Word: balata
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...Balata's narrow streets, the chaotic traffic writhes slowly and fractiously between the cinder-block auto shops in the simmering heat of spring on the valley floor. More than 800 feet above the dusty camp, on the lush peak of Mount Gerizim, a monumental structure is rising, half Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, half Taj Mahal. It is the new home of a leading member of the Masri family, the most powerful and wealthy clan in Nablus. It is a reminder, too, of the differences between the unruly refugee camp and the Palestinian metropolis in the West Bank, and a symbol...
Down in the fifth of a square mile that is Balata, it is not venerated old families like the Masris who rule. The graffiti on the walls mark the territories of clan-based gangs like the Dan-Dan, or personal militias who owe their allegiance to local leaders with nicknames like Baz-Baz. Among the 30,000 residents of the camp, 65% of workers are unemployed, up from 25% before the Aqsa intifadeh kicked off eight months ago. It is estimated that there are 5,000 guns in the camp...
...Between Balata and Nablus, the road bumps down a mile-long stretch of chop shops where cars stolen from Israel are gutted for parts. Arafat's police don't dare touch these garages. "It's a free-trade zone," jokes Khader. Outside the door of his second-floor office, Nablus mayor Ghassan Shaka'a keeps two guards armed with Kalashnikovs. Smartly dressed in a checkered sports jacket, Shaka'a is a member of the executive committee of the P.L.O., a confidant of Arafat's. "Balata is not against me," he says, laughing dismissively. Out on the street, however, he rarely...
There are good and bad people in Balata too. But the bad people got a leg up from this intifadeh. In the first intifadeh, from 1987 to 1993, Balata was the hot zone, a beacon of Palestinians' willingness to sacrifice. But seven years of Arafat's regime have destroyed that spirit. "People follow the religion of their king," says an Arab proverb. The religion of Arafat's henchmen has been corruption. So the people of Balata have learned to be crooks...
...Balata and Nablus are not the only Palestinian communities torn by internal conflict. Tribal, social and regional enmities throughout the Palestinian territories grow more violent by the day. The intifadeh was supposed to free Palestinians from Israeli occupation, but it is fast pushing them into crime, poverty and gang war. Since the arrival of the Palestinian Authority seven years ago, the society of the West Bank and Gaza Strip has been cracking under the dual strains of Arafat's corrupt rule and continued occupation by Israel. The intifadeh took those fissures and blew them apart. This semi-anarchy has alarming...