The waiters at Ramallah's cafes and the tenders of its falafel stands all had more or less the same question: is Donald Trump's win good or bad? It is a question reserved for outsiders. The Palestinians in the biggest city on the West Bank seem to have already come to a provisional consensus: that the US election result has no real impact here because things could not be any worse.
"It will not make a big difference," said Eyad Barghouti, a retired university teacher, expressing a commonly held view as the Gaza war rages on. "What Biden was doing with a low profile, Trump will be more vocal about."
"Biden would say in public: 'We're not trying to starve Gaza, we're trying to give them food aid, all the while supporting Israel's army. [Trump] will say it in a clear way."
All the worst-case consequences of Trump's victory - the loss of freedom, the corrosion of justice, economic collapse and, for US allies, the possible encroachment of an aggressive neighbour and devastating wars - are already a reality for most Palestinians, many of them argue.
They say that when it comes to Gaza, the liberal order being mourned across the west was not just a bystander. It supplied the bombs.
"What we have seen has made us believe that the whole of western ideology is a lie," a librarian in his 50s said, preferring that his name not be used.
This story is from the November 15, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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This story is from the November 15, 2024 edition of The Guardian Weekly.
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