Klein

摘要

Sometimes the prosaic can be breath-rntaking. I am standing in the new showroom of a company that manufactures plumbing supplies in Hebron, in the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories. Mansour Izgayer, one of three brothers who own the factory, is giving me a tour of his business and his life. He and his brothers were living in the U.S. when peace seemed to break out in the Middle East after the 1993 Oslo accords. They decided to return home, as did many other members of the Palestinian diaspora. They built their company, Royal Industries & Trading, persistently, even after the prospects for peace shattered in the second intifadeh and it became near impossible to do business in the midst of a war zone, near impossible to move their products through Israeli checkpoints. It still isn't very easy, but the past few years have been much better.