The signs are still here: bullet-holes, damaged buildings, martyr posters adorning the walls. And Nablus has its own ambience: it feels out-of-the-way, unvisited, unattended-to.

I pass through Nablus three or four times, always on the way to or from Iraq Burin, where ISM volunteers go to participate in a demonstration every Saturday. ISM also has an apartment in the city of Nablus, and after the Iraq Burin demonstration one weekend, myself and three other activists decide to stay the night at the apartment.

Nablus is built in a valley, walled by steep hills on two sides. It is densely populated, and houses climb right up the sheer sides of the valley, as if they were trying to escape. The ISM apartment is one of these: it can only be reached by climbing steep steps up from the streets; but when you get there, the view is worth it. From the apartment door, you can walk around to the front of the building, where you are standing on the flat concrete roof of another apartment below. You are flanked by television antennas, and in front of you is all of Nablus, stretched out along the valley.

The apartment has a working shisha pipe, along with orange-flavoured tobacco. On the other hand, it turns out that lights don’t work in various rooms, including the kitchen. So we cook pasta by candlelight.

After eating, the four of us sit out on the roof-top, watching the sky darken as the city lights brighten. I bring out a mattress and lie down, listening to the others talk, but not saying much myself. Nablus is glowing with orange light now, and a slight hazy mist. We hear the popping of gunshots or fireworks. We hear a rash of sirens, which may or not be connected with the explosive sounds that preceded them.

At some point I fall asleep.

I am lying on this rooftop in Nablus, and there is a growing cacaphony of gunfire below. Something drastic has happened, and I wonder if this is the outbreak of a third Intifada. At least I am reasonably safe up on this rooftop.

I sit up and drag myself back into wakefulness. I am alone on a rooftop, and Nablus is still glowing below, but there is only the sound of late-night traffic now, no hint of conflagration. Still, I drag the mattress back inside the apartment, and go back to sleep there in a bare, tiled room.

* * *

I wake up in the morning with a strong urge to explore the city that I have so far only seen passing through. I go out immediately in search of breakfast, and soon find a place where a man and his son are working at an oven door, sliding in round lumps of dough, and sliding out flat crusty bread. I ask how much it costs for a loaf, and the man looks a bit bemused. Bread costs one shekel each. I guess it’s a long time since anyone has asked how much bread costs.

I take bread back for the others, but they are still asleep. So I eat, and go out again. This time I find my way right into the most thriving part of the markets. There is more bustle here than either Ramallah or Hebron, and more strange sights - whole goat-heads in buckets of water, foodstuffs I don’t even recognise. Martyr posters are everywhere. I’ve seen them before, in other places, but usually just the picture of the young man’s face, and some writing in Arabic. Here there are posters showing martyrs posing with ridiculous over-sized guns. And often another picture alongside, just the face, in a gentler pose. They are dead, each of them. But the pictures show them triumphant, invulnerable, scourges of the Israeli invaders. I wrinkle my nose at these posters - they are piteous and unconvincing.

I don’t like the goat-heads much, either. In another country I might look at them closely, observing the exposed contours of musculature around the jaws. But here I avert my eyes, not wanting to catch that dead grimace staring back at me.

The whole time I’m in the market, people welcome me and ask where I am from. Nablus is a curiosity to me, and I am a curiosity to them. While I’m walking down one of the streets a stallholder insists on making me coffee; then after I have accepted the coffee, he starts making me something to eat. I manage to roughly communicate to him that I am here with ISM, working with Palestinians to resist the Occupation. He is very pleased by this, and tries to make me eat more of his food.

Soon the man’s son arrives, wanting to meet the interesting foreigner. Then his son’s friends arrive, and they want to show me their mosque. These men wear long white robes and bushy beards, and each greets me by a series of alternate cheek-kisses, though there is mostly a lot of hair in the way.

I go with them to see the mosque, and meet more men in long white robes, and then they want to go with me to Ramallah so I can meet their other robed friends there. And I need to go to Ramallah anyway, so I go with them.

By these small steps, I end up attending Muslim prayers that afternoon, for the first time in my life. I am wondering now what to call a Muslim religious service. I’ve never heard it called “mass”, though it seems broadly similar to the Christian ritual. Perhaps just “prayers” is right?

