Syndication
What Kind of Interviewer Confuses Hamas and Hummus?
The Strategic Interest
Print this article
Email this article
Other articles by Yossi Alpher
More in Forward ForumThey took us down winding stone stairs and through long corridors, ostensibly to have some make-up dabbed on our noses for the cameras, in fact to meet the interviewer and test his disguise. We confronted a tall, blond-ish man in his thirties, dressed in leather and studs, his face heavily powdered, his arms and chest shaven. He spoke in a heavy German accent, his movements and mannerisms ultra-gay. He tried to write down our names, but they came out dyslexic.
“This guy is going to interview us?”
“Don’t worry, he knows what questions to ask you,” an assistant producer replied.
We did worry. But we had signed a contract or release form (we’re both interviewed so frequently, neither of us bothered to read it carefully). And we, an Israeli and a Palestinian, are gentlemen; we do what we promise to do. Besides, we had been suggested to the production company by a respected Middle East expert in Washington whom we both know. We had bargained for a fee and received it. Rob, the producer who spoke to us earlier on the phone, had a British accent and seemed serious and professional. The interview was taking place in an appropriate setting, near the Zion Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. Obviously, this production company, with its three cameras and large coterie of assistants, was serious and very professional.
We had been asked to be interviewed for a documentary that would explain the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the youth of the world. A worthy cause. The producers explained that our interviewer, a German rock star, was the perfect person to establish strong communication with our audience. Perfect, also, because neither of us knows anything about rock stars, German or otherwise.
We were then kept waiting for an hour, a delay for which we were given a variety of production-related excuses. The interviewer disappeared. We had other engagements and were beginning to study our watches and complain. By the time the interview began, we were preoccupied with our scheduling problems. We were told that, considering the nature of our audience, the questions would focus on the most basic issues.
And they were, indeed, basic, relating to our expectations for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Then one of us mentioned Hamas, and the exchange that ensued went something like this:
“Vait, vait. Vat’s zee connection between a political movement and food. Vy hummus?”
We exchanged astonished glances. “Hamas,” we explained, “is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is a food.”
“Ya, but vy hummus? Yesterday I had to throw away my pita bread because it vas dripping hummus. Unt it’s too high in carbohydrates.”
The Hamas-hummus confusion went on for several minutes. Then, the interviewer declared: “Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse.”
We probed our limited memory of Hollywood scandals: Was he comparing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to some sort of tension between Brad Pitt’s former and current wives?
What was going on here? Should we pull off our microphones, get up and leave? We exchanged worried glances. “Could we take a break?” one of us asked meekly. The request was ignored.
And so it went. The cameras kept rolling, the cameramen never cracking a smile. “Vy don’t you Jews and Arabs settle the conflict with a time share on the land?” “Ven vill you Jews return the pyramids?” “Vy can’t Jews and Hindus get along?”
Jews and Hindus?
We played it straight and square. Nay, we simply are straight and square. We smiled at the idiotic questions and answered them patiently. We remonstrated that this was no way to help the youth of the world understand the depth and tragedy of our conflict. When presented with more straightforward questions, we eagerly demonstrated our disagreements on fundamental issues like refugees and who started the conflict. We knew something ludicrous was happening but couldn’t quite figure it out. Besides, we ourselves were not being ridiculed — only the conflict that occupies and preoccupies us. And we were pressured for time and just wanted to finish.
Our rock-star host concluded with a mind-boggling song about the epic Middle East conflict between Jews and Hindus. At the crescendo, he grabbed our hands and joined them with his. Unlike Mahmoud Abbas and Ehud Olmert (or President Bush and Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah), my Palestinian fellow interviewee and I are not hand-holders, but we suffered through it. As we started to hurry away, the interviewer followed us, cameras still rolling, peppering us with nonsense questions about being taken hostage and having his throat slit on camera.
Yes, dear reader, Sacha Baron Cohen is loose in the Middle East. The end product will undoubtedly be hilarious. We’ll try to be good sports about it.
But will Sacha Baron Cohen? He is exploiting our tragic and painful conflict in the most cynical and deceptive manner. I doubt he’ll give us anything in return.
Yossi Alpher is the Israeli co-editor of bitterlemons.org.
Comments
Alpher and colleague's interview might appear in the "Untitled Brüno Project" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889583/
That last is more sad than funny but not surprising in these times of frustrating lack of communication.
Sacha COhen should share the fruits of his deceptions on the deceived. Otherwise he is just an exploiter. Many exploiters are also geniuses. That does not make them less exploitative. His movie was hilarious but I honestly thought that his victims would get a share of his capitalist profits. Otherwise it is just more swindling and the ethic of buy low, sell high. Cheat and steal and other typical capitalist bunk. Is this how to live? But he IS funny!
Oy. It would have been even funnier if he met with those on the other side of the conflict.
Regarding his portrayal as the anti-Semitic Borat, Baron Cohen says the segments are a "dramatic demonstration of how racism feeds on dumb conformity, as much as rabid bigotry", rather than a display of racism by Baron Cohen himself. "Borat essentially works as a tool. By himself being anti-Semitic, he lets people lower their guard and expose their own prejudice", Baron Cohen explains.
Baron Cohen, the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, says he also wishes in particular to expose the role of indifference in that genocide. "When I was in university, there was this major historian of the Third Reich, Ian Kershaw, who said, 'The path to Auschwitz was paved with indifference.' I know it's not very funny being a comedian talking about the Holocaust, but it's an interesting idea that not everyone in Germany had to be a raving anti-Semite. They just had to be apathetic."
Oh I thought you you were going to laugh about it in the end. It sounds like you own that conflict and you WILL NOT have it exploited-goddamn it! I know enough about the conflict to know how painful it is. People in armed conflict kill. Humourists don't. I think we can laugh at anything. Including Nakbas and Shoahs. And I suspect, that those who suffer the most have the better the sense of humour.
Oh, and I'm surprised at the idea that a humourist should have to share his fiancial profits with all those he makes fun of...Colette, do you want the death of comedy?!
Oh, and I'm surprised at the idea that a humourist should have to share his fiancial profits with all those he makes fun of...Colette, do you want the death of comedy?!
It seems to me that your true objection is that Sascha Baron-Cohen is no gentleman. But next time, do read your contracts.
Since many members of the U.S. Congress can't tell the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite, it's quite possible they have been wondering why a Palestinian terror group named itself after hummus.
Oh, c'mon. Mel Brooks jokes about the Nazis. Humor is always best when it brushes up against pain.
It looks like Sacha Baron Cohen is making fun of those who try to oversimplify the conflict or aren't interested enough to educate themselves about it. With all his antics, he always lets a grain of truth get through. Relax and enjoy.
I was laughing myself sick, until the final two sentences. What a self-serving and pompous conclusion! Sacha Baron Cohen has already given "us" way more than Mr Alpher and his colleague could ever hope to replicate. And, the cynicism, exploitation and deception that is being wreaked upon us, is the work of individuals like them who stick their butt up their behinds, and sit around in claustrophobic meeting rooms all around the world, pretending to look for solutions that don't exist.
"I doubt he’ll [Sacha Cohen] give us anything in return." Really? "We had bargained for a fee and received it." Oh.
he is making the point that nothing is being done! in a weird way, yes. but thats his style. the very fact this event took place will launch massive attention on the issue. think about it more deeply. he is a man who wants changes.
"I doubt he’ll give us anything in return."
... I dunno, his college thesis about the role of Jews in the U.S. civil rights movement was pretty good.