ladder to cross over illegally into Jerusalem for work and criminal activities. “What security?” he asked.

Ehab wanted to stop near Ramallah, at the al-Amari refugee camp, which was established in 1949 and serves as a home to more than 6,000 Palestinian refugees, many of whom are still holding on to the hope for a “right of return.” They want to go back to villages that no longer exist. Al-Amari is one of 19 refugee camps in the West Bank. Several generations of Palestinians have been born and raised in these camps. The scene reminded me of cities in Pakistan: graffiti, trash, barefoot children playing on dirt roads. An electricity line crisscrossed between several buildings barely separated by narrow alleys. Posters of young men holding guns hung on thewalls. Some of the older men bragged that their camp had produced 100 shuhada (“martyrs”), and 40 resistance fighters who are serving a life sentence in Israeli prisons. They complained that the Israel Defense Forces come in whenever they want and have often placed men in “administrative detention” for up to six months. The unemployment rate in the West Bank is 18 percent. The people there loathe Israel. They hate the Palestinian Authority even more. We encountered a family on the way to a social event. The mother, 60-year-old Umm al-Abad, was dressed in a floral white hijab and a dark-blue dress. She has been in the camp for more than 45 years, and she said she wants to reclaim all the land from the river to the