invest in this risky environment. They also, I feel, are partners in building for the future in our project and in others as well.
CONAN: Let's take another caller. Paul joins us on the line from Washington, DC.
PAUL (Caller): Yeah. Hi. I just returned from Israel and Jordan and the Palestinian territories, and really what I saw talking to people--I speak Hebrew and I speak Arabic--and I spoke with a lot of people, and I really found a lot of yearning on both sides for this to be over. People are really tired of it. They want to move past it. They want to be done with it. They want to go on with their lives. On my flight returning, I met a group of Christian tourists, and they told me that when their tour guide met them, he brought them roses, and he said that he was literally in tears telling them that they were the first tour group they've had in close to two years, and he said that all of his tour guide friends just were out of work and they want to return to what they were doing. They want people to come back. They want to go on with their lives.
CONAN: Sam, is that what you're hearing amongst the people you talk with?
PAUL: Among the people I was talking to--I spoke with Israelis, I spoke with Palestinians, I spoke with Jordanians...
CONAN: Excu--Paul, excuse--excuse me, Paul. I put that question to Sam, who is our guest.
Mr. BAHOUR: Yes. I mean, I feel that definitely from my workings within my own community as well as my workings with business concerns in Israel--I'm someone who earned an MBA degree at Tel Aviv University to be more acquainted with the Israeli community. Both communities do yearn to get past this very dark age that we're living--these last two years. However, we need to be aware as well, especially my Israeli neighbors who are very educated people, that there is an action and reaction here. And the military control of a foreign population is going to spark a reaction. I don't think it's going to--I mean, we're not going to close our eyes and this issue is going to go away. At the end of the day, the two parties are not able to solve the issue themselves, just as a bank robber and a bank teller would never be told to solve the problem between them. We need an external party, we need the United Nations resolutions to be enforced. No one better to enforce those than the people who just enforced them in Iraq, and basically come and stand between the two parties and do the hard work of working through a solution.
But as much as I know that both peoples are yearning for a solution, we should not be naive to think that one day we're going to wake up and it's going to go away. The Palestinian people--three and a half million Palestinians are under occupation. Several thousand are imprisoned, but with no trial, and another three million Palestinians are scattered across the world, waiting to find out of their fate.
CONAN: And yet...
Mr. BAHOUR: So there are some serious problems that need to be solved before both peoples can realize this yearning.
CONAN: And, Sam, I just have to point out that obviously many Israelis feel like they are the aggrieved innocents, too. There's plenty of that to go around.
Mr. BAHOUR: Absolutely. I mean, you'll find different opinions in both communities. Personally, I stand very solidly with the thousand Israeli soldiers who refused to come and occupy us. And these are the kind of Israelis that I think can see the future. They're not pacifists.
CONAN: Sam...
Mr. BAHOUR: They're Israelis. They're willing to defend their state, but they're not willing to occupy Palestinians.
CONAN: Sam Bahour, good luck with your project. We'll be in touch.
Mr. BAHOUR: Thank you very much.
CONAN: Sam Bahour, general manager of Arab Palestinian shopping centers. He was with us from Ramallah in the West Bank.
When we come back from a short break, another country in the Middle East, Iran, where for the past week students have taken to the streets to protest their frustration.
It's TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
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