We dream about your hummus, they tell him in the West Bank. Ikirmawi, they say, when will you open your restaurant here?

Mohammed Ikirmawi, the man they say makes the best hummus in Jerusalem, sits sullenly on his chair. He's 42, and his narrow face shows the three-day stubble of a man whose business is ailing. He looks at the street from his restaurant, the street that separates East and West Jerusalem, Arabs from Jews and his small restaurant from its customers.

"Anyone who has tasted my hummus," he says, "never forgets it. He has to come back, even if he comes all the way from Germany." But Mohammed Ikirmawi seems to have lost his taste for his own business.

His restaurant near the Damascus Gate, which separates the Muslim from the Christian sections of Jerusalem's old city, has been there since 1952. It isn't much, just a few tables, a few chairs, a small kitchen and a sign that reads "Ikirmawi Restaurant." His grandfather started the business, his father got it going and Ikirmawi is keeping it alive.

In this country, one can't exactly go wrong selling hummus, the pale concoction of mashed chickpeas everyone uses as a dip for their pita bread. Hummus, the favorite food of Israelis and Palestinians alike, is about the only thing on which everyone here can agree. But that doesn't do Ikirmawi any good. Business is slow these days, very slow. His restaurant sits at the border between Jerusalem's East and West, its Arab and its Jewish sections, a border marked not by a wall but by this street that passes through the Damascus Gate and continues north. Anyone can cross it but few do. In the past, the Jews came to Ikirmawi's restaurant to buy his hummus, but nowadays they feel too unsafe. In the past, 30,000 commuters came into the city from the West each morning, and many bought their breakfasts from Ikirmawi for ten shekels, or €1.80, a serving. But now the border is closed and the commuters are forced to stay home.

"I don't believe in borders," he says, "they should open all the borders. Damn it, this is the Middle East."

Ikirmawi has lost two-thirds of his revenues and now sells Bulgarian cosmetics on the side to keep his business afloat. He sits dejectedly in front of his plate of hummus while his employees fill the stuff into bags, at ten shekels each.

A family mirrors local history

He says: "You can't plan anything in this country." Mohammed Ikirmawi knows one word in German: "Arschloch" (asshole), and he's fond of using it in reference to politicians, all politicians. All he wants is to run his business, but politics has ruined it for him. It's always been that way, he says. The history of his restaurant mirrors the history of this country.

Ikirmawi's grandfather, Mahmoud, was a wealthy man. In the 1930s he owned an ice cream factory and a large farm, and he was the first to grow bananas in the region. He also owned a large restaurant with 24 tables, between the Jaffa Gate and Jaffa Street in downtown Jerusalem.

In 1948, the State of Israel was established and the first Arab-Israeli war broke out. When the war ended, the restaurant was on the wrong side, the Israeli side. To keep the business alive, the sons of grandfather Ikirmawi transported its chairs and tables across the new border at night, sneaking through destroyed buildings and dodging the soldiers' guns, all in an effort to bring the sorely needed chairs and tables to the restaurant's new location.

They finally reopened the restaurant in 1952. It was smaller now, and it was next to the 13-foot wall that marked the new border. East Jerusalem was now part of Jordan. It wasn't a good spot for a restaurant, but at least it was something.

Fifteen years later the wall was suddenly demolished. It was 1967 and the Israelis had ejected the Jordanians in the Six-Day War. Hungry for hummus, everyone was back at Ikirmawi's restaurant, and life was almost the way it used to be, when everyone lived together in this city. From then on the Ikirmawis' business boomed -- at least for the next two decades. But then business started going steadily downhill. With each new confrontation -- the first Intifada and then the second -- fewer and fewer customers came to the restaurant. Things seemed to be turning around again for Ikirmawi a few months ago, but then the Lebanon war started.

Pulling up stakes

This time he's had enough, says Ikirmawi. The neighborhood around his restaurant has gone downhill, he says. Now there are drugs and too many bad customers. He dreams of different customers, of customers with class and customers with a better life. He wants to move the restaurant to Tel Aviv.

Ikirmawi has an Israeli passport, which means he'll be allowed to make the move. He won't have any competition in Tel Aviv, he says. He knows how they make their hummus there -- without parsley. Parsley, says the hummus maker, is key. They also skimp on tahini, a paste made of finely ground sesame seeds -- the most costly ingredient in hummus. Ikirmawi never skimps on tahini. Tahini is everything, he says. He's convinced that his hummus will simply taste better.

Of course, doing business in Tel Aviv is a completely different ball game. And, of course, he doesn't understand how the Israelis can eat their hummus for lunch or even for dinner. Arabs eat hummus almost exclusively for breakfast. But he'll adjust, says Ikirmawi. After all, he's a businessman.

For Ikirmawi, the secret of good hummus is to serve it fresh, something that very few do. The combination of garlic, lemon juice and parsley turns hummus sour after as little as one hour. It has to be served immediately and can only be made in small batches.

Ikirmawi insists that he is the only one who can make real hummus, and he's convinced that with that approach he'll quickly capture the market in Tel Aviv.