I don’t know how to write this without sounding stupid, but here it is: just like everyone else in the world, there are poor Arabs, and rich ones. Despite the stereotype of the rich Jewish settler living in a villa vs. the poor Arab living in a hovel, the obvious truth is that there are both rich and poor Jews and rich and poor Arabs, even in Judea and Samaria.
Batya has some pictures of Arab mansions taken in her neck of the woods, between Jerusalem and Shilo, where she lives. Go take a look.
West Bank Mama 
Mar 15, 2007 @ 07:15:47
In Israel, nothing is too obvious to sound stupid.It just sounds right-wingish.
Mar 15, 2007 @ 14:50:56
what?!!?
shh…don’t let the cat out of the bag. if people find out about this, it could ruin their case about how the jews/israelis are keeping them down!
Mar 16, 2007 @ 15:09:12
Thanks for the link.
There’s money coming in from someplace. Most of the buildings are brand new, under construction, tripling houses and more.
Mar 17, 2007 @ 22:47:10
Pointing out the big, opulent Arab houses was always part of my “preliminary” Hasbara tour, bringing journalists and diplomats out to Shiloh during the 80s, but then Oslo came along and we stopped going through Ramallah where it was a lot easier to see these houses, especially at the southern entrance, along, what else, Palestine Street. In fact, during one of our “making-our-presence-felt” tours in 1989, we walked out of Psagot and down into Ramallah right through an entire neighborhood of houses three times bigger than I could ever afford to build (the rest of the walk we were dodging IDF soldiers who were informed of a bunch of crazy Jews walking through the town. We made it to the Mitzpah, a great archeological site, and half-way to Givat Ze’ev before they caught up with us leaving them with no alternative but to simply walk alongside us as there were no roads in that area to drive us out).
Mar 18, 2007 @ 06:23:11
jerusalem – right on the nose!
bec – 😉
muse – you are welcome!
yisrael – lots of stereotypes to explode out there