The mosque is in a Ramallah suburb, and there are a few dozen men scattered about, mostly sitting on the floor reading books. More men come in just in time for the prayer service to start, and I get out of the way and sit at the back while they are led through a series of standing / kneeling / prostrating routines that remind me particularly of the Christian mass. There are chants, which mostly seem to be about Allah. This part lasts about 15 minutes, and then there is a sermon. The imam sits on a chair in front of the congregation, who are all sat before him on the carpet, much like children in a primary-school classroom. One of the older men who speaks fairly good English comes and sits next to me, and translates for me what he can of the sermon. It is on the theme of togetherness, and how Allah commanded that people should always gather together and share each others’ company.

Attending prayers at the mosque is quite tranquil and relaxing. It’s cool inside the mosque, and the sunlight is softened as it angles in through the windows. I would probably enjoy Christan masses too, if they were 20 minutes rather than an hour. The Christians should also look into this floor-sitting business: it seems to bring people together in a more powerful way, and take them out of the normal social space, where more aggressive and defensive stances are facilitated.

The sermon ends, and I’ve just about had my fill of Palestinian popular diplomacy for today, but the old man who translated wants me to come to his house for tea, so there is one last chapter.

There is not just tea, but more sermonising. The old man wants to explain Islam to me. He begins by telling me that it is a “very logical” religion, that its main principles are to “be honest, be good, kind and pure”. He goes on to explain:

“The Palestinian problems are rooted in our diverting from these logical principles, from the right path described in the Quran. Palestine’s problems are not the fault of the Jews - the Jews were just sent here by Allah to punish us.”

For some reason I find this very funny, but I manage not to laugh. It’s a slightly odd situation, sitting in the patio of this house with the old religious guy evangelising me, and half-a-dozen of his sons and grandsons all intently looking on.

He goes on to talk about “politics”, which for him is a very dirty word. He tells me that politics destroys all the good principles of Islam. It “causes us to betray ourselves”. I largely agree, though I can’t think how we would create a society without politics.

He goes on and on, talking up the perfection of Islam with considerable eloquence. I wonder if he can tell how intransigent, how unconvertible I am. My feedback consists of fairly passive nods and grunts at the end of each of his sentences, which I am happy for him to take as agreement if that is what he wants. At times he switches to a more humanist tack, and repeatedly notes that no-one should be converted to Islam against their will.

“We do not hate or disrespect people who are not Muslim. You are humans. Allah loves you and honours you.”

This is reassuring. Because just in case Allah did exist, I wouldn’t want to be on his bad side. And I manage to scribble down one more thing that he says about the conflict:

“The Jewish people at the checkpoints, who point their guns at us. We ask Allah to have mercy on them. They are poor. They have a commander telling them what to do.”

I know what he means: usually they don’t make me feel angry either. Just sad.

Finally I escape after an hour or two, unsure whether Palestinian Islam is really as gentle and benevolent as the old man has been advertising, or whether he’s doing a PR job on me. After all, those martyr posters back in Nablus, with the ridiculous over-sized guns: they’re all *holy* martyrs, aren’t they?

Not that I’m necessarily against the martyrs, either. I believe that people have the right to defend their country from invasion, as long as this means fighting against those who are fighting, rather than civilian massacres.

Whether the imams and the martyrs turn to guns or religion, it doesn’t feel right for me to judge them, or judge their methods. They have survived horrors and hardships that I can barely imagine, and I can have no idea what I would believe in if I were their shoes.

The Bil’in protest has become famous enough that there is even a small emergent tourist infrastructure here: people sell Free-Palestine trinkets; the “International House” provides a place where visitors can stay; and on protest days a felafel shop opens across the road from the International House, even though this is Friday, the day on which most villages are all closed up.

When we arrive, mid-morning Friday, the locals here react very differently compared to other resistance villages. People don’t pay us much attention - except for a few kids, who pester us for cigarettes. We have grown used to being welcomed as special visitors, and invited into houses for tea or lunch.

As midday approaches, it becomes clear why things are different here. Bil’in is the fashionable protest: dozens of internationals arrive, many of them conspicuously dressed in protest-chic: black hoodies, keffiyehs, sunglasses, and other quirky fashion accessories added according to personal taste. People take up studiedly jaded poses, in that way that only Westerners can. Before the protest starts, an Israeli activist gives everyone an instructional talk, in English, on how to avoid danger; he also makes a quick list of all the media-makers who have turned up, their nationalities, and the nature of their projects.

