Nablus, Palestine
Most people nowadays do not visit Nablus. It is often under curfew by the Israeli army and getting in and out through the many checkpoints surrounding it would deter all but the most determined.
Ignore the poor quality of the photograph - it is merely meant to show the many checkpoints surrounding the city of Nablus.
Nablus is one of the West Bank cities where resistance to the Israeli occupation is fiercest. We arrived in Nablus on a Friday morning following a night during which a young boy had been killed by the Israeli army. Apparently his brother had been out laying a booby trap for the tanks when he was shot. He managed to escape but the mosque mistakenly broadcast his death early morning, his younger brother distraught at the news, dashed out into the street to go look for his brother’s body. He in turn was shot, this time fatally. He was 17. This was just another night in Balata refugee camp where the wholly abnormal has become commonplace.
Getting into Nablus was lengthy - cars, buses and trucks were backed up for miles to get through the checkpoint.
The line of cars and trucks waiting at the checkpoint to get into Nablus.
We were deposited by taxi in Balata camp near the cemetery where we were to wait for our host. Not surprisingly the mood was very somber. The teenager was to be buried after the noon prayer. Two men standing at the cemetery gates watched us as we waited, without saying a word. Some young boys shuffled over, curious to see a group of foreigners - above the entrance to the cemetery was a frieze of photographs of men who had obviously died in the more than half-a-century fight for Palestine. Such posters are commonplace in Balata where there is barely a household who has not had at least one son die in this war. One of the boys who could not have been older than seven or eight, pointed to the picture of one of them and told me it was his father. What do you say? What can anyone say about a war that the world has cynically allowed to fester since 1948?
Our host arrived and led us to his house where his mother had made tea for us. Mohammed, a young journalist who spoke excellent English, was going to give us a talk about the situation in Balata. My notes scribbled during his talk are as follows; There is no crime in Balata although we are an oppressed people, nobody has rights over anything - "this is my right, you have taken it from me." Most of the young men are dead, it's exhausting but we are very strong. The people are very poor, class differences even within Balata. No hospitals, one UN clinic, everyone has to wait for operations - "I was shot once, the bullet stayed in my leg for 4 days because the hospital had to deal with the more serious cases first", there are no medicines so you get aspirin for everything, the strike is the worst thing - public sector on strike because they have not been paid in months, the PA (Palestinian Authority) is corrupt. The second intifada would have happened anyway - they (Israel) dehumanize us, they want us to leave so they can take all the land. We cannot talk to the world about what is happening because if we are articulate, the Israelis will not give us a visa, Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade - offshoot of Fatah, what else can we do? in 2002 the first suicide bomber came from Balata after the Israelis invaded the camp and men were stripped naked and made to walk in the street, they broke down our doors and invaded our homes. Hamas started suicide bombing - resistance in the West bank against the military. "What are Russians doing here? - they say it is their right, it is their land? They know nothing of this land."
At this point our host said; “people come, they take photographs, they write, they leave, nothing changes and we are still here”, then she looked up and said, “but why do I expect anything from the West when the Arabs themselves do nothing”. I met one woman who had had 12 sons; 4 had been killed, 2 were in prison, 2 were on the run, 2 had been seriously injured, 1 was in a permanent state of catatonia, only one was left so far unharmed. How does anyone sustain this?
As we sipped our tea, we heard the funeral procession pass not far from where we sat. There was gunfire, nobody paid the slightest bit of attention - for them gunfire is an everyday occurence and either signifies the death of one of their own or the imminent arrival of the Israeli army. It was unanimously decided that given the tense circumstances we would not tour the camp as had been our intention. We decided instead to visit the hammam where we would meet our guide to take us on a tour of the old city. But once there, it became abundantly clear that the guide himself was very tense, and the women in our group took so long in the hammam that when we all finally emerged scrubbed and loofahed, he had left. I think we were secretly glad even though we had lost our chance to see something of Nablus, since our hosts had forbidden us from walking about on our own without one of them with us.
Standard checkpoint
Nablus has a long and extremely turbulent history even for this region which has possibly known more violence and upheaval than any other place on earth. Even nature does not favor Nablus, as earthquakes have routinely destroyed what man has not. Nablus was founded by the Romans not long after the destruction of Jerusalem as Flavia Neapolis Samaria, probably as a base from which to counter the rebellious Samaritans in nearby Shechem. (The Samaritans, although nominally Jewish, do not follow the same rites. They recognize only the Pentateuch - the first 5 books of the Old Testament, they believe in their Jewish descent through Joseph, and that the spirit of God rests in Mt. Gerizim which for them holds precedence over Jerusalem. They have often been at odds with mainstream Judaism - during the Second Jewish revolt in the second century AD they sided with the Romans. Theirs is the only contiguous Jewish presence in the Holy Land.) Over the years Nablus flourished as evidenced by the remains of a hippodrome, theater and amphitheater, but friction with the Samaritans intensified when Christianity was introduced, marked by repeated revolt and repression. After the Arab conquest of 636AD the history of Nablus largely follows the pattern of all other towns and cities in the region, with control passing back and forth between Crusaders and Muslims. In 1242 the Templars put Nablus to the torch - when the Mamluks regained control in 1291, perhaps in revenge, they burned the churches and evicted the Christians. Thereafter Nablus thrived as a center of agricultural produce, as Ibn B. notes below, and soap-making from olive oil for which it is still known.
“Leaving there I came next to the town of Nabulus which is a large town with an abundance of trees and perennial streams, one of the richest places in Syria for olives, and from which olive oil is exported to Egypt and Damascus. ... there is manufactured also the carob sweet and it too is carried to Damascus and elsewhere. Here too grow the melons which are called by its name Nabulusi ; they are sweet and delicious. The congregational mosque of the town is of extreme architectural skill and beauty and in the center of it is a basin of sweet water."Ironically, Balata camp is essentially built over the Biblical Shechem, former capital of the Samaritans. Nearby is the site of Jacob’s well as well as a second Joseph’s well. (According to Jewish tradition it is also the site of Joseph’s tomb, of which there is another in Hebron.) This was the well on the land bought by Jacob (with whom Shechem is principally associated) referred to in the book of Genesis, and site of the New Testament story of Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Long a place of Christian pilgrimage, the site is administered by the Greek Orthodox Church which has a monastery there. Again, I did not visit because of the ominous situation in Nablus that day.
After a delicious traditional lunch with our host family we left to go back to Jerusalem. It was cold and dark when we got to Huwara checkpoint but at least the line was not long. As always, one of the soldiers opened a gate to allow us as foreigners to pass without waiting. When we told him we would wait our turn, he shrugged, and wordlessly closed it again. Then a man, his wife and two little girls showed up. The woman and the children were allowed through but not the man. He spoke to the soldiers in English remonstrating with them - no way. He was told to join the line - the Palestinians at the front of the line who had been waiting allowed him to pass in front of them. It is curious is it not, how in a land where people have been stripped of virtually all rights and freedoms and where violence is a way of life, that such acts of graciousness are still seen, yet in many countries where people are free to come and go and do as they please, such courtesy is largely a thing of the past?
The daily "passegiata"
