Interesting discussions in cafe

I have been having some interesting discussions in the cafe where I have been going to meet my friends. The other day I went to Ramallah, the capital of the Palestinian Authority and bought an Arabic newspaper El Quds. In it was an article about a group of ultra-orthodox Jewish rabbis opposed to Israel who had been on a visit to Ismael Haniyeh, the head of Hamas in Gaza. He had been involved in a civil war among the Palestinians following the elections of 2007, and subsequently in the fighting against Israel this year.

We started talking about Hamas. Some of my students were in the cafe. I asked Jesus, a 15 year old student what he thought of Haniyeh and Hamas. 'He can f... himself', he replied making a graphic gesture. Who do you like? I asked. 'I hate all of them'. Jesus has a blue pass and lives in east Jerusalem. He tells me that in his area of the city, Jews and Palestinians live. 'Do they live together?' I ask (I wanted to know if they got on). 'Yes, together', he replied. I wasn't quite sure how well they got on. I have noticed that in the old city of Jerusalem, people seem to get on on a day to day level, as shopkeeper and customers or tourists.

Another student in the cafe disagrees with Jesus. He favours Hamas over Al Fatah the party of Mohammed Abbas the Palestinian President. He is younger than Jesus, has very good English his manner is very courteous and polite. His father is a doctor one of the most important people on the board of the community centre. He wants to be a doctor too when he is older. He asks me which Palestinian leader I like. I tell him I like Mohammed Abbas. He bridles at this. He doesn't like Abbas. 'Tell me one good thing that Abbas has done'. I tell him, 'Maybe he will be able to make peace with the Israelis'.

The young student objects to this. As far as he is concerned Abbas is a pawn of the Israelis, he does whatever they want him to do. Not only that but he has tried to crush Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade (the armed wing of Al Fatah). Hamas and Al Aqsa Martyrs brigade want to fight the Israelis - 'the bad ones' - but Abbas want to stop them.

The groups that this young student supports are the very people that are regarded in Israel and in the west as terrorists. My cousin last week told me about the suicide bombers in Israel, the explosions in cafes at the time of the second intifada, before the separation wall was put up. Everywhere you go you see pictures of 'Shahids' or 'Shahidas' - martyrs - on posters on the walls. They are people who have died during the different periods of fighting here. In Ramallah today, I saw a poster of a Shahid. In the picture he is holding an automatic weapon. He is a middle-aged man, looks like he could have been a shopkeeper or an electrician, and perhaps he was.

I talk to my friend Mousa about Arab leaders. The Arabs have only had three leaders, according to Mousa. Yassir Arafat the founder of the PLO, Saddam Hussein, and Abul Nasser the President of Egypt in the fifties and sixties. We talk about Saddam Hussein about his war against Iran and again the Kurds. I tell him about my student in London who was picked up off the street at the age of 14 and forced to join Saddam's army fighting the Iranians, and then later was tortured by his police before fleeing the country and becoming a refugee. Mousa said, that Saddam had made two 'mistakes': one was fighting the Iranians, the other was attacking Kuwait. Otherwise he was a very great leader. Why, I asked. Because he had stood up for the Palestinians. Arafat too was a great leader of the Palestinians. He had a vision and a strategy which Mohammed Abbas doesn't have.

He looks through the paper picking out stories. There is an article that says that two thousand Jews from France will come and live in Israel this year. Large numbers of Jews from Ethiopia have come to Israel. I have seen Israeli soldiers of Ethiopian origin in Jerusalem. Another article is about young Palestinian prisoners in Israel, under 18, who want to take their 'tarjihi', final school diploma while in prison. The Israeli authorities won't allow them to. There are about 1,800 of them.

I ask Mousa what he feels when he reads that Jews can from abroad to live in Israel, while he himself can't live there, can't go visit the see, or visit Jerusalem. He says he feels angry. 'What does the word Haq mean?' 'Justice', I tell him. 'There is no justice'. Then he asks me a question, which I have never actually thought of until now. 'If the Israelis invited you to go and live in Israel, would you go?'

I am surprised how definite and quick my answer comes out. 'No, I will never live in Israel as an Israeli'. Although I could. By the Israeli Law of Return, any Jew has the right to go and live in Israel. But it would be like spitting in the face of my friends here. I tell him, 'I will be a Palestinian. If you invited me to live here I will come. If you don't want me to come, then I won't come. I will be a Jewish Palestinian'. 'You are welcome', he says, with total charm.

Then he asks me, maybe the question was inevitable, 'Do you think you will ever become a Muslim?' My flatmate Sarah has been virtually asked this too. It is a sign of acceptance, because if people like you they wish you well, and to want someone to become a Muslim is to wish them well. I tell him that we believe in the same God but I like my own traditions. He tells me that all my traditions are already in Islam: the prophets like Moses and David are respected. He comes out with an argument that I have heard before in London many times. Islam is the true religion because other religions change, but Islam does not change. With Judaism and Christianity you have the old testament and the new testament, but Islam is the unchanging truth. I reply that God does not change, but human beings do, we are part of history and culture our understanding changes and develops, change is not a bad thing, it is inevitable. Yes, he says there are many cultures.

Conersations like this force me to think about what are my own values. I tell him, and this is what I do believe, which is that no one religion has all the truth, all religions have some parts of the truth but no single one has an absolute truth from which they can judge the others. It is difficult to have conversations like this in Britain. Many people are embarrassed to talk about beliefs and God. Here it seems natural. Sitting in a cafe, smoking Turkish tobacco, drinking coffee. In the corner a television screen playing Lebanese music, someone is praying on a mat on the floor.