From Challenge # 63
September - October 2000

• Theologians used to debate about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Barak, Arafat and Clinton face a similar problem with peoples, but our editorial finds these leaders Out of their Depth. Something's gotta give, and it isn't likely to be Israel.
• "Camp David was a Dress Rehearsal" for more Palestinian concessions, according to Abed Sattar Qassem, a Nablus professor just released from a PA prison. Now Israel and the US are pressuring Egypt to pressure Arafat, but Cairo, writes Yacov Ben Efrat, Can't Deliver.
• While such heady talks go on, laborers from Gaza line up each morning on Jaffa's Gaza Street, hoping for a day's work. Asma Agbarieh interviewed them between six and nine a.m.
• In East Jerusalem,Assaf Adiv reports, WAChas begun to Counsel Jobless Arabs.
• If people are hungry and miserable, at least they aren't being tortured anymore - the Supreme Court banned that one year ago. But is it so? Can Israel show Clean Hands At Last? Allegra Pacheco takes a close look.
• Well, if people are subject to so much abuse, at least they can find a little corner of their own to breathe in. Or? A new film group, Video '48, has just completed its first documentary, Not In My Garden! - about the unrecognized village of Ramya in its struggle with the encroaching city of Carmiel. Roni Ben Efrat conducts a round-table conversation with some of the members.
• From where, then, shall hope come? WAC and the Baqa Center joined hands in July to create a weeklong overnight summer camp. Its topic was international solidarity. For its T-Shirt and flag the campers adopted a design by Swiss dissident and graphic artist Marc Rudin, affirming that "Together We Can Move the Mountain." (Rudin himself has paid the price of years in jail for his solidarity with the Palestinian people.) Orit Sudri summarized a week of fun, learning and hope on the shore of the Sea of Galilee.