A living hub for the people of Palestine — those who shaped it, and those who stood with it.

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Path 16 of 20

Faces of Palestinian Entrepreneurship

Palestinian entrepreneurs ignite innovation and economic vitality, forging paths of opportunity and self-determination.

  • 19 entrepreneurs
  • Born 1890–1985
  • 3 from Jerusalem
Wrapping soap at a Nablus soap factoryWrapping soap at a Nablus soap factory
Taybeh BreweryTaybeh Brewery
A Nablus soap factoryA Nablus soap factory
Photos: Matson Collection (Public domain), Magister (CC BY-SA 3.0), Matson Collection (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons

About Entrepreneurship

Building where it is hardest to build.

Palestinian businesspeople have built banks, companies and whole industries, at home and across the Arab world. Abdul Hameed Shoman founded the Arab Bank in Jerusalem in 1930, and Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, displaced from Jaffa, built a global professional services group.

Under occupation, even moving goods from one town to the next is hard. Sam Bahour helped set up the Palestinian telecommunications company, Nasser Abufarha’s Canaan Fair Trade brought olive oil from Palestinian farmers to the world, and Ambar Amleh co-founded Ibtikar, a venture fund for Palestinian start-ups.

The people in this path found companies, fund start-ups and create jobs, so that young Palestinians can build a future at home.

All 19 entrepreneurs

Every face in Entrepreneurship, from the earliest pioneers to the voices of today.

Born across the decades

Tap a decade to filter · 3 without a recorded birth year

  1. 1890s
  2. 1900s
  3. 1910s
  4. 1920s
  5. 1930s
  6. 1940s
  7. 1950s
  8. 1960s
  9. 1970s
  10. 1980s

19 entrepreneurs