Obama discussed Rawabi Palestinian housing project with Israeli officials in 2010

Danin believes that Rawabi's Palestinian and Qatari investors made a wise decision. Housing in Ramallah is expensive, and Danin says that there is a sizable and highly-educated Palestinian middle class in need of an alternative to the West Bank's de-facto capital. He expressed little doubt when I asked him if the West Bank economy could support Rawabi. "This is a Palestinian national project," he said. "It is the best of what is possible in that it's private sector-led, and it's profit-making led." And it has supporters in high places. When President Barack Obama met with Israeli officials in Washington in September of 2010, Rawabi was on the agenda. From one perspective, Rawabi is a historic investment in Palestine, as well as an unusually open point of cooperation between Israel and an Arab government. It could improve the lives of Palestinians, while convincing Israelis that they have nothing to fear from their neighbors' prosperity. But any attempts to change the status quo in the West Bank are fraught with difficulties. There's Israeli bureaucracy to overcome. "In Israel, if the Minister of Defense says I want something, it's not that the system thwarts it. But the system is so decentralized that ultimately it takes a lot of steps to get it translated into action," HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_025090