Dire fears for Obama in Rabin's long shadow

[Behind the Aegis]

JAFFA - It is a November night in this grizzled patchwork of a market town, but the air is dead. It feels thick to the skin, and much too warm, even at the place where Jaffa ends at the Mediterranean shore. Earthquake weather.

Far across the water, people are voting for president. Here the earthquake has already happened. It is November 4, the 13th anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, three or four miles north of here, in the heart of Tel Aviv.

Asked by a reporter if he fears a Barack Obama presidency, Eyal Barda, a 27-year-old furniture restorer in the adjacent flea market shakes his head. "I'm not afraid of Obama," he says. "I'm afraid for Obama."

"The Americans will never let a black man be president," says produce dealer Abu Yusif S'leiman, 56. "T'fu t'fu t'fu," he adds, shooing away the Evil Eye in an involuntary local reflex.

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