Sydney-based Palestinian activist Khaled Ghannam recently travelled to the occupied West Bank in Palestine and wrote an account of his visit for Green Left. This is part three. Read parts 1 here and 2 here.
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Coffee is a constant companion for meetings in Palestine. It is the most common beverage served in Palestinian hospitality, whether at home, in offices, in cafes, or at street coffee stands. In the company of coffee, ideas emerge and hearts expand to hear different viewpoints.
At the Inshirah Café in Ramallah al-Tahta, the conversations are loud but not heated. They discuss sports, food prices, road news, and Israeli military checkpoints. They also discuss released prisoners, resistance statements, and the deteriorating situation in the northern West Bank, particularly Tulkarm.
At the Fatah Intellectual Affairs Commission, I had a cup of coffee with Bakr Abu Bakr, director of the Intilaka Reseach Center. We talked about the Intilaka Center and our future plans, what is happening in the Gaza Strip, and the political trends that must change under the new American administration, perhaps the most important of which is the concept of national unity.
Brother BakrAbu Bakr said, "It doesn't seem true that there are nationalist and Islamic Factions in Palestine. All Factions are nationalist, and the majority of Palestinian society is Muslim. However, some insist on standing out from the crowd, and even seek to find differences among us. We need to unite within a comprehensive national concept whose goal is to propose a common national program."
Over sips of coffee at home, Mr Firas Al-Sarafandy, director of the Iranian Al-Alam TV channel, told me that the entire Palestinian people support the resistance and that there are no other options but to accept forced displacement. You will find people watching Al Jazeera TV channel in cafes, homes, and even in ministries. We are a people looking for a political victory, no matter how small, that will revive hope within us. As for me, I have established a new media services company to facilitate the work of any media outlet that wants to cover what is happening in Palestine. Yes, I will provide them with the necessary tools and technical personnel, as long as they come and cover what is happening in Palestine.
As for the activist Salah Al-Khawaja, assistant to the head of the The Colonization & Wall Resistance Commission, we met over a cup of coffee in a Ramallah Shopping Center Mall, and talked about the seriousness of the situation of Palestinian detainees in Israeli prisons. He explained that what is happening inside prisons is indescribable, and that it is ongoing torture in forms different from what we are accustomed to.
He rejected the idea of an alliance between political leaders and capitalists in formulating government policies, insisting that Palestinian financiers are too weak to influence political decisions. However, he believes that the political division is the reason for the weakness of the Palestinian leadership, both its branches: Fatah and Hamas.
We talked about the history of our village, Ni'lin, and he encouraged me to visit Al-Khawaja Palace after it was restored by the Riwaq Foundation. He told me that it is an important historical landmark, founded in 1831 by Mustafa Al-Khawaja, and that it contains valuable artifacts, including the seat of the Mayor, Amin Al-Khawaja.
I told him I would try to visit it, but I think that visiting the Sheikh Awad Mosque and the Sidra tree (Ziziphus spina-christi, known as the Christ's thorn jujube) in the eastern neighbourhood, Nasser al-Din Amireh neighbourhood, is much more important to me, as they are historically the oldest landmarks of the village of Ni’lin, which was one of the villages of the chairs since the Ayyubid rule over Palestine. It was the chair of the Nazir (Mayor) of the Amireh clan.The village of Ni'lin was one of the villages of the throne that protected Jerusalem with its own army by order of the Sultan.
The Khawaja clan came recently to the village of Ni'lin, specifically after the Battle of Ain Dara in 1711, when the villages that had lost from the Yemen Brigade were subjected to the rule of the victors from the Qais Brigade, as mentioned in the book Palestine in Transformation, 1856–1882. Studies in Social, Economic and Political Development, by the German orientalist Alexander Schölch.
At the home of Engineer Samir Haidar, and in the presence of the Chairmain of the Palestinian Engineering Association at Ramallah Governorate, Engineer Osama Taha, the conversation surrounding the cup of coffee was about the role of union work in building democracy. Engineer Osama Taha confirmed that many cases of financial and administrative corruption had been discovered, and that this had clearly contributed to strengthening the role of the General Union of Palestinian Engineers, which will hold its elections next April.
As for the cup of coffee with Adam Bader, the nephew of the late Mohammed Bader, it was mostly about memories I share with his uncle. Adam told me that he works for a software company in the artificial intelligence department, and that there is a large market and a promising future for this company and others like it in Palestine. He then said that he is writing his autobiography electronically with the help of programs like ChatGPT. I told him that this is excellent and that I am looking forward to reading your novel, Half Human, Half Electronic.
I remember the late Mohammed Bader a lot, as he was one of the most competent engineers in the Ministry of Communications. I attended a number of international engineering conferences with him, where he called for the introduction of fifth-generation mobile phone services. He also called for the illegal Zionist settlements in the West Bank to stop stealing Palestinian radio broadband frequencies and disrupting communications services.
I remember what he once said while speaking to European engineers at the Continental Hotel in Amman: If you want to stay in constant contact in the West Bank, you must carry three mobile devices: the first has a line for a Palestinian telecommunications company, the second has a line for a Jordanian telecommunications company, and the third has a line for a Israeli telecommunications company. These issues, which he raised, still have no real solutions to this day.
With Rawhi Al Thalji, we drank the coffee of memories at Inshirah Café in the company of Ramzi Harb. We remembered our university days and the sweetness of companionship in the prime of youth. We remembered our stolen joys and our stored sorrows. Our laughter came out broken, only comforted by the fact that we had met again after a long separation. We missed friends we used to meet with, some like Abu Jamal Muhammad ali-Aidy, who went to visit Al Yarmouk Palestinian Refugees Camp in the Syrian capital, Damascus, after being expelled from it thirty years ago. Here he is, sending us photos of himself and his friends amidst the rubble of Al Yarmouk Camp. Others traveled to the Arab Republic of Egypt to meet their families who had just escaped the Gaza war. Their tears filled them with joy and weeping, and they did not know how to complain except to God. We were reminded of Brother Ramzi's wife, Dr Deena Hard-Zemmo, Umm Issam, as she recounted the intimate encounter she had with her sister who had just escaped the Gaza war.
Over a cup of coffee at home, Issam Harb told me about the boredom that young people experience due to the difficulty of movement, especially after work, as it is limited to visiting friends at their homes, and that the financial situation is difficult.
I jokingly told him that whenever I introduce my friend Ahmed Al-Khatib, who works at the Ministry of Finance, to a group of friends, they immediately ask him if there is any news about salaries. It seems that delayed salaries are bringing life in Palestine to a standstill.
Issam Harb told me: Yes, especially after the Israeli government suspended work permits for Palestinian workers inside Israel. Government salaries became the most important source of income for Palestinian society. Yet, there are young Palestinians who lack the ability to manage their own financial affairs and have failed to adapt to the current circumstances, accumulating debt. They are like those who heat Green Salad before eating it or eat Green Beans with Maqluba—their ignorance has surpassed reasonable limits.
As for the museum visit, I began with a visit to the Mahmoud Darwish Museum in the Masyoun area of Ramallah City, which contains the magical scent of the world-renowned Palestinian poet, whose poetry has been published worldwide and translated into many languages.
The museum houses awards and medals awarded to the late Mahmoud Darwish throughout his long career, as well as handwritten poems and a variety of his personal belongings, including his favourite desk, pens, identification papers and many other personal items. The museum is part of Al-BirwaPark, which contains Darwish’s grave, as well as sand from all the Palestinian villages destroyed in the 1948 Nakba, and a lecture hall.