Palestine’s new US-trained policemen at a ceremony in Ramallah in 2008

It was in April this year that my old friend Kan’an called me. “Something is happening here. You must come and have a look. Rafidiya is coming alive again.” The Rafidiya quarter is part of Nablus, the largest city in the northern West Bank. The quarter is home to its upper classes, its budding bourgeoisie and one of the largest universities in the West Bank. Before the lights went out in spring 2002, Rafidiya’s boulevard was the best shopping and dining stretch in the whole of the Palestinian territories.

To get there I had to pass an Israeli checkpoint on foot and squeeze into a yellow collective taxi on the other side. I introduced myself to my fellow passengers: “Please tell me what has been happening here lately, with you and with the economy.” The first time I dared