[Congressional Record Volume 154, Number 112 (Wednesday, July 9, 2008)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6497-S6498]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   JOINT ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN VENTURE

  Mr. LEVIN. Madam President, the New York Times recently published an 
article entitled ``Web Start-up a Joint Israeli-Palestinian Venture'' 
and, as the title suggests, it is a story about a group of Israeli and 
Palestinian entrepreneurs that have joined forces to start an internet 
business venture. Mr. President, I will ask to have the New York Times 
article printed in the Record. What is impressive about this story is 
that technology, in the form of Internet-based video teleconferencing, 
has been able to jump boundaries to allow people to work together while 
apart by enabling this business, G.ho.st, to use the Internet to 
complete many of the day-to-day tasks that ordinarily require actual 
face-to-face contact. More importantly, this business venture is yet 
another example of the good will that exists on both sides of the 
Israeli-Palestinian divide.
  In March 2005, I had the opportunity to travel with six Michiganders, 
three Palestinian-Americans and three Jewish-Americans, to Israel and 
the Palestinian territories to study the possibility of joint Israeli-
Palestinian business ventures. During this visit, we met with 
entrepreneurs active in a full range of industries, from agriculture to 
textiles to software development to manufacturing. While these joint 
business ventures cannot make peace, they do help foster good will, and 
they demonstrate the potential for effective, economic coexistence if a 
final peace agreement can be reached.
  More recently, during a trip to Israel to present the Senate 
resolution commemorating the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, I 
learned of what I hope will be a major joint economic venture. During 
my meeting with President Shimon Peres, I learned about the Valley of 
Peace Initiative, a large-scale undertaking to construct a tourism 
corridor. The Valley of Peace is envisioned to stretch over the 500 
kilometers along the Israeli-Jordanian border, from the Red Sea to the 
Yarmuk River. Under the current plan, the Valley of Peace initiative 
includes several projects, ranging from a water conduit connecting the 
Red Sea and the Dead Sea in an attempt to prevent the latter from 
drying up, to an Israeli-Jordanian airport near Eilat and Aqaba, to a 
connection of the Jordanian and Israeli railway systems and a mutual 
Israeli-Palestinian Authority industrial zone. While the initiative is 
still in the idea stage, it could offer a major opportunity for joint 
economic cooperation between Israelis, Palestinians, and, in this case, 
Jordanians.
  Employment and economic growth are critical to fostering stability 
for Israelis and Palestinians alike. G.ho.st is another example of a 
promising partnership that can benefit the region in ways that surpass 
the positive economic impact. Should their business model prove to be a 
success, it would bode well for building additional partnerships and 
fostering further much-needed goodwill in the region.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent to have The New York Times 
article to which I referred printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, May 29, 2008]

             Israelis and Palestinians Launch Web Start-Up

                            (By Dina Kraft)

