Issa Kassi, Palestinian, Orthodox Christian, born in Jerusalem in 1967 and mayor of Ramallah, capital of Palestine, considers that “another October 7 is possible” due to the havoc that the occupation causes to the inhabitants of the West Bank. “I don't want it to happen,” he explains during a meeting at Cidob, “but it is possible that it will happen because Israel is suffocating us. The settlers and the Israeli government have pushed us to the limit, they attack us relentlessly, they drive us to desperation, and I fear that we will reach another breaking point again. This is what October 7 was, a breaking point. We shouldn't be there, but that's the way it is. We dive without being able to get our heads out of the water, with a tube in our mouths that barely allows us to breathe.”
Kassi measures his words and speaks slowly as he recounts the causes that, in his opinion, led to October 7, the Hamas massacre, the cold-blooded murder of 1,400 Israelis, including women and children, the most atrocious day for the people. Jewish since the Holocaust.
Kassi explains that the occupation is not only lengthening but also hardening. The number of settlements grows, about three hundred, and also settlers, around 700,000, but, above all, violence increases.
Coexistence is more difficult every day. “Now it is no longer just bureaucratic obstacles, such as the fact that Israel took twelve years to give us permission to expand the cemetery. This is hard, but we are used to it. Now they shoot at us for any reason. No one can be safe in the West Bank. The settlers are armed and open fire with any excuse as long as the Israeli army allows it.”
At least 184 Palestinians have died in the West Bank since October 7, the vast majority gunned down by settlers and Israeli military forces. Getting around the region is very complicated. Military checkpoints abound, and Kassi complains about the arbitrariness with which the soldiers act. “It was very complicated to go from Ramallah to Amman to come to Barcelona. It took me an hour, for example, to cross Jericho. I understand that your safety is paramount, but so are we. They can't ignore us. We have not done anything. We are not suspicious of anything. "We don't want to die for Palestine, we want to live for Palestine."
I ask him if Hamas does want to die for the liberation of Palestine. “They are paying an intolerable price,” he admits, “and I fear they will continue to pay it. It's a tragedy".
Kassi won the mayoralty with the support of Fatah, the main political force in the Palestinian Authority. Like many Palestinian Orthodox Christians he is a financier. He trained in the United States and has run several Palestinian financial institutions. “People made a living in the West Bank, there were a lot of investments and now we can lose a lot,” he says. Before the war the economy was growing at 3.5% and unemployment in the West Bank had dropped to 25%. “Israel, however, leaves us no hope.”
Shortly before this comment, Kassi had said that his job as mayor of Ramallah is to give hope to the population, to demonstrate that “coexistence is possible in an open and egalitarian city,” in a West Bank of Muslims, Christians and Jews.
The present, however, weighs too much even for his optimism with ancient roots. Kassi insists that “this has to end because there will be no winner” and that “Israel can defend itself by making peace,” but then recognizes that “we have paid with thousands of deaths and we will pay with many more. “We are willing and we have no alternative.”
