Editor’s note: First, a disclaimer. This is NOT an article about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This IS an article about a cool Palestinian city. I was in Ramallah when I was in Israel as a high schooler. The Oslo Accords had been signed and everyone in both countries was hopeful for lasting peace, so travel between Israel and the Palestinian Territories was easier. I was hosted for dinner by a local Palestinian family, and it was one of the highlights of my trip. I am still hopeful for peace, and I know – and you’ll know by the way he writes about Palestinian culture here – that Sam is, too. And I look forward to The Royal Tour hosting more content from Palestine. For more of Sam’s writing, please click here to visit his index page.

As a rabbi, I get to visit Israel fairly frequently, and often when I am over there, I like to spend time interacting with the local Arab population. In addition to their great food, hospitality, and markets, hearing and understanding the narrative of Israeli Arabs or Palestinians is an important way to understand the region better. The last time that I visited Israel I had planned to visit one of the following cities in the West Bank (or Judea and Samaria depending on your perspective): Nablus, Hebron, or Jericho. You can read about the wonderful and fascinating time I spent in Bethlehem, and I was eager to visit these other historic cities; yet sadly, I visited just weeks after the October 7th terrorist attack, and it was not safe for me to go visit those towns under that circumstance. When visiting Arab villages, especially as a Jew, it is always important to take a temperature of the conflict climate, and when it is high, it is better to stay away so that you do not get caught in the middle of a skirmish. Now with it looking like peace is on the horizon, I hope that the next time I visit Israel, I will be able to visit one of those towns. For those who want to have such an experience, a great place to go for an easy day trip from Jerusalem is the de facto capital of the Palestinian Authority, Ramallah.

Let me back up for a second; why I call Ramallah the de facto capital of the Palestinians is that the Palestinian Authority insists that Jerusalem is their capital, but as it is entirely under Israeli control, they meet in Ramallah. To get from Jerusalem to Ramallah, the easiest way is by bus, and there are frequent buses leaving from the Arab bus station a couple blocks from Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem. While Ramallah is only about 11 miles from Jerusalem, the journey took what felt like a couple of hours. Be sure to bring your passport for a stop at an Israeli checkpoint (do not take pictures here), which delays the journey. The trip also took a while because the West Bank lacks a lot of infrastructure, and so the roads were narrow, and there was a lot of traffic trying to navigate the one lane road going in and out of the city, despite it only having a population of 57,000 people.

On the south side of Ramallah is a museum and memorial dedicated to Mahmoud Darwish. Darwish is a controversial figure. He was born in what is now Israel but joined the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). He became an accomplished poet and author, including writing the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988. Darwish brought much of the Palestinian narrative around Israel to the international forefront with his writings, and he has been recognized as the Palestinian national poet. The museum and memorial took 8 years to be built and Darwish is buried there, and it focuses on his life and works.

The other main tourist attraction of Ramallah is the Mukataa, the headquarters of the PLO. The building dates back to the 1930s when the area was under British occupation, but gained notoriety when it became PLO Founder and Chairman Yasser Arafat’s headquarters in 1996. Arafat was the most visible and controversial leader of the Palestinians. He is revered by some as the person who brought the Palestinian cause into the global spotlight, and he was even awarded the Nobel Peace Prize alongside Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres in 1994 for the Oslo Accords, an attempt at peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. However, for others, he is vilified as a terrorist who orchestrated the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians and soldiers through his tactics and leadership. Arafat died in 2004, and the final two years of his life he was under siege by the Israeli Defense Forces in this compound. Arafat made it clear that his wishes were to be buried in Jerusalem; however, Israeli authorities would not allow this, and so he is buried today in a Jerusalem stone mausoleum in what the Palestinians say is a temporary tomb in hopes that he can someday be buried in Jerusalem. The tomb is the first thing that you will encounter when arriving at the Mukataa before entering a museum that tells about Arafat’s life and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, particularly over the years of the Second Intifada. While I expected to be inundated with PLO propaganda (which there was plenty of), I was surprised at how the information was presented, at least the English part, with the exhibits showing a more balanced look at the conflict than I had anticipated. For example, the museum talked about the 2000 Ramallah Lynching, when a mob brutally killed two Israeli soldiers patrolling the area, in a way that did not glorify it. Visitors can see the bunker where Arafat was holed up and the uncomfortable living conditions that he had to endure during the siege.

Ramallah is a city with many governmental administrative buildings, but it also has a lot of good places to go to experience Palestinian culture. Walk from the bus station down to Al Manara Square, the main square in downtown Ramallah. At this spot there is a roundabout that has a statue of a lion in the middle of it. Al Manara Square has become one of the more visible and recognizable Palestinian landmarks and is often a place where protests are held. At the square is one of the West Bank’s most famous coffee houses, Stars & Bucks Café. Not only does the name resemble the famous Seattle-based chain, but their logo is not so coincidentally similar, making me wonder how they have not been sued by the American coffee giant. The café is a relaxing great place to go with views of the square and to relax. The area around Al Manara Square is known for its nightlife and great street food. Make sure to have one of Ramallah’s outstanding shwarmas from one of the many vendors on the main road, but also, if you have a sweet tooth like me, hit up their ice cream. Supposedly, Ramallah has the best ice cream in the West Bank. It is delicious and unique as the ice cream makers in Ramallah use Arabic gum as an ingredient, causing it to have a stretchy, taffy-like texture. Right by the Al Manara square is Rukab’s Ice Cream, so go here to try some of the authentic Ramallah dessert.

While other Palestinian cities have more history, tourists to the West Bank should still visit Ramallah. Unlike what is seen in the media, visitors will find a nice, clean, vibrant city of culture, and visiting it will help give tourists an insight into the Palestinian nationalist narrative not from the terrorist, Islamist perspective of Hamas, but of the Palestinian people as an ethnic identity.

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