The demonstration itself is very lively. The Bil’in popular committee have constucted a giant pair of scales, representing International Law, and marking six years since the International Court of Justice declared the Wall to be illegal. The locals turn out in large numbers, comfortably exceeding the presence of internationals.

The group marches towards the Annexation Wall, carrying the huge scales aloft, then triumphantly balances the model on top of a gate right in front of the wall. A unit of Israeli soldiers are waiting behind the Wall (which is here not actually a “wall”, but a large fence topped by razor-wire), and the elaborate symbol is placed before them, almost like an offering - not of subserviance though - an offering of defiance. A promise to resist.

After about a minute, the giant scales begin to tip. People rush to right them, but it’s too late, and they come crashing to the ground, where the wooden structure shatters. What might this signify? Is the protest movement doomed? Or is justice broken?

No, it’s just a wooden model, that came off balance and fell.

Following the typical protest pattern, Palestinian youths now stand off with Israeli soldiers, chanting at them and waving flags. Soon enough, stones are thrown provocatively into the space between, and the Israelis start firing teargas and percussion grenades.

The soldiers open a gate in the Wall and come charging out, causing the body of protestors to turn and flee. For a minute there is chaos, as protestors run while trying to look back over their shoulders, almost tripping over each other in a kind of stampede. But the soldiers’ charge doesn’t last long, so the protest soon regroups. There are now further repeated skirmishes: chanting and stone-throwing met by gas. This goes on for about an hour.

The Palestinians have a great appetite for this kind of defiance. Among the protestors each week at Bil’in, there is a man in a wheelchair. His name is Rani Burnat, and most of his body is paralysed and useless, but still he comes. He has been in the chair since 2001, when he was shot in the spine at a protest much much like this one.

Most of the foreigners fade away quickly after the soldiers’ first charge. They may be here just to catch the smell of gas as part of their “Palestine experience”, or maybe even just so they can say that they came. Or maybe they are here for the most sobre and righteous motives: in one sense it doesn’t matter. If Palestinian resistance becomes the most fashionable thing in the world, this would be far preferable to being practically invisible. And symbols are not to be scoffed at: some days it seems like they are the only things keeping Palestinians from utter annihilation.

Thanks to both of you for responding to my email in which I raised my concerns about human rights violations by the Israeli forces occupying Palestine.

Thankyou Mr Smith, especially, for highlighting “the need for aid to reach those who need it [in Gaza]”, and for your commitment to “end the military occupation and the withdrawal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank”. These are sentiments with which I whole-heartedly agree.

Mr Burt, I am very thankful that you also took the time to answer my letter, in your capacity as Minister responsible for the Middle East. However, your letter did not actually address the issue of human and civil rights for Palestinians who are living under Israeli military occupation in the West Bank. This was the main issue that I raised in my original email to Andrew Smith.

I have just got back from the West Bank, where I have seen Palestinians suffering continuous violence and harassment from Israeli soldiers and armed settlers. Palestinians are subject to an Israeli military legal system that denies them the civil rights taken for granted by Israelis, and treats them as second class citizens in their own land. They are subject to evictions, house demolitions, and the annexation of farmland on which their livelihoods depend. In many areas their water supplies are also being cut off.

As we know, in Gaza people are not subject to the same sort of occupation and incursions, but instead are bombed from the air, or shot at if they stray too close to the Israeli border fence. They have been almost totally shut off from the world since 2007.

Your letter made no mention whatsoever of these realities, and I find this somewhat disturbing. Your letter mentions that Israelis should live “free from the fear of rocket fire” (which of course they should), but strangely neglects to mention the much more frequent and fatal violence suffered by Palestinians. By framing the conflict as a question of “Israeli security”, you distract attention from the total lack of security experienced by all Palestinians.

Rather than colluding in the conspiracy of silence about the systematic oppression of the Palestinian people, we should be openly drawing attention to the horrors of the Occupation. And the UK government should not continue to maintain warm diplomatic and trade relations with any government that is such a chronic human rights violator as Israel.

In your letter you argued that Israel is a “key ally and friend of the UK”, but by maintaining such a relationship, we offer implicit support to the Occupation. The concept of a “critical friend” (either the US or UK) somehow encouraging Israel to restrain its violent actions has repeatedly been shown to be ineffective.

We now have a moral obligation to cut off our investment and support for this violent, thuggish Israeli government.

