When You Look at Hebron from Beijing

Author: Moammar Youssef Al-Ayoubi

Sometimes we need to step away from our city a little to see it more clearly. From Beijing, thousands of kilometers away from Hebron, I found myself thinking about my city in a different way. The distance was not just a geographical transition from one city to another, but an opportunity to reflect on a bigger question: How do peoples shape the future of their cities? And how do cities transform from mere places we live in to national projects that carry the memory of the past and shape the features of the future?

During my visit to China, I often paused to reflect on the scenes of development, urbanization, and organization, but what lingered most in my mind was a simple question: How did China manage to transition from a difficult reality to what we see today as tremendous progress?

There is no single answer, and the Chinese experience cannot be transferred to Palestine as it is, for each people has its own circumstances, history, and uniqueness. However, the Chinese experience presents us with a question worth pondering: What could happen when national will transforms into vision, vision into planning, and planning into continuous action?

This question took me directly to Hebron. For Hebron is not an ordinary city in Palestinian memory. It is a city of history, commerce, industry, and science, the city of the Ibrahimi Mosque, the old town, and the markets, as well as the city of universities, businessmen, artisans, farmers, and youth.

But today, Hebron faces significant challenges; the challenges of occupation, closure measures, settlement, and the division of the city, as well as economic, social, administrative, and developmental challenges at the same time.

Here the question becomes more urgent: If Hebron has managed to withstand all these decades of pressure, can we move it from a phase of resilience to a phase of construction and progress?

Resilience is necessary but it is not the end; we need to transition from the concept of crisis management to opportunity creation, and from dealing with reality as it is to planning for what we want it to be.

When you look at Beijing, you see a massive city moving according to a long-term vision. And when you recall Hebron, you see a city with great potential, but it needs more vision and integration among its various institutions and sectors.

What if we viewed Hebron as a comprehensive Palestinian development project? What if the old town became an economic, tourist, and cultural project, and not just a historical site we are trying to protect? What if we invested in Hebron's universities and educational institutions to be a key partner in decision-making and development?

What if the city turned into a Palestinian model in digital management, electronic services, resource management, and encouraging investment?

What if we gathered the municipality, universities, the chamber of commerce, the industrial sector, civil society institutions, youth, women, and Palestinian expatriates around a single vision for the city?

Cities that want to survive do not just defend their present; they plan for their future.

In China, a visitor cannot ignore the scale of investment in people, infrastructure, education, and technology. This brings us back to Palestine: the real battle for the future is the battle for people.

We have educated youth, distinguished Palestinian minds, capable businessmen, universities with potential, and a wide industrial and commercial sector. But what is needed is to connect these energies within a single system.

Hebron needs a vision that does not stop at an electoral cycle or a temporary project.

We need to ask today: How do we want Hebron to be in 2030? And how do we want it to be in 2040?

What kind of city do we want for our children? Do we want it to be a city that only lives on its history, or a city that uses its history to build its future?

Do we want the old town to be just a witness to the past, or a vibrant heart for tourism, economy, and culture?

Do we want our universities to be institutions for education only, or centers for research, innovation, and policy-making?

Do we want the economy of Hebron to be based solely on traditional trade, or capable of strongly entering the digital economy, modern industries, and foreign markets?

And can we make public administration more efficient, transparent, and capable of serving the citizen?

These questions become clearer when viewed from a distance. Perhaps the most beautiful lesson we can learn from the Great Wall of China is that great achievements are not built in a day.

I stood in front of this massive structure, extending over the mountains, and thought: how much time, effort, and willpower did it take to reach what we see today?

Then I remembered Hebron. Our city also needs building, but not necessarily with stones.

We need to build institutions, build the economy, build the human being, build trust, and build the future.

We need love for the homeland to be a daily act in schools, universities, factories, markets, municipalities, and institutions, not just a slogan we repeat on occasions.

From here, the distance between Beijing and Hebron is not just thousands of kilometers.

It is a distance between two experiences, between two histories, and between two different realities, but it is also a wide space for thinking about the future.

I do not return from China to say that we must become China, as that is neither possible nor required.

But I return with a purely Palestinian question

What can we create with our resources, capabilities, and circumstances if we have a clear vision, effective management, and a genuine will to build?

Perhaps this is the most important message that a person can carry when traveling far from their homeland.

To discover that a homeland does not become great just because it has a great history, but because it knows what it wants to be in the future.