Torn by war, Israelis and Palestinians tie their fortunes together

Salah Hussein, traumatized as a child by Israeli soldiers in his West Bank home, later co-founded a business with an Israeli Jewish co-founder. He joined a start-up accelerator called 50:50 Startups, which brings together Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Israeli Jews for six months of workshops, lectures, mentorship, and networking. The program ends with a pitching session in Boston to attract potential investors. Hussein pursues the effort for practical reasons such as access to capital and resources, and for ideals about creating change and reducing hatred for future generations. Yana Shaulov, a Jewish Israeli molecular biologist, joined the program and ended up working with Hussein, emphasizing that coexistence requires living together despite tension.

"Salah Hussein was 11 years old when he was woken up in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers in his family home in Nablus in the West Bank. It left him traumatized and terrified for years. It was "triggering" to see any Israeli in uniform, he says. "For me, all of them were a threat." But decades later, Hussein, now a 33-year-old entrepreneur, has willingly and purposefully tied his fortune to his co-founder, who is an Israeli Jew."

"Hussein is one of about 35 entrepreneurs taking part in a start-up accelerator program called 50:50 Startups, where mixed teams of Palestinians, Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews spend six months in a kind of business bootcamp, going to workshops, lectures and connecting with mentors. The program culminates with a session in Boston, where the entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to potential investors. The cross-the-divide collaboration brings an extra layer of challenge to what is already a heavy lift."

"By most estimates, about 90% of startups fail. But Hussein is fiercely determined, not only because of pragmatic considerations, like the need for resources and access to capital for his business, but also the more lofty ideals. "If we are not the ones looking for change, who will be? We are the right people at the right place, at the right time. We have to move on," he says. "I don't want my kids to be living in a world full of hatred.""

"Yana Shaulov is the Jewish Israeli on Hussein's team. A 37-year-old molecular biologist, she joined 50:50 hoping to launch an idea of her own, but ended up joining Hussain's team instead. Having grown up in a mixed neighborhood of Haifa, she says, she's used to coexistence. "It's not always easy, you can feel the tension sometimes, but [Israelis and Palestinians] are both here to stay, and we have to live together at the end of the day," Shaulov says."

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