"In the end, we are all under occupation," he said. "We are all Palestinians."

In Nablus, Strife Dims Dreams and Daily Life
So much of daily existence is determined primarily by conflict and occupation: whether you can go to school or to work, what you eat, whether your garbage gets picked up, whether you can leave or enter the city, whether you buy stocks, whether your daughter hopes to be a doctor or to blow herself up, whether — like more and more Palestinians here — you turn for comfort and guidance to conservative Islam, and perhaps even to the militant group Hamas.

But of course it could not actually do so. For this boxer is the brightest Olympic hope of Palestine, a state that does not exist. With the daytime curfew temporarily lifted, the tanks temporarily gone from his part of Nablus, he was training alone, as usual, in the worn gym of the "Palestine Is In Memory" athletic center. Staring from posters on the wall was Bruce Lee, the action hero, but also dead Palestinian children, watching silently as Mr. Abu Kishek's gloved hands — blue-and-white blurs — thudded into the bag.

"I don't want to be involved in politics," he said, still sweating after rolling the tape off his hands. Then he smiled at the absurdity of his own wish.

Mr. Abu Kishek knows better than anyone that every punch he throws is a nationalist sentiment, that his dream of Olympic achievement and his struggle to attain it have been as animated and stunted by politics — by the Palestinian uprising and the Israeli occupation — as every other aspect of life here.

This is the biggest, most cosmopolitan Palestinian city. Cupped by mountains, layered by successive civilizations over thousands of years, it is a beautiful place, the home of aristocrats and poets, of the Palestinian stock exchange and of centuries-old factories that make olive-oil soap. Once, a local official had the task of increasing tourist visits by Israeli Jews.

But then came the conflict. The suicide bombers began setting out from Nablus — more than from any other city — and the Israeli paratroopers arrived. The city is surrounded and occupied by soldiers now. It is under curfew from darkness until dawn and sometimes in daylight as well.

So much of daily existence is determined primarily by conflict and occupation: whether you can go to school or to work, what you eat, whether your garbage gets picked up, whether you can leave or enter the city, whether you buy stocks, whether your daughter hopes to be a doctor or to blow herself up, whether — like more and more Palestinians here — you turn for comfort and guidance to conservative Islam, and perhaps even to the militant group Hamas.Also: whether you can box.

After the handshake on the White House lawn in 1993 between Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader, and Yitzhak Rabin, then the Israeli prime minister, Palestinians were accepted as Olympic competitors. They first fielded a team, of three athletes, in Atlanta in 1996.

Two years into the uprising, Palestinians have lost even the limited autonomy they gained under the Oslo accords, which had seemed sealed by that handshake. While the Palestinians still plan to field a small Olympic team in Athens in 2004, Mr. Abu Kishek's training routine has all but collapsed; it is no longer safe for him to jog through Nablus's hilly streets.

Some residents from Askar love to recall how Mr. Abu Kishek once dropped a fighter from Jenin with a single blow in the Palestine Is In Memory center. But few people in the city of Nablus seem aware of the boxer's existence.

The refugee camps were the cradle, or caldron, of the first intifada in the late 1980's, and also of this one. Through the intifada, the refugees asserted themselves in Palestinian society, shouldering aside established elites.

"It was a social and class struggle," said Sa'id Kan'an, the director of the Center for Palestine Research and Studies in Nablus. "The refugees felt like second-class citizens. During the intifada, they got the opportunity to prove themselves."

Most militants came from the camps, he said. "They harassed the citizens here; there's a lot of friction."

Mr. Abu Kishek said that though residents of the camp were still suffering more, the gap between the camps and city had narrowed during the conflict. "In the end, we are all under occupation," he said. "We are all Palestinians."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/29/international/middleeast/29NABL.html?pagewanted=all&position=top