Regards,

John Mansfield

Dear Andrew,

Thank you for your letter of 25 June to the Foreign Secretary on behalf of your constituent John Mansfield, about Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. I am replying as Minister responsible for the Middle East.

We believe there is a need to make urgent progress on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before the window to such a solution closes. The conflict matters to our national security, and we will take every opportunity to help promote peace. Our goal is a secure and universally recognised Israel living alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state, with Jerusalem the future capital of both states, and a fair settlement for refugees.

Mr Mansfield raises diplomatic relations with Israel and boycotts. We will not hesitate to express disagreement to Israel where we feel necessary. Although we do not agree on everything, Israel is a key ally and friend of the UK, and we enjoy a close and productive relationship. It is this very relationship that allows to have the frank discussions often necessary between friends. It is our belief that imposing sanctions on Israel or supporting anti-Israel boycotts would lessen this influence, not increase it. We therefore strongly oppose both boycotts and sanctions directed at Israel.

A solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict is firmly int he national interests of the UK, as well as those in the region. We want a new generation of Palestinians to grow up in hope, not despair, believing in a peaceful settlement with Israel, not impoverished and susceptible to terrorist recruitment. We want the next generation of Israelis to live free from rocket fire and able to enjoy peaceful relations with their Arab neighbours. While we cannot deliver this for either side ourselves, as friends to both Israelis and Palestinians we will seek to buttress the diplomatic initiative of President Obama’s Administration and the proximity talks that are underway, and we will be strong supporters of those building the institutions of a future Palestinian state while actively exploring with our European partners the scope for further EU action.

[possibly signed by hand - illegible]

Alistair Burt

Dear Mr Mansfield

Thank you for your email of 21st July expressing concern about the human rights of the Palestinian people, a concern I share. I have raised this many times in Parliament and with the British Government, particularly most recently in the context of Gaza with the need for aid to rech those who need it, and justice where war crimes are alleged.

I believe that there should be an end to military occupation and the withdrawal of Israeli settlements in the West Bank as part of a peace settlement guaranteeing a viable and genuinely independent Palestinian state, based on the 1967 boundaries, alongside a secure Israel. I will continue to do all I can to promote this goal and the closely related goal of peace in the Middle East.

I have written to the Foreign Secretary taking up the points you raise, and will get back to you as soon as I receive a reply.

With best wishes,

Yours sincerely

[signed by hand]

Rt Hon Andrew Smith MP

[Sent using WriteToThem]

Dear Andrew Smith,

I’ve been concerned for years about the human and civil rights situation in Palestine; it bothers me a lot more than other such situations around the world, because the British government that claims to represent me is an ally of Israel.

I believe that the Israeli policies on Palestine constitute gross violations of human and civil rights. I am right now spending a month as a volunteer in the West Bank, working with a team that documents
abuses and creates an international presence in situations where Palestinians are most at risk. Seeing things here on the ground with my own eyes, I am more than ever convinced that the situation faced by the Palestinian people is intolerable.

I also believe that comparisons to South African Apartheid are quite justified.

I would like to see the British government:

- strongly condemn Israel’s denial of human and civil rights to Palestinians;

- call for an end to the military occupation of Palestine;

- until the situation improves, suspend diplomatic relations, and boycott Israeli trade.

I would be very impressed if you could represent these views in the British parliament.

Yours sincerely,

John Mansfield

“I was a little boy when the First Intifada broke out. My brother was old enough that he got involved in the stone-throwing against Israeli soldiers; one day he had been out throwing stones, and then he came home holding a sponge to his face. He was injured, but he didn’t want to go to hospital, for fear of being arrested there. I thought this was very good, I thought my brother was a hero.

“But then there was crying in the next room; my grandmother was screaming and my mother just fell down on the floor. My brother had been shot in the eye. He lost his eye. After the Intifada he left Palestine; now he lives in the Ukraine, where he works as a teacher.

“For much of the Second Intifada we lived under curfew: long evenings were spent inside, with small amounts of food and electricity, unable to even step out into the street. Humans do not easily accept being locked up in closed spaces, so people began to break the curfew; but it was very bad for those who were caught out on the street after dark.

