Anarchy, Not Chaos In The West Bank

[Violet_Crumble]

By Amira Haas
16 August, 2004
Haaretz

There's no theft in Nablus. Maybe here and there, but it's not a phenomenon. About half the residents of the town have been impoverished by the tough closure, and the classic tension between the refugee camps has intensified. Anyone coming to the city through the IDF blockade arrives with baggage full of nerves: for the lost time, the rifles aimed at them by the soldiers, and the soldiers' insulting language.

One Fatah group starts a quarrel with another Fatah group. Someone from a third Fatah group shoots at someone from the first Fatah group. Armed men are walking around in the open with their weapons, even though the army comes into the city every day and is constantly watching, and even though the army has made it clear that any armed person will be shot. For that precise reason, the Palestinian police do not carry weapons, and know that neither their titles as employees of the Palestinian Authority nor their uniforms give them any authority. And the courts are not working. In many other places in the world, all it would take is just a drop of this to yield to vandalism, economic vengeance, and empty streets as people stay home in fear. But not in Nablus.

Quite a few surprises await someone looking in Nablus for the fawda, the anarchy. The doors to homes are not locked, the city has functioned without a mayor and with a truncated budget, the streets are clean, roads that were chewed up for two years by tanks are repaired and upgraded, and the university insists on students not missing any school days, despite pressure from the political organizations to observe days of mourning when their leaders or others are killed.

When the results of the matriculation exam came in, it seemed that everyone in Nablus was only interested in the scores, not the latest internal Fatah dispute. The local radio station broadcast the results for hours, and mothers brought candies to work to celebrate the success of a son or daughter, including a mother who lost her son in some lost battle with the army. She explained that her mourning should not hurt the chances of the living. And not everyone passed: to those who didn't, there were condolence calls by friends and relatives.

http://www.countercurrents.org/pa-haas160804.htm