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Palestinians Reviving Armed Units in West Bank Refugee Camps
(Economist-UK) After 65 years, "people don't even dream any more" of returning to their old homes. "It's been too long," says Mahmoud Subuh, a psychologist in Balata, on the edge of Nablus in the West Bank. PA security chiefs have joined Israel in seeing the camps as nests of gun-runners, drug-traffickers and car thieves. The PA's security men have teamed with Israel to step up raids on the camps. The PA's forces, which have been trained by Americans, are persona non grata in the camps. The head of one of the camps' "popular committees" near Ramallah says young members are reviving the tanzim armed units that waged the Second Intifada against Israel from 2000 until 2005. Privately, Palestinian leaders in Abbas' orbit have toyed with admitting that, even if there is a deal with Israel, the refugees and their offspring will never return en masse to their old homes in Israel. There are only 60,000 alive of those who fled in 1948.