As Munib R. Masri leads visitors around his domed palace, gray-uniformed servants tend the manicured grounds, a Roman-style amphitheater and a glassed-in winter garden perched atop Mount Gerizim, the biblical Mount of Blessings.
Some 2,500 feet below lies the West Bank city of Nablus, home to Balata, one of the largest refugee camps in the Israeli- occupied territories, where families scrape by on about $10 a day.
For all the grandeur and wealth on display at his Palladian villa, Masri says he’s committed to improving the lot of his fellow Palestinians -- economically as well as politically, Bloomberg Markets magazine will report in its February issue.
Masri is chairman of Palestine Development & Investment Co. (Padico), the largest private investor in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He’s met with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry during the latest round of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which began in July at Kerry’s instigation.
Masri, 79, is also one of the few prominent figures who regularly confer with both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who succeeded the late Yasser Arafat, a Masri confidante, and Abbas’s bitter rival, Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of Hamas-ruled Gaza.
As part of an effort to keep peace prospects alive, Masri joined forces with Israeli high-tech entrepreneur Yossi Vardi to put together Breaking the Impasse, a group that has grown to include about 300 Palestinian and Israeli business leaders.
‘Last Opportunity’
On Tuesday, Israeli authorities released 26 long-serving Palestinian prisoners as part of the talks and Kerry returns to the Middle East today, aiming to get both sides to agree on the contours of a final peace accord. Yet peace is as elusive as ever. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged to continue construction in West Bank settlements, prompting the two lead Palestinian negotiators to resign.
Recent polling by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research shows Israelis and Palestinians alike are skeptical that a final deal can be reached. Time is running short; the negotiations are due to end in April.
“This is our last opportunity for a peaceful solution,” says Masri, his hand grazing a marble statue of Hercules that dominates the stone rotunda of his home. “Otherwise, I am afraid of what comes the day after the peace talks fail.”