‘True Believer’
Even if they do, Masri has made his mark.
“He’s earned widespread recognition for being a true believer in the Palestinian state and for being committed to it,” says Zahi Khouri, who owns the Coca-Cola bottling franchise in the West Bank. “I envy the energy he devotes to the cause.”
From his base in Jerusalem, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, who represents the Quartet (the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the U.S.) in the peace process, meets with Masri on official visits to the West Bank.
“It is his combination of resilience, commitment and refusal to bow to the forces of cynicism that makes his work so valuable,” Blair says of Masri.
The youngest of 11 siblings, Masri was born to a well-to-do family in Nablus, where his father was a mukhtar, or town leader. After the establishment of Israel in 1948 led to war with surrounding Arab states, the younger Masri moved to the U.S., earning a bachelor’s degree in petroleum geology from the University of Texas at Austin, where he met his American wife, Angela.
Masri’s Fortune
In 1956, he moved back to the Middle East and founded one of the first privately owned engineering companies in the region. The enterprise -- now Amman, Jordan–based Edgo Management Group SA, which operates in 20 countries -- started drilling water wells for Dubai and other fast-growing Persian Gulf cities.
He then expanded his business, providing engineering and logistical services for oil companies. For almost four decades, he led a somewhat nomadic existence, settling temporarily in Beirut, Lebanon; Amman, and London.
In the 1970s, as U.S. sanctions forced Western companies to leave Libya, Edgo became the operator of 1,500 oil wells there, pumping 1 million barrels of oil a day, says Maher Jadallah, who now runs the company’s operations in Iraq. Today, Edgo, which Masri fully owns, generates annual revenue of about $250 million and has 500 to 600 employees, according to Jadallah.