       Ramallah, West Bank.--Nibbling doughnuts and wrestling with 
     computer code, the workers at G.ho.st, an Internet start-up 
     here, are holding their weekly staff meeting--with colleagues 
     on the other side of the Israeli-Palestinian divide.
       They trade ideas through a video hookup that connects the 
     West Bank office with one in Israel in the first joint 
     technology venture of its kind between Israelis and 
     Palestinians.
       ``Start with the optimistic parts, Mustafa,'' Gilad Parann-
     Nissany, an Israeli who is vice president for research and 
     development, jokes with a Palestinian colleague who is giving 
     a progress report. Both conference rooms break into laughter.
       The goal of G.ho.st is not as lofty as peace, although its 
     founders and employees do hope to encourage it. Instead 
     G.ho.st wants to give users a free, Web-based virtual 
     computer that lets them access their desktop and files from 
     any computer with an Internet connection. G.ho.st, pronounced 
     ``ghost,'' is short for Global Hosted Operating System.
       ``Ghosts go through walls,'' said Zvi Schreiber, the 
     company's British-born Israeli chief executive, by way of 
     explanation. A test version of the service is available now, 
     and an official introduction is scheduled for Halloween.
       The Palestinian office in Ramallah, with about 35 software 
     developers, is responsible for most of the research and 
     programming. A smaller Israeli team works about 13 miles away 
     in the central Israeli town of Modiin.
       The stretch of road separating the offices is broken up by 
     checkpoints, watch towers and a barrier made of chain-link 
     fence and, in some areas, soaring concrete walls, built by 
     Israel with the stated goal of preventing the entry of 
     Palestinian suicide bombers.
       Palestinian employees need permits from the Israeli army to 
     enter Israel and attend meetings in Modiin, and Israelis are 
     forbidden by their own government from entering Palestinian 
     cities.
       When permits cannot be arranged but meetings in person are 
     necessary, colleagues gather at a rundown coffee shop on a 
     desert road frequented by camels and Bedouin shepherds near 
     Jericho, an area legally open to both sides.
       Dr. Schreiber, an entrepreneur who has already built and 
     sold two other start-ups, said he wanted to create G.ho.st 
     after seeing the power of software running on the Web. He 
     said he thought it was time to merge his technological and 
     commercial ambitions with his social ones and create a 
     business with Palestinians.
       ``I felt the ultimate goal was to offer every human being a 
     computing environment which is free, and which is not tied to 
     any physical hardware but exists on the Web,'' he said. The 
     idea, he said, was to create a home for all of a user's 
     online files and storage in the form of a virtual PC.
       Instead of creating its own Web-based software, the company 
     taps into existing services like Google Docs, Zoho and Flickr 
     and integrates them into a single online computing system.
       G.ho.st also has a philanthropic component: a foundation 
     that aims to establish community computer centers in Ramallah 
     and in mixed Jewish-Arab towns in Israel. The foundation is 
     headed by Noa Rothman, the granddaughter of Yitzhak Rabin, 
     the Israeli prime minister slain in 1995.
       ``It's the first time I met Palestinians of my generation 
     face to face,'' said Ms. Rothman, 31, of her work with 
     G.ho.st. She said she was moved by how easily everyone got 
     along. ``It shows how on the people-to-people level you can 
     really get things done.''
       Investors have put $2.5 million into the company so far, a 
     modest amount. Employing Palestinians means the money goes 
     farther; salaries for Palestinian programmers are about a 
     third of what they are in Israel.
       But Dr. Schreiber, who initially teamed up with Tareq 
     Maayah, a Palestinian businessman, to start the Ramallah 
     office, insists this is not just another example of 
     outsourcing.
       ``We are one team, employed by the same company, and 
     everyone has shares in the company,'' he said.
       At G.ho.st's offices in Ramallah, in a stone-faced building 
     with black reflective glass perched on a hill in the city's 
     business district, employees say they feel part of an 
     intensive group effort to create something groundbreaking. 
     Among them are top young Palestinian programmers and 
     engineers, recruited in some cases directly from 
     universities.
       The chance to gain experience in creating a product for the 
     international market--a first for the small Palestinian 
     technology community--means politics take a backseat to 
     business, said Yusef Ghandour, a project manager.
       ``It's good we are learning from the Israeli side now,'' 
     Mr. Ghandour said. The Israelis, he said, ``are open to the 
     external world, and there is lots of venture capital 
     investment in Israel, and now we are bringing that to 
     Palestine.''
       The departure of educated young people mostly to 
     neighboring Jordan and the Persian Gulf states is a major 
     problem for the

[[Page S6498]]

     Palestinian economy and has been especially damaging to its 
     technology industry. Since the Oslo peace process broke down 
     in 2000, a wave of Israeli-Palestinian business ties have 
     crumbled as well.
       Political tensions make it somewhat unpopular for 
     Palestinians to do business with Israelis, said Ala Alaeddin, 
     chairman of the Palestinian Information Technology 
     Association. He said the concept of a technology joint 
     venture across the divide was unheard-of until G.ho.st opened 
     its doors. A handful of Palestinian tech companies handle 
     outsourced work for Israeli companies, but most focus on the 
     local or Middle Eastern market.
       ``It's much easier to have outsourcing than a 
     partnership,'' Mr. Alaeddin said. ``A joint venture is a 
     long-term commitment, and you need both sides to be really 
     confident that this kind of agreement will work.''
       Benchmark Capital, a Silicon Valley venture capital firm 
     with offices in Israel, invested $2 million in G.ho.st. 
     Michael Eisenberg, a general partner at the firm, said 
     Benchmark was ``in the business of risky investments,'' but 
     that G.ho.st presented entirely new territory.
       Recalling his discussions with Dr. Schreiber, Mr. Eisenberg 
     said: ``Frankly, when he first told me about it I thought it 
     was ambitious, maybe overly ambitious. But Zvi is a 
     remarkable entrepreneur, and I started to feel he could 
     actually pull this off.''
       The video hookup runs continuously between the offices. 
     Chatting in the Ramallah conference room, two Palestinian 
     programmers wave hello to Israeli colleagues conferring over 
     a laptop in the Modiin office.
       ``We are doing something across cultures and across two 
     sides of a tough conflict,'' Dr. Schreiber said. ``I was 
     prepared for the possibility that it might be difficult, but 
     it hasn't been.''

                          ____________________