Amira Hass : The fate of a Palestinian investor who called for Abbas' resignation

The Palestinian Authority is thwarting the activities of a real estate company after its owner publicly criticized Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
Seven weeks ago, the Palestinian Land Authority suspended the processing of a project for registering and parceling private land purchased by the Palestinian-Canadian Sabawi family. The family is the majority owner of a real estate company listed in the Palestinian stock exchange, but over 1,500 also holds stocks in the company.
Through an unofficial channel, the company learned that the director of the Palestinian Land Authority was acting in accordance with direct orders from Abbas’ presidential bureau. A spokesperson for the bureau denies any connection with the actions of the Palestinian Land Authority and told Haaretz that the suspension of the project's processing began eight months ago and stems from the need to correct certain flaws in the land registration process.
The company in question, UCI – Union Construction Investment, sells to Palestinians in the PA and in the Palestinian diaspora quarter-acre lots in the West Bank, after it has worked on the standard registration of around 250 acres of land it had purchased in several blocs in villages north of Ramallah and the Salfit region (Areas A and B), and on the submission of master plans for the approval of the Palestinian Ministry of Local Authority.
Since the project’s launch three years ago, 350 people have purchased plots and the Palestinian Land Authority has issued 150 title deeds, most of which made out already to the buyers. However, on November 19, the process of issuing new deeds and the parceling out of land into plots was suspended on the grounds that there is a need “to review” the entire process. The TABO Project (the word tabo, or land registration, is of Turkish origin) was initiated by Khaled Sabawi, who is in a partnership with his father, Mohammed Sabawi, in the management of the real estate company.
Since Israel halted the process of land registry in the West Bank in 1967, that the British mandate had started and the Jordanians continued, the process of purchasing and registering land is complicated because each plot has dozens of heirs in Palestine and overseas, each of whom must be contacted and must agree to the sale of the plot. Khaled Sabawi says that the TABO Project has three objectives: (1) to spare private purchasers the effort of dealing with the complex bureaucratic process and to significantly lower the price of purchasing land (2) to develop districts far from the very expensive real estate bubble of Ramallah and (3) to protect private Palestinian land that has not been registered from being seized by Israel.
According to other Palestinian business sources, the Sabawi family’s negative experiences with the PA reflect structural flaws in the PA’s relationship with the private business sector, although a foreign diplomat, who is familiar with the Palestinian economy, told Haaretz that in recent years, there has been an improvement in the performance of the various agencies of the PA. What the foreign diplomat finds troubling in this whole affair are the arbitrariness and the impression that punitive measures have been taken against the Sabawi's because of political differences of opinion. According to the diplomat, people are rather free to express criticism of the PA, although the red line is the uttering of negative comments about President Abbas.
The present dispute began on November 18, on the day when French President François Hollande visited Ramallah. Palestinian security forces were deployed on the roof of the company’s building in Ramallah without the prior approval of Mohammed Sabawi, 68. Appearing before the cameras of Watan local TV, a visibly upset Sabawi declared that the people want the ouster of President Abbas.
On December 3, Palestinian police officers came to Sabawi's offices and presented him with a summons to appear at police headquarters. He was informed that a police officer attached to Abbas’ Presidential Guard complained that he had insulted the Palestinian president. The complaint form was filled out on that very same day and while Mohammed Sabawi was already in police headquarters. He was held in custody for eight hours, his son with him.
Mohammed Sabawi, who today is on a family visit in Canada, told Watan TV that the purpose of his arrest was to humiliate him. One day after his initial brush with Palestinian security forces, he was forced to pay a heavy economic price: The cancellation of the insurance policies of the members of the Palestinian Presidential Guard purchased from the Al Ahalia insurance company, which is owned by Mohammed Sabawi. At the same time, UCI’s lawyers discovered that, for some unclear reason, the Palestinian Land Authority had suspended the process of registering the lands purchased by the Sabawi real estate company.
After a while, two reasons were orally cited for the suspension of processing. The first was the official need for “reviewing” the procedure, while the second was that, according to Palestinian law, the company had to see to the necessary infrastructures before the sale of the plots. However, Khaled Sabawi stated that the so-called “review” ostensibly referred to the Palestinian Land Authority’s procedures, which his company followed to the letter, and added that the clause in the law requiring hooking up with infrastructures was changed in 2010. Despite the change in the law, he pointed out, the company is doing everything possible to link up the plots with electric power and to pave roads to serve them.
UCI has already sustained heavy losses, says Khalid Sabawi. The number of people interested in its services has dropped, purchasers are not transferring the final payments until they receive the deed, and the process of connecting existing structures to the electric grid in the Salfit district has been suspended. He rejects the claim of the presidential bureau’s spokesperson that the suspension of the procedure began eight months ago. During those months deeds were printed and they were given to the company and to the purchasers.
Khaled Sabawi, 31, a computer engineer who grew up in Canada and completed his university studies there, has expressed extensive public criticism of the PA. In November 2013, Sabawi received in Paris the Takreem Prize, which is awarded to young entrepreneurs by an organization that seeks to publicize cultural and economic achievements in the Arab world. He received the award for the TABO Project and for a “green enterprise” that he established for the production of geothermal energy. The company, Mena Geothermal, constructs air conditioning systems for buildings; the systems equalize the temperature in the buildings to the permanent temperature deep below the ground’s surface. Because of the many bureaucratic difficulties the company encountered in the West Bank, Sabawi transferred it to Jordan.
Mohammed Sabawi is a Palestinian refugee who was born in the village of Salameh located north of Jaffa. He spent his adolescent years in the Gaza Strip; the outbreak of the Six Day War in June 1967 found him studying in Egypt. As Israel did not allow people's return, he subsequently worked in Kuwait and later emigrated from there to Canada. Immediately following the signing of the Oslo Accord, he began to invest in Gaza and the West Bank. Khaled Sabawi says today that the only reason he is still in the West Bank is the need to complete the TABO Project and that, because of the arbitrariness and lack of transparency in the PA, he and his father are gradually liquidating their assets in the West Bank.
Khaled Sabawi told Haaretz that he has updated the Quartet, the American consulate and the Canadian mission. A spokesperson for the Quartet has stated in response: “The OQR [Office of the Quartet Representative] is working hard to develop a positive investment environment in Palestine and strengthen the Palestinian economy’s opportunities for sustainable growth. The economic initiative includes the scaling up in the performance and efficiency of the Palestinian public sector.”
The Palestinian Land Authority has so far not responded.

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