In Ramallah, they don’t especially like outside journalists, and certainly not those dressed in religious attire. But a Deal of the Century doesn’t happen every day, and besides, a caravan was waiting to take us into the PLO’s inner sanctum

Photos: Lior Mizrahi

Just two weeks ago, I spent a chilly winter afternoon in Ramallah. I had no illusions that I’d depart the city with a dove and olive leaf in hand; the Palestinians have proven that they aren’t genuinely interested in peace. But I did want to gauge the mood firsthand and get the Palestinian take on an American president with a decidedly different approach to the world’s most famous conflict.

Ramallah welcomed us with pouring rain, our vehicle bumping its way over the muddy potholes of the Bir Nabala neighborhood. But as we neared the central part of the city, the poverty and neglect gave way to more modernized urban scenery. The road was smoother, and the crowded apartment buildings were replaced by tall buildings, luxury hotels, and shopping centers packed with local customers.

Just about ten minutes past the IDF border checkpoint, we arrived at our first stop: the Mukata presidential compound, which is also home to the gravesite of arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat and the national museum that bears his name.

Upon emerging from the vehicle, it quickly became evident that my yarmulke was making my hosts nervous. Later, Brig. Gen. Shalom Harari, a personal friend and expert on the Arab world, explained to me that the Arabs see chareidi garb like a finger in the eye. They don’t distinguish between settlers and chareidim — any kippah-wearing Jew is a settler in their eyes. “The caricatures in the Palestinian media depict the Jewish settler wearing a shtreimel with a beard and peyos,” he said.

But despite whatever political undertones my dress did or didn’t carry, our hosts continued to escort us — quickly — to a conference room on the compound’s lower floor. There we were greeted by three senior Palestinian Authority officials: communications minister Nabil Abu Rudeineh; former prisoner affairs minister Ashraf Al Ajrami; and Elias Zananiri, vice-chairman of the Committee for Interaction with Israeli Society.

Back to the Table

Although all of the gentlemen in the room speak Hebrew fluently — many have mastered the language during stints in Israeli prisons — some of them, notably the more senior ones, made sure to reply to our questions in Arabic. Taleb el-Sana, a former Knesset member from the Ra’am-Ta’al party, who has become an advisor to PA leader Abu Mazen in recent years, translated. To no one’s surprise, the conversation was a frustrating exercise in veiled threats, accusations, and historical revisionism.

My first takeaway: Trump’s peace plan is worrying the Palestinians. After years during which the State of Israel was pressured to make more and more concessions to prove that it wanted peace, it’s now the Palestinians’ turn to prove they are serious. It’s clearly addling them.

“If we make it clear to our people that you’ve buried the two-state solution,” they told us, “the entire region will regress to the violence of the 60s and 70s.”

With that threat as an opener, it was only natural that our dialogue got a bit heated.

“You’re the ones who buried the idea of peace,” I responded. “You squandered every opportunity you were given.”

“That’s a lie,” Elias Zananiri replied. “From the days of Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin to the days of Ehud Olmert, there wasn’t a single Israeli leader who agreed to advance the peace process.”

“Ehud Barak promised you everything, including the holy sites of Jerusalem,” I said.

“Barak torpedoed it all,” Zananiri insisted. “You know why? Because of the mantra he sold to the Israelis when he returned from Camp David — that there is no partner on the Palestinian side. He claimed that he gave the Palestinians everything and they rejected it.”

“And he was right,” I said. “He promised you everything you wanted. Even Bill Clinton was stunned at the extent of the concessions Barak was willing to agree to.”