Fraternizing with Fatah

Well, the feeling of “life here is mundane” has been alleviated a little by the fact that, when we opened up the local paper this morning, our pictures were in the same frame as Qurei, the Prime Minister. That’s right. I’m in the paper. In Palestine. With one of the most well-known figures in the Middle East. Where did this life come from? I'll see if I can get a .jpg of it, and send it around.

We went the launch of the new domain “.ps” – the official Palestine internet domain. It was really interesting, because I came into it thinking, “Um, ok. Great, a new internet domain.” The point, though, had very little to do with the internet, and quite a lot to do with nationalism. The crux of it being that “Palestine” is a concept that is really more mental and emotional than geographic. For a nation with such a tenuous hold on land, the idea of a virtual community is very powerful. An event that would register in the American media with barely a blip became a very real manifestation of Palestinian nationalism.

The entire event also underscored a very interesting fact. This place is very, very small. Everyone knows everyone. “Far away” is two hours by car. One of the guys in the office was talking to me about how rare it is for single women to live alone in Palestine, and I was talking about how, in America, if you live 500 miles from your family, it’s not even really all that “far.” It’s an odd feeling, to see such a closely knit community.

There is no street crime here – you can walk around, and you won’t be mugged. The police spend the bulk of their time directing traffic (the security forces are another matter, but they aren’t running after muggers, either), or so it appears, and even right around the refugee camps (which aren’t actually camps, after this long – they’re more like public housing projects), the problems are poverty and unemployment, not drugs or crime. To be honest, I’m not sure what to make of it.

Here, we have a city that is faded and run down, but safe, on a day-to-day basis. At home, we have beautiful parks, and a shining capital, but places where you can’t get out of your car for fear of being shot. Is there always this dichotomy? How do you find the balance between fighting the outside world, and fighting yourself? Neither Washington nor Ramallah has managed to do that yet.