The card players of the Al-Amari cafe have been around long enough to take a sceptical view of the United Nations vote on Thursday torecognise Palestinian statehood [2].
The men at the regular morning gathering inside one of Ramallah's dense refugee camps have seen invasion, occupation and peace talks come and go over the years. They've listened to pledges from Arab leaders that Israel [3] would be crushed from existence, and heard promises from American presidents of an independent Palestine living in harmony with a Jewish state. None of that has come to pass.
So the card players agree that a vote at the UN only goes so far. But that doesn't mean they think it's not significant.
Husni Khalil, 65, said the vote mattered because Israel had never explicitly recognised a Palestinian state, even though it demanded that the Palestinians recognise a Jewish state. That, he reasons, is because Israel wants to seize as much land as it can in the West Bank.
But now the UN decision will stand in opposition to Israel's attempts to make historic and religious claims to territory that is supposed to be part of an independent Palestine.
"Instead of the land belonging to Israel, as the Israelis claim, the world will see that it belongs to us but is occupied by Israel. Palestinians want to live in peace alongside Israel. That's all we want. But they have to recognise we are a country, a state," he said.
Ibrahim Khamis, a 58-year-old driver, breaks from the card game because he wants to be heard. "This is important because we will be recognised as a country, not a disputed land. And if we are a country, then it will be recognised that we are occupied," he said.
Many Palestinians are mystified over why Israel would oppose the UN move. It's not violent, it recognises Israel and it's legal, they say. The conclusion some reach is that Israel is only paying lip service to a Palestinian state.
Majed Reehan, a 40-year-old accountant, who mentions in an aside that working with numbers gives him an advantage at cards, said Palestinians have followed the path of concessions, negotiations and meeting the requirements for recognition laid down by everybody from Bill Clinton to Tony Blair. So the UN vote is a just step.
"We have proved to the world we can build institutions and we can build a proper state. We have proved to the world we deserve a state. We have done what was asked of us," he said. "The UN vote is a step forward but we will still be a state under occupation. Maybe it will not automatically improve things but it is something."
Some European countries, such as France and Spain, shifted their support behind the UN request in part because they want to strengthen the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas [4], in the wake of the fighting in Gaza [5] earlier this month. Hamas emerged from the war considerably more popular among Palestinians for firing hundreds of rockets into Israel, and for the first time striking at Jerusalem and Tel Aviv [6].
Many Palestinians contrast Abbas's commitment to what is widely regarded as a failed diplomatic strategy, in which he has largely been humiliated by the Israelis as they continue to expand Jewish settlements on illegally occupied land, with what is seen as Hamas's success in forcing concessions through resistance.
There was alarm in western capitals at the prospect of ordinary Palestinians giving up on negotiations and Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, by concluding that Israel responds to force, not diplomacy.
But the card players do not see the two positions in opposition. Reehan said the violence of recent weeks had strengthened Abbas's hand. "What happened in Gaza [7] was a boost to Abu Mazen at the UN and it'll boost him in negotiations," he said.
Khamis noted that Hamas came out strongly in support of the statehood move. "Hamas lifted our heads up high. We didn't benefit from the peace process. Abu Mazen said it clearly, we haven't received anything from the peace process. He said: 'I'm not the ruler of my people, Israel is'," he said.
"Now Hamas has made him stronger. People are applauding Hamas; they respect Hamas. But Abu Mazen is our leader. He wasn't wrong to say we must negotiate. But Israel will only bow down before strength. You need negotiation but you also need resistance."
As with many Palestinians who have lived through so many twists and turns of conflict and diplomacy, the men are well informed on the detail of what the UN vote will mean.
One of the elements Khamis latches on to is also the most contentious for Israel and its closest allies: the prospect of Palestine using recognition as a state to pursue prosecutions at the international criminal court [8] (ICC). "We want the people who attack us held responsible," he said. "At least we can hold the Israeli army responsible for the massacres against us."
The Palestinian leadership has resisted intense pressure from the US and Britain to renounce the right of the Palestinian Authority to accede to the ICC. The UK said it would abstain in the vote over the issue, and a demand that Abbas agree to immediate unconditional talks with Israel.
Still, Abbas's officials have made it clear that the Palestinian Authority will not be rushing to accede to the ICC. Khamis is not bothered. "It's not a problem because we can keep it in our hands." he said, gesturing as though it were a valuable card in one of the games at the cafe. "We can play it at any time."
Reehan thinks the UN vote may actually benefit ordinary Israelis because it will remind them that they are better off negotiating than fighting.
"I think the average Israeli wants peace as much as us but they have a radical government. When the [Gaza] war was going on, they were running to their shelters. They don't want to live like this anymore than we do. Israeli people love life," he said.
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