Aron Trauring tips us to Amira Hass's article in Haaretz: Anarchy, Not Chaos in the West Bank.
"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.
"...the Palestinian social structure preserves a surprising stability, an internal solidity, a mutual trust at levels that are not usually found in societies which have been through disasters, daily fear, insecurity about the future, suspicion of collaborators, and the economic crises that have shocked the Palestinians for so many years.
"The clan structure proves itself over and over as an anchor and spine, in an era of shocks."
Amira Hass is an Israeli, daughter of Holocaust survivors, who has lived in and reported from the West Bank for many years. Her books are essential reading.
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