From Challenge # 62
July - August 2000
 

• As the familiar characters of the Middle Eastern drama leave the stage (first the Moroccan and Jordanian kings, now Syria's Assad) Yacov Ben Efrat finds New Snags in the Gordian Knot. He goes on to consider why The Syrian Baath Party has chosen this moment to Renounce Its Socialist Agenda.
• Ehud Barak, in the meantime, scrambles like Sisyphus running down the mountain, trying to restore his majority in parliament. Such is the eternal doom of Israeli Prime Ministers, explains Roni Ben Efrat, for Oslo Puts Israel Into Chronic Crisis. An outspoken Palestinian scholar in exile, Hisham Sharabi, tells Asma Agbarieh in Washington that "We must change our Palestinian government". In much the same spirit, Michal Schwartz ferrets out the Lessons of Failure that the strike of the underpaid PA teachers can yield.
• Our lead story is set in Israel. Asma Agbarieh analyzes how a recent court decision may affect hundreds of Arab families who face a shortage of Housing in Jaffa, where the authorities have begun to use privatization in order to solve rather delicate problems of Class and Ethnos. Within the same city, Nir Nader examines the uses of a TV lens in lifting certain beautiful Things (designed by renowned Israeli architect Ilan Pivko) out of their unpleasant Context.
• Shame has entered the Arab towns in Israel, most recently Tamra. In the latest of a series of incidents, we find local Arabs Persecuting Jordanian and Palestinian Workers. Samya Nasser and Hiyyam Odeh visit the Tamrans after they drove away 120 workers, destroying their shacks. The Workers Advice Center is launching a campaign to remind the villagers who their real enemy is.