“One Israeli unit in Hebron developed a game, like a lottery. Anyone caught breaking curfew had to choose one slip of paper from a hat, and on this slip of paper their punishment was written. A fourteen year-old boy pulled out a paper that said, ‘You will be hit on the head then thrown from a jeep.’ The blow knocked him unconscious, so when they threw him from the jeep, he was killed. Another young man pulled out a paper that said, ‘You will be shot in the leg.’ SO they shot him in the leg. When the next detainee was brought in, the soliders pointed at the man with the leg wound, and said to the new detainee: ‘Here is a telephone, why don’t you call an ambulance?’ He was joking. Ambulances could not get anywhere, as many streets were closed off.

* * *

Sami, Youth Against Settlements activist, Hebron, 25 June 2010

“During the First Intifada, both my father and my brother were in prison. They were resistance fighters. My other brother was shot.

“This leaves a sign in our hearts: this is why we must resist. But since the Second Intifada, we now know that if we shoot, if we have arms, the Israelis will use this to attack us more, and they will win. So now our resistance is non-violent.”

* * *

Eid, Tayoush volunteer, South Hebron Hills, 26 June 2010

“I live in a Palestinian village in the South Hebron Hills. We are right next to the Carmel settlement. I work on Saturdays with Tayoush, an Israeli group who support Palestinian rights; but the people from my village do not like this. I have been attacked, my wife has been attacked, there have even been threats on my life. I think the people in my village are jealous: they say I get lots of money from the Israelis, even though I don’t get any money. I am also attacked by the Israeli settlers.”

* * *

Hamad, Al-Ma’asara village organsier, 25 June 2010

“Since the Second Intifada, my brother Ali has been in prison. He has been there for nine years; he has a 13-year sentence. After the Intifada started, a friend of Ali went to Jerusalem to speak against the occupation. He was arrested when he got there, and interrogated. He was afraid, and under pressure he gave them a list of names of people who throw stones at the Israelis. Ali’s name was on this list, even though he never threw stones.

“Yes, some Palestinians throw stones; but most people don’t do this. I don’t do this. If there are 10 people who throw stones, there are 90 people who do not. But if the Israeli police say you throw stones, you will go to prison.

“There are 11,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons.

“This girl over there [he gestures at a girl, about 10 years old], she is Ali’s daughter. She can visit her father one time every two months, for 45 minutes. I cannot visit him at all. I cannot travel to Israel; they won’t let me past the checkpoints. Do you have checkpoints in your country?”

“No, none.”

“We have checkpoints. In Palestine we have no time-table. You can say, ‘I will see you in Hebron on Sunday at 12 o’clock,’ but you will not be there at 12. Better just to say, ‘I will see you there on Sunday.’

“Ali’s son [he gestures at another child, this one hiding behind his hands] is afraid of dogs. When they came to arrest his father, the soldiers came at 3am, with dogs. Since this time, whenever the boy sees a dog, he runs away.”

* * *

Khaled, man-in-the-street, Hebron, 26 June 2010

After the demonstration in Hebron city this afternoon, five of us ISM volunteers were sitting together on a curb. The street was empty again now. Streets are normally quite empty in Hebron’s old city: the settlement carve-up has ripped the heart out of the place.

A Palestinian man came up to our group and asked us all to come to his house for coffee. Most of us wanted to go home, but he seemed very keen to invite us, so two of us went with him to his house nearby. He introduced himself as Khaled.

Khaled set out chairs for us on his patio, then served us strong, sweet coffee under the shade of the grape-vines there. Khaled didn’t speak any English, but we managed a bit of conversation in our beginners’ Arabic.

Khaled went inside again, and came out this time with a set of papers he wanted to show us. I looked at them, and realised why he wanted us to come and have coffee. The papers were from the Red Cross, recording in English and Arabic the dates of his arrest, and release, arrest, and release, arrest, and release, throughout the last two decades. He just wanted to show us. His wife and daughter looked on shyly from the doorway.

Other houses have been lost altogether. On the other side of Uthman Ben Affan, two large house have been completely occupied by settlers - as many as 50 perhaps, living in just two houses. They are very enthusiastic, these settlers, and Sheikh Jarrah is a key target in their program of ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem.

The divided house is not in equilibrium. The settlers are aggressively trying to eject the Al-Kurd family from the back half; the main methods are constant verbal harrassment, threatened and actual violence against their children, and the very visible presence of an M16 slung on the hip. There are also pseudo-legal machinations in motion, and the settlers call the police in every day (often more than once a day), with vague or invented complaints agains the Palestinians who continue to live in the street. No prizes for guessing whose side the police take.

