Major Palestinian businessman praises Trump for cease-fire deal
Construction magnate Samer Khoury added that the Biden administration downplayed the deal’s significance

Lian Yi/Xinhua via Getty Images
The logo of the World Economic Forum WEF in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 23, 2025.
Palestinian construction magnate and activist Samer Khoury gave credit to President Donald Trump for securing the cease-fire and hostage-release deal underway between Israel and Hamas, while downplaying President Joe Biden’s willingness to engage.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, Khoury, chairman of the multibillion-dollar construction conglomerate Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), which operates primarily in the Middle East, said about the cease-fire deal, “I have to give credit to Mr. Trump and his team. He appointed an envoy two weeks before he was in charge, while the Biden administration, whenever we used to talk to them, they said this is not important. They never appointed a single focal point for our issue.”
Khoury participated in a panel titled “Middle East Trajectories” alongside Alexander Schallenberg, the federal chancellor of Austria; Bronwen Maddox, director and chief executive of the U.K.-based think tank Chatham House; and Iraqi President Abdulatif Rashid.
Khoury — a billionaire who is a member of the Arab Business Council and board member of dozens of international organizations — said one of the factors that has changed the dynamics of the war between Israel and Hamas is that “the world, and specifically Israel, realized there is no military solution. Fifteen months of killing, genocide, and then no military solution.” Another factor, he said, is, “All of us have kids, and they have seen on social media what has been done in the last 15 months … This means not any solution can be imposed on the Palestinians.”
Khoury, who is Greek Orthodox, also leads the Bethlehem Development Foundation, a multimillion-dollar initiative that seeks to revitalize the West Bank city of Bethlehem.
Asked about potential reform of the Palestinian Authority, Khoury said, “The process has started, but reform under occupation is not that easy.” He said there was no chance Israel would allow the Palestinian Authority to govern Hamas by itself in a potential day-after plan, but said one alternative is a technocratic government made of representatives of all Palestinian factions.
Maddox said, in addition to Gaza, she was “very concerned” about the West Bank. “There is all kinds of speculation about whether parts of the Israeli government feel that they have license from the U.S. to go after the West Bank in return for the cessation of military action in Gaza … the reality is that that part of Israeli political life is behaving as if it has license to do that,” she continued.
Schallenberg called the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, 2023, “horrendous” and said of the cease-fire and hostage-release deal, “Release of hostages for us is enormously important, we still have an Austrian-Israeli citizen who is in the hands of Hamas, father of two small children, since the 7th of October.”
On the issue of Iran’s nuclear program, Schallenberg said, “I understand after Trump pulled out of JCPOA [in 2018] they were shocked, but by now we have a serious problem too. And it’s not about only proxies. It’s not about attacking Israel. It’s also about Ukraine and Russia. It’s about North Korea … and their nuclear program … Our level of information [about their nuclear program] is less than it was in 2014. It’s a black box by now.”