[Ha'aretz] Avi Issacharoff - The five-story, $5 million Hirbawi Home Center opened in Jenin last month with a fireworks celebration. The new luxury establishment is filled with foreign-made products and the owner plans to open four more stores in the West Bank. The chain's CEO, Ziad Turabi, says, "Many people in the...territories have money but they have nowhere to spend it if they're after quality. We offer them the best quality there is." This may not sound like the familiar description of the territories - the impoverished Palestinian village or the overcrowded refugee camp, a population sustaining itself on international aid. But it turns out that quite a few Palestinians consider a plasma screen, a surround sound stereo and comfortable chairs to be fairly essential items.
2009-06-22 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive