Nablus – A City of Action [Some More Thoughts on the City]

06/12/09 2:30 pm Nablus, Palestine

Nablus is the most important city, outside of al-Quds (Jerusalem), in Palestine. The city is a large, vibrant urban spread of dense urban blocks, welcoming green space, and breathtaking hillside panoramas. But most importantly, Nablus is a modern, functioning, living city.

Nablus, a city of about 134,000 inhabitants is a center of Palestinian culture, industry, and identity. An ancient city, also home to the Jewish Samaritans and Christians alike, Nablus was at the center of the second Intifada. As a launch pad for rockets and resistance fighters, Nablus felt the full crackdown from the Israeli Defense Force, cut off by checkpoints, host to a military occupation of the city center and nightly security raids in the refugee camps. Through all this, however, Nablus has survived and carried on. Today, one must almost look for the signs of the previous struggles, as the vibrant pulse of the cities energy is the first thing noticed on the step out of the taxi.

The people are a friendly and hospitable people, always excited to practice their English and invite visitors to sample their exotic flavors or view their beautiful wares. Nablus is known for its olive oil soap industry as well as a special sweet made from cheese call kanafeh. But anything else can be found in the Nablus markets as well: clothes, toys, candy, meat, spices, electronics, and furniture; anything you desire. Walking through the markets is a festival for the senses.

Everywhere, colors, smells, sights, sounds. Some familiar, some shockingly new, some repackaged but you know the game. I found the markets of Nablus strangely representative of Palestine as a whole, a place of extreme constrasts. Oddly new, yet comfortably traditional; at one time frighteningly intimidating yet wonderfully accommodating. A place of beauty and extreme desolation, but always the place of a great People.