West Bank’s Emerging Silicon Valley Evades Issues of Borders

The spotless cafeteria is fashionably furnished with fluorescent orange and lime green tables, and there are table tennis and foosball tables in the basement. What else could it be but a tech start-up, even here? The idea, of course, is to give employees something resembling the comfortable, innovation-friendly working conditions that are a hallmark of Silicon Valleys around the world, said Murad Tahboub, 42, the managing director of ASAL Technologies. Because that is what Ramallah, the West Bank city where the Palestinian Authority has its administrative headquarters, has ambitions to become: a hub for the information and communications technology industry. With 120 employees, ASAL is one of the largest companies in the small but burgeoning Palestinian tech sector, which many of those involved say is on the verge of big things. “We are in the right position to have exponential growth,” said Tahboub, looking every bit the part with his slicked-back hair and black-rimmed Lacoste eyeglasses. Compared with other industries that the anemic West Bank economy might look to develop, the information and communications technology sector has an advantage: it is much less affected by impediments to movement, like the barriers, checkpoints and permit requirements that Israel imposes on the territory in the name of security. “This is a sector that has no borders,” Tahboub observed. “You just need electricity and a telephone line.”