The Article:
In the Times of Israel news article on the Startup Nation being a possible incubator for Palestinian entrepreneurs, the author, Dov Lieber, discusses an initiative, started by Yadin Kauffman of the venture capital firm Sadara, to bring promising Palestinian graduates into multinational companies and Israeli startups.
The article focuses on a couple of individuals and their experience in the Palestinian tech industry. The first being Sari Taha, who received his mechanical engineering degree from the Birzeit University in Ramallah, West Bank. After finishing his schooling, Taha was not able to find a job as he had received no experience and many of the jobs required skills not taught in the Palestinian Universities. The second individual that the article brings up is Nadine Handal, whose life was changed after being accepted by the Palestinian Internship Program (PIP). The program gave her the opportunity to intern at Intel, giving her the necessary experience that, as she said, was something you cannot find in the West Bank. The article's focus is the PIP initiative which finds Palestinians with potential in the tech industry and gives them the opportunity to gain the experience needed to succeed.
The PIP initiative aims to stay apolitical and focus on only the business aspects. The founder says that the goal is one that both Palestinians and Israelis will want. According to Kaufman, it is in Israeli's best interest to have Palestinian economy grow, creating more jobs and increasing education levels. In theory, by having a more employed and educated Palestinian society will decrease the amount of terror or political extremist activity. According to the article, Israel's Civil Administration has been cooperative in providing their candidates with the permits needed to work in the Startup Nation.
The article then comes back to Taha, who is now working to build a tech-hub in the West Bank that, if it works as planned, would greatly help both the Israeli and Palestinian Tech Industries. Taha says that the only way to improve the economy in the territories is to grow the tech sector. At the moment, the economy is greatly dependent on foreign aid.
Analysis:
The article and the news source, Times of Israel can be trusted to give accurate accounts of events as it was originally founded with the goal of being an apolitical news source with no bias. It focuses on topics related to Israel, the Middle East, anything related to the Jewish world, including American Jewish issues. Many of the newspaper's editors have previously worked for Haaretz, a reputable newspaper that is the longest running paper in Israel.
The article does a good job, in my opinion, of staying away from making any political statements, other than saying that initiatives like this would be in both the Israelis and Palestinians best interests. The article focused on the issue that many Palestinians graduate from University unable to find work and enter the Palestinian Tech Industry. It also mentions how many of the Palestinian tech companies are only copies of existing companies that are adapted into Arabic and that no Palestinian tech company has ever grown large enough that a multinational company has shown interest in acquiring it. Because of this situation, many do not have the ability to work in sizable tech companies and the unemployment rate in Palestinian territories is 27 percent.
This situation in the West Bank is the antithesis of the situation in Israel. In Israel, the industry is one of the biggest in the world. Israel is known as the Startup Nation because it is home to the largest number of startups per capita than any other nation. Many of the greatest technical advancements and technologies were created in Israel. Because of this, many tech graduates from around the world come to Israel to work and get experience in the Tech Industry. The article discusses the issues in an unbiased way, supporting the growth of the Palestinian industries since it would ultimately be beneficial to all.