ISM volunteers stay in a tent placed squarely across the path that leads to the back half of the divided house. If you enter the small front yard from Uthman Ben Affan Street, you will first notice that there is rubbish everywhere, and grafitti daubed on all the walls. You will then notice that to your left is a front door, festooned with Israeli flags. To your right is our hard-worn, white canvas tent, blocking the path to the back of the house. We keep people stationed in this tent 24 hours a day, 6 days a week. (Israelis activists take responsibility for Fridays.) We try to prevent aggressors from getting round to the back of the house, and we keep a constant watch on the activities of settlers, as well as police and military who so regularly visit the street.

On my first shift at Sheikh Jarrah, I have been there for about 20 minutes when, without warning, a troop of Israeli soldiers come barging through the tent. I try to stand in their way, and begin to ask, lamely, “What are you do-?” but the captain pushes me out of their path, and they all go trampling through. All I can do is follow them, video camera rolling. There are about a dozen soldiers - new recruits, perhaps - and the captain gathers them all in the patio outside the Al-Kurd family’s door. The Al-Kurd children scamper inside their house. The captain then belows a brief lecture to his recruits in Hebrew, and after a few minutes, they all barge out again.

I guess this is probably part of training - but also, a sign to the Palestinians, a reminder that they have no rights.

* * *

Staying at Sheikh Jarrah is very stressful. The settlers come by often, and at all hours of the night. Spitting and insults are common - though the insults don’t get to me too much, since they’re in Hebrew. We sleep in shifts, normally three of us staying the night, with someone always awake. But when it’s my turn to sleep, I don’t really. I lie on some old cushions behind the tent, in a hazy half-sleep, and lift my head every time I hear voices or footsteps. One time there is shouting in the street, and the sounds of a car light being smashed. I find myself standing out in the street, video camera in my hand, though I don’t remember waking up or getting up from the cushions.

In some ways I enjoy being vigilant. The sense of focus is intense.

I prefer to be awake between 5am and 7am, and nobody else does, so this shift usually goes to me. This is a quiet time: one or two of the settlers usually come back to the house soon after five, but they are tranquil at this hour. It is difficult to make a fuss at sunrise.

The settlers are a strange lot: I can’t make them out, except by dismissing them as loonies. They all wear black-and-white orthodox dress, with long curly bits hanging down from their sideburns. Quite a few of them are teenagers, and they have sheepish, devious expressions; the adults have more focused, though somewhat haggard faces. They all keep strange hours, possibly due to hardcore prayer routines. They often mouth words to themselves when they pass me in the street or the front yard; other times they insult me (presumably) in Hebrew.

When I am awake at 6am, motionless by the front gate of the house, a boy called Mohammed, maybe 12 years old, always comes by. I ask him if he lives here, and he says no, but he likes to come around and look. He is very smiley, and shrugs a lot in response to questions. He is heavily built, with a big belly. He once tells me that he eats just three times a day, always with six hours between meals, but… (he looks at his belly and shrugs).

It is a while before I find out that Mohammed used to live in the house across the street, before his family were forcibly evicted by soldiers, who then handed the house over to settlers. They then went to stay with relatives, further out in East Jerusalem. Mohammed tells me that when they went to the other house, he couldn’t sleep. He was too used to sleeping in his own bed.

I am shocked when I find out that Mohammed used to live in that house in across the street. Not because it is a tragic story - that sort of shock went away soon after I arrived in Palestine. Rather, I am stunned at this discovery because Mohammed seems so calm and cheerful. He hangs around talking to me for hours, and doesn’t seem to even notice the wild-eyed settlers coming and going from the house where he used to live.

When Mohammed goes back home (or to whatever place is now his home), I am alone in the street again, watching. I have tears in my eyes, though I’m not sure why. Maybe I just need to get some sleep.

Raed has spent three years studying in Manchester, so he is also different from most Palestinians in his familiarity with Western ways. While Raed was living in England, he did some work on one the dictionaries from Oxford University Press. He tells me about his meeting with Nick Rollin, editor of the Spanish, French and Arabic dictionaries. “He is a nice chap,” says Raed. He has picked up a very idiosyncratic collection of English idioms.

Raed tells me that he met other Palestinians while he was in Manchester. A Mancunian once told him: “When you see houses with their lights on at 3am, you know they must either be Russians drinking vodka, Brazilians having sex, or Palestinians talking about politics.”

