As politicians took center stage at the US-led economic summit in Manama, the capital of Bahrain, earlier this week, behind the scenes Israeli and Arab businessmen were busy forging ties of their own.
Common to both the Israelis and their Arab counterparts, was their desire to avoid the spotlight.
"Pardon me, I'm not authorized to speak to journalists," a businessman from Lebanon told me.
One person who agreed to go on record was Aric Tal, CEO of Nokia Israel.
"Nokia doesn't make phones, it provides communications infrastructure. Fifty percent of the information traffic in Israel and 75% of the information traffic for the Palestinians occurs via our infrastructure," Tal explained.
For the past year and a half, Nokia Israel has employed 20 Palestinians at its Ramallah office, who work on development for the company's cloud facility in Kfar Saba, in central Israel.
Through their economic plan, Tal added, White House Senior Adviser Jared Kushner and US special envoy to the Middle East Jason Greenblatt want to double this number.
"They want companies to hire Palestinian workers, pay them a proper salary and improve their standard of living and welfare," he told Israel Hayom.
