Poverty Israel

Every so often, a whiff of hope blows into this grim town in southern Israel, circling its bygone textile mills and sending crowds of desperate people hurrying to the office of Moti Zohar. There, Zohar, the hard-pressed director of Ofakim's employment center, gently breaks the news that only a relative few will get the welding, construction and other generally low-paying jobs that have been advertised. The rest, as usual in Ofakim, will be out of luck.

Every so often, a whiff of hope blows into this grim town in southern Israel, circling its bygone textile mills and sending crowds of desperate people hurrying to the office of Moti Zohar. There, Zohar, the hard-pressed director of Ofakim's employment center, gently breaks the news that only a relative few will get the welding, construction and other generally low-paying jobs that have been advertised. The rest, as usual in Ofakim, will be out of luck.

Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat is expected to appoint a prime minister any day now, but that doesn't mean he'll satisfy the foreign mediators who pressured him into creating the job -- or that peace will be any closer. International peace brokers pressed Arafat to name a prime minister in hopes of creating a strong, independent leader who could peel some of the authority away from the aging president.

In official Israeli public relations, the arrival of thousands of Soviet immigrants is cause for joy simply because it helps fulfill one of Israel's prime reasons for existence: to serve as a refuge for Jews fleeing oppression. But as thousands of newcomers pour in, the beauty of the influx is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Factions in Israel differ widely as to its importance--even its desirability.