Raed likes this proverb. “It’s true,” he insists.

We drive around Ramallah in his blingsome Audi; we have dinner at an overpriced restaurant where the menu is in both Arabic and English, then meet one of Raed’s friends - a Palestinian who teaches Spanish at Bir Zeit University. We all go to a coffee shop for tea and shisha, with Argentina playing South Korea in the background. Raed tries to teach me new words in Arabic: “Ana sha’baan” - I am full.

Driving me back to Ramallah, Raed says, “I want to go back to England as soon as I get the chance.”

I ask him why.

“Here you cannot live. You cannot improve yourself. In England you can do anything you want. There are more opportunities.

“I cannot improve myself here. I have 9 sisters and 3 brothers. I have 152 cousins. Every day I have to deal with famliy issues, so I can never do anything for myself. In England, you can live for yourself. For yourself and your closest family.

“I hold a good position in the Palestinian Authority. All over the West Bank, people from my family are in high positions in the PA. This means I have people coming to me all the time to help solve their problems. I am sick of this.”

I ask him what he thinks of the PA.

“The PA is full of crooks, dirty people. They are not even real Palestinians. They are very corrupt, and they don’t do anything for the Palestinian people.”

* * *

Another day I meet Raed, and he takes me to one of the few bars in Ramallah. I am not particularly interested in drinking a beer right now, but Raed is convinced that, being a Westerner, I must be desperate for a drink. He lived in Manchester, after all.

The bar is somewhat away from the centre of Ramallah - hidden perhaps. The place is very swish, with small fountains and obsequious waiters; clientele consists of foreigners (probably NGO workers) and Palestinians in their twenties and thirties, seemingly more Westernised than most. I drink a Palestinian beer (Taybeh), and Raed drinks Nescafe, which costs three times and much as the normal, delicious Palestinian coffee.

We talk a bit about the complexity of Palestinian politics: the different parties, the powerful families, the different ideological and religious groups. Looking around the young people in the bar, I muse, “If it became an independent state, perhaps Palestine would turn out like Lebanon.”

Raed replies, “Yes, but worse.”

“Worse?”

“People in this country are very thirsty for this type of culture.” He gestures around the bar. He means, Palestine would become even more torn between East and West than Lebanon is.

To change the subject, Raed asks me if I want to hear a joke. I assent, so Raed proceeds to tell his joke, completely straight-faced, and with no attempt at comic timing.

“An old lady visits her friend, a priest, to help him clean up around the church. When she arrives he greets her: ‘Good afternoon. Did you come on the bus?’ She replies: ‘Yes, but I managed to hide it by pretending that I was having an asthma attack.’”

When Raed finishes the joke, he doesn’t wait for me to laugh, but just keeps talking about other things. I feel a little tried, but Raed is not at all sleepy. “This afternoon I had forty winks,” he says. There is a pause, and I realise he is checking my reaction.

I tell him that “forty winks” is an excellent phrase.

* * *

The last time I see Raed, it is in his home city, Hebron. He is very proud to show me around, and indeed, about half the people we meet in the street are his cousins.

I stay at Raed’s house, where we sit up late with his wife and children, watching an Egyptian movie. Of course I don’t understand a damned thing, but the style of acting is entertainingly burlesque.

In the morning, over his breakfast of coffee and cigarettes, Raed finally tells me what he really thinks of the Palestinian struggle. I now discover why he is so little interested in the work of ISM and the Palestinian resistance movement: for Raed, the entire course of the struggle is written in the Quran, and the solution is all in God’s hands. He shows me the relevant passages: apparently, the “Jewish kingdom” that is currently oppressing the Palestinians is destined to last just 72 years. Counting forward from 1948, this means it will expire in 2020 - just 10 years to go then? Raed confirms that this is his view of events.

I don’t try to argue with this. (It could be true for all I know.) And soon I have to get back to East Jerusalem, to take up a shift observing one of the threatened Palestinian houses in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood.

Raed drops me in central Hebron, and I say goodbye to him in the street, with genuine feeling. I hope he makes it back to England, if that’s what he wants. There are a lot of things we don’t agree on, but we’re comfortable disagreeing; I feel that even in a couple of weeks Raed has become a true friend, so our parting is a little sad. And I have less than a week left in Palestine now. This parting makes me realise that I will soon be parting from the country as a whole.