Word: camps
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...friends. "They live in Haifa, and I was worried about them during the war last summer when the Hizballah rockets were falling," he says. "I told them that they could stay with us!" Omar likes the novel idea of his Jewish buddies taking shelter inside a Palestinian refugee camp, and I ask him if Jews and Palestinians are so different. No, he says. They're both smart, they value education, and they laugh at the same jokes. But in conversation with Omar, I realize that Jews and Arabs are fatally alike in another way: they both suffer from a powerful...
...Arab states to seize back the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Instead, they pinned their hopes on an Egyptian-educated former civil engineer, Yasser Arafat, whose Fatah organization began carrying out raids inside the conquered territories and later committed atrocious acts of terrorism. Like other boys in the camp, Omar would listen to TV news from Jordan and Syria about their heroes--Arafat and his Palestinian fighters. They dreamed that one day Arafat would lead them back to their lost villages...
...feelings toward the former Palestinian leader are contradictory. Omar has heard the tales of the corruption that dogged Arafat and his entourage, of the missing millions in aid money. But he remains loyal to Arafat and insists, along with his friends, that I tour a museum in the camp whose showpiece is a photo display of Arafat in his many guises, from bug-eyed terrorist to statesman. Omar rushes me past a photo of Arafat shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; he thinks Arafat gave away too much to the Israelis, as do many Palestinians still holding keys...
...Jalazon and other camps, a generational divide splits the Palestinians. The older ones, of Omar's age, belong to Fatah, the organization run by Arafat's hapless successor, Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority. Those in their 20s and younger support militant Islamic groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. These radicals led the charge during the second intifadeh, which began in 2000, sending suicide bombers to blow up hundreds of Israeli civilians. Militants say that in the camp they have no shortage of young volunteers eager for martyrdom. As a parent, Omar says the last thing he wants...
...want to go back to our land." It's the same thought his uncle had in 1967, listening to Egyptian radio, and it has as much chance of happening now as it did then. Forty years after their great disappointment, those who live in the Jalazon refugee camp know that it may be the only home that they, their children and their grandchildren ever know. [This article contains a complex diagram. Please see hardcopy of magazine...