(Photo: Alexandra Vaughan/Your Middle East)
Of the major Palestinian cities in the West Bank, Nablus can often be overshadowed by the financial and political pseudo-capital, Ramallah, or the tourist-packed Bethlehem, or even the southern city of Hebron, besieged by settlers and a focal point for activism. Yet Nablus has its own history of being a center for culture, commerce, and resistance.
Many people, foreigners and Palestinians, perceive Nablus to be a cultural capital of sorts. While Ramallah seems to be a black hole for aid money and investments, with new cafes and bars opening weekly to entertain the multinational population of aid workers, Nablus has remained truer to its “roots.” Having spent time living and working in both cities, I can personally attest to this unique, yet hard-to-describe (with the risk of sounding Orientalist) quality of Nablus. It’s possible to spend an entire day walking and talking with locals without encountering English. The traditional coffee shops, where men gather to smoke argileh and play backgammon, line the streets of downtown, with not a bar in sight (Nablus is a dry city). The old city, similar in style to Jerusalem, supports a thriving souq, which actually is patronized by locals, and not purely tourists. Perhaps the only obvious sign of a Western infusion of money lies in the somewhat out-of-place cinema, which plays American movies and recently boasted an upgrade to “3D.”
Nablus hosts one of the largest refugee populations in Palestine, numbering upwards of 60,000. Within the limits of the city there are no less than four refugee camps: Al-Ein, Old and New Askar, and finally, the largest and oldest, Balata. While the camps are fully integrated into the city, there is a stark contrast between the open streets of the municipality and the sunless alleys of the camps, barely wide enough for one person to pass. As the families of the refugees grew over the decades, the hastily cobbled-together buildings rose quickly, often with one apartment housing families of 10 or even 20. The lack of privacy simultaneously brings the community together as a united front while also having the lasting, and oftentimes negative, effect of separating them from other camps and the rest of Nabulsi society.
A martyr poster in the Old City. (Photo: Alexandra Vaughan/Your Middle East)
As recently as the second Intifada, the refugee camps were a base and shelter for many of the resistance fighters struggling against their Israeli occupiers. As such, Nabulsi residents were often forced to weather attacks and midnight raids from the IDF well into 2007, long after fighting had subsided in other areas of the West Bank. Walking around the Old City, many of the buildings are shells of their former Ottoman-style glory, each neighborhood marking their crumbled walls with posters of their fallen martyrs.
Behind the scenes at a Nabulsi bakery, where the owner painstakingly rolls the dough out to create a flaky puff pastry dessert.(Photo: Alexandra Vaughan/Your Middle East)
Despite years of hardship through the occupation and the two intifadas, Nabulsis carry on. I found them to be overwhelmingly generous, often most so when they had little to give. In one particularly memorable instance, a female student of mine from Balata camp offered me her snack, insisting I split her food with her when I knew she had not eaten much that day. In another case, one evening at our neighborhood kunafeh (a delicious sweet-cheese dessert for which Nablus is renowned) place, the owner invited us to watch how it was made. He then proceeded over the next hour teaching us how he made his pastries, painstakingly rolling out the paper-thin dough in a manner of open friendliness that has become so indicative of most of my interactions with Palestinians, and especially Nabulsis.
A view of Nablus descending into the valley from atop Mount Gerizim. (Photo: Alexandra Vaughan/Your Middle East)
Nablus is physically beautiful, having the distinct natural advantage of being situated between the rolling hills of Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim. Evidence of the growing city rises in the shells of new apartment or office buildings, their white boxy shape giving the historic city an oddly uniform feel. However, in the twilight hours of the evening when the sun sets on one end of the city, the pink light cast on the western-facing walls of the buildings gives the city an almost magical glow. This marks my favorite time of day, when the peaceful sound of the call to prayer comes over the loudspeaker, the muezzin’s sonorous voice echoing throughout the entire valley. The deep, enthralling invocations are a peaceful reminder of the passage of the day as the hills slowly darken and the lights twinkle on.
This article was originally published by Your Middle East on September 27, 2012.
A resounding Yes for Nablus and kunafeh, as made by Masri Sweets in Dearborn, shipped overnight. See http://www.masrisweets.com/
The al-Masri are an extended Nablus family, incl filmmaker Mai Masri, as well as the Dearborn bakery, and other branches. Nablus is 3000 yrs or so old; the name comes from Neapolis, New City in Greek. It is famous for the olive oil soap industry, inter alia.
Nablus has kanafiyeh . Mmm
And Balata. The camp the Israelis don’t understand. They were so brutal to Balata in 2003. They thought if they destroyed it the people would leave but nobody left . It is better to live in Balata in ahla Filisteen than to own Apple and live outside . Because Filisteen is what matters.
“the refugee camps were a base and shelter for many of the resistance fighters struggling against their Israeli occupiers. As such, Nabulsi residents were often forced to weather attacks and midnight raids from the IDF”
Or to put it another (more accurate way), they harbored terrorists at their refugee camp so they could play the victim when the IDF came for them.
“Or to put it another (more accurate way), they harbored terrorists at their refugee camp”
Some accuracy. People under military occupation have the absolute right to resist by any means deemed necessary, see UN Charter, Nurnberg principles and all other recognized founts of basic international law. Calling the heroes of resistance “terrorists”, a fashion inaugurated by your spiritual inspiration the Nazis during their occupation of Europe, does not mean anything here.
“so they could play the victim when the IDF came for them.”
Well, the Israelian Invasion Forces have no business anywhere, absolutely anywhere, outside the armistice line or anywhere inside the international zone of Jerusalem, by both international law or unanimous consensus of the international community, and their very existence, i.e. also inside the armistice, line is extremely controversial as well. So these “IDF” are by definition pirates, armed terrorists who should have been shot on sight, and must be personally prosecuted for war crimes as well as their commanders and government. As for being victims, of course a population of civilians with no state or army to defend them is a victim.
sardelapasti: ‘…As for being victims, of course a population of civilians with no state or army to defend them is a victim.’
Well, only if the IDF or some similar gang of criminals is around. For example, the Amish, while lacking a state or army to defend them, are not victims. But then, they’re not under the Israeli jackboot.