It’s now Tuesday; I arrived in Nablus Sunday afternoon. I’ve barely had time to sit down since then. The buses from Jerusalem to Ramallah and then on to Nablus were surprisingly easy: the checkpoints were all open and there was no queue at the Security Wall. The wall itself makes the West Bank look like a prison compound; when the gates are closed, to the locals it feels like one. Really, that is what is being created here in the occupied territories: the world’s largest and to many the most controversial prison, with guards of one creed and inmates of one race. If you think of the Stanford Prison experiments you can only imagine what ends are met here when the roles are designated by something far more fundamental than just the whim of the experimenter.
The change, once you pass the wall, is incredible. I’d read that the West Bank is possibly the best place to experience the Middle East, and past the wall you begin to see why. The tri-lingual street signs of Jerusalem disappear; Arabic dominates; Hebrew vanishes; English only appears in logos and on road names. The presence of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) is sparse in the city centres (which are designated as Security Area A – under both civilian and military Palestinian control) but is fairly widespread outside the cities (mostly Area C – Israeli civilian and military control). The wall and any secure compounds are dotted with pillboxes and towers, and the soldiers are just kids with guns. As we drove through the Huwwara checkpoint, one soldier looked just like the typical school geek: thick rimmed glasses and not yet out of braces, but now with an AK-47. We were waved on through.
Nablus itself is an interesting place. The city, refugee camps and surrounding villages are home to over 300,000 people, and were the scene of some of the heaviest fighting during the second intifada. There is a strange mix of warm Middle Eastern hospitality from the people but an undertone of anger and tension in the city itself. Many buildings remain as rubble from the Israeli shelling, and posters of solemn young men with rifles line the walls; pictures of ‘martyrs’ that died in the ongoing struggle to shake off the occupation.
After what was a tiring journey, I finished signing the forms, was shown round the Old City, and went back to the school with the intension of sleeping. I asked if there was anything I could do to help (really an empty pleasantry – I needed sleep) and was told that, actually, the teacher of a class couldn’t make it and the UN school was on strike; there was a class of a dozen teenagers on their way round with no one to teach them. Could I help? Of course I could, I suppose. When in Rome...
The class went well, all things considered, and after I got an hour’s kip. Then came a lecture from a Palestinian doctor who’d been shot, imprisoned and tortured by the IDF, and had lost his mother and several family members in the fighting. He was lecturing on the “Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions” (BDS) program to help to end the occupation, and on the need for a genuine one-state solution. I will write more in detail about these when I have time, but for now I’ll say that they do seem to be two of the more hopeful possibilities in this situation which often feels immutably hopeless. He spoke consistently of his commitment to non-violence, which is honourable, but the tone of his speech betrayed a definite anger, which of course is understandable. Non-violence and anger are not mutually exclusive, but the later weakens the resolve to maintain a state of the former, and it is anger which has too often boiled over in the face of harsh Israeli oppression. With this in mind, remember Yasser Arafat’s speech to the United Nations General Assembly: “I come bearing an olive branch in one hand, and the freedom fighter’s gun in the other. Do not let the olive branch fall from my hand”. Do not forget though, just who it was that let the branch come crashing down.
I’d write more, but I have classes to prepare for.
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