Here’s the sort of story that never sees the light of day in the western press — an East Jerusalem Arab woman who started a successful business after receiving a seed loan from a special government small business fund:
Firnas Abulabn, a young mother from east Jerusalem, started her beauty salon on the Mount of Olives last year with a $3,000 loan from MATI. Today, she has 200 customers a month and employs three workers.
“I learned about MATI from an ad in the newspaper,” Abulabn said. “There is a MATI branch in Beit Hanina. I went there, explained my idea for a business and got a loan. But I never expected the business to do so well so quickly.”
The western media, meanwhile, is far more interested in castigating Israel for presumed violations of Arab rights in that region.
