Mar 19
I visited São Paulo for the first time two years ago, and I still remember that first drive from the airport to the city centre. Even now, the average visitor could be forgiven for thinking about asking the taxi driver to turn back. In the car window, a bleak landscape flashes by of boarded-up factories, dirty industrial zones and, most shockingly, huge expanses of shanty towns or favelas. Read more
When the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) Abu Ali Mustafa was assassinated in his Ramallah office in 2001, and Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze`evi was subsequently killed in retaliation, the PFLP were subjected to a level of media scrutiny rarely seen during the second Intifada. But aside from a few isolated incidents, the leftist groups have become increasingly invisible to mainstream analysts.
It is a far cry from the hijackings of the late 1960s, or the community-wide resistance of the first intifada. Now, all the talk is of the challenge posed by Hamas, and concerned parties from local activists in the West Bank to the US State Department scramble to adapt to the end of the era of Fatah dominance. Does this bipolar environment leave any role for the leftists, and if the answer is yes, are they up to the challenge? Read more
