Palestinian phone calls to Saudi Arabia ­via Israel and Jordan

He heads a company with annual sales of $320 million and does business with scores of Israeli companies, but few here are familiar with the name Abdel Malik Jaber, CEO of Paltel, the Palestinian Authority's communications company.

"I work opposite the Israeli branch of Nortel Networks, buy telephones from Eurocom and equipment from RAD Data Communications and other companies. They are all good companies, and they trust us," says Jaber.

Well, Paltel should be trustworthy. The privately owned firm is the Palestinian market's equivalent of Israel's Bezeq. The PalTel Group consists of Paltel, with 400,000 land-line customers; the cellular company Jawwal, with 1.1 million Palestinian customers; Hadara, an Internet service provider, with 55,000 subscribers; Palmedia, a content provider, and even an information-technology (IT) company, called Hulal.

Its content division operates studios, a children's Web site ("without politics", stresses Jaber), and this year hopes to launch the first private television station in the PA. Paltel has built a fiber-optic network throughout the West Bank, and now all its universities, hospitals, government offices and important office buildings are connected via this infrastructure.

"We are the first communications company in the Arab world that is not in government hands, and this is based on historical reasons," explains Jaber. "Even after the Oslo Accords, when Palestine Liberation Organization officials came from Tunisia, they did not have enough management experience, so [Yasser] Arafat declared from the outset that economic development would be the responsibility of the private sector. Thus the communications company is privately owned, although Arafat continued to control the oil and cement industries."

Paltel is an enormous company, with 4,000 direct employees and 10,000 indirect employees, and is responsible for 19% of the PA's gross national product. Anyone who wants to buy shares in the company can do so via the Palestinian stock exchange in Nablus or the bourse in Dubai, if that is more convenient. The Palestinian stock exchange has 40 companies, but Paltel, with a market value of $1.7 billion, accounts for 50% of its worth.

Now businessmen on both sides of the Green Line are hoping that the good relations between Israel and the PA are going to get better. Jaber will be the keynote speaker at the upcoming Israel Venture Association conference, scheduled for May 19-20. IVA chair Dr. Orna Berry advocates strengthening ties with the PA.

"It is only logical to invest and promote economic cooperation in this region," says Berry, "due both to the [low] costs and the physical proximity. This is why we chose Jaber to be the keynote speaker."

"Yossi Vardi is my mentor," says Jaber. "I learned from him that ICT [information and communications technology] does not recognize borders and cares nothing about roadblocks. Every year 4,000 Palestinians complete engineering studies, and we want to expose external investors, including Israelis, to Palestinian professionalism. The best way to do this is via venture capital funds. It is no wonder that the first Palestinian VC fund is headed by an Israeli: Yadin Kaufmann. This a $15-million fund, not a non-profit organization, not a charity fund - but a business. We are hoping for a success story, an exit that will lead to more success stories."

As optimistic as Jaber is about the power of the economy, he feels differently about both peoples' political leaders. "Politicians just want too keep their seats. Social and economic development are not their priorities."

Indeed, Paltel has had plenty of grief from the political situation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

"I can't do anything without a permit from the Israeli defense establishment," he laments. "I cannot import things independently, so I buy cell phones from Eurocom. I have a whole list of equipment stuck in security [clearance] procedures in Israel, including $10 million-worth of call-center equipment. Every security check takes at least six months, and some stuff has been held there since 2004, all at tremendous cost.

"While building our network we discovered that it was impossible to import switches to Israel, so we are the only communications company in the world whose switches are in another country - in London. We also cannot make international phone calls from the PA to other Arab countries, so if someone wants to phone Saudi Arabia, the call has to go via Israel and Jordan, and this is reflected in the costs. I am not criticizing the army, just presenting facts."

In some instances, Paltel learned how to turn a problem into an advantage. Thus, along with the discovery that the company could service the West Bank via switches in London came the realization that this service could be offered to other countries. Paltel set up a subsidiary, VTEL, which operates in other markets, including Iraq, Ukraine, Georgia and Belarus.

Jaber was born in 1965, in a small village near Umm al-Fahm, "right on the Green Line," he explains. His father had a large tobacco farm. Jaber earned his bachelor's degree in engineering from a university in Jordan, and a master's in Montreal, Canada. Then in 1992 he answered Faisal Husseini's call to "return to the homeland." After serving as deputy energy minister in the PA government, he became CEO of Paltel in 2001. Jaber is married and has two daughters, and the family divides its time between homes in Jerusalem and Ramallah.