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and the conquest of Jaffa and Haifa . Worried noises gradually came
from Ibrahim about incidents of corruption in Gaza.
The taping was at ten. At
7:30
that morning, a bomb exploded on a
bus in Jerusalem. A week later, another fatal attack in Jerusalem, as well
as in Dizengoff Center in Tel Aviv. Dozens were killed, hundreds
wounded. From then on, the history is set, before or after the acts of ter–
ror that brought Netanyahu to power, with his immediate demonization
in Arab lands and in liberal circles in the West. But that morning, we
were still trying to preserve our mutual respect and belief in theater.
As the years of Autonomy passed, the distance grew. "We're at a dif–
ferent historical moment," voices tried to explain. "Israeli society is at
a stage of self-criticism, of 'post-Zionism.' They're still busy writing the
Palestinian story, and they need simple terms of confrontation to create
it." I was perplexed. From now on, did I have to shut my eyes to speech
slipping into propaganda? Or the manipulative mobilization of suffer–
ing? Did I have to justify the evasions of colleagues with the excuse that
"cooperation with Israeli artists now doesn't serve their agenda"? To
accept the role of "the bad one" out of self-denial or "understanding,"
which is necessarily paternalistic? As far as I'm concerned, a colleague
is a colleague is a colleague. And without complex vision, irony, self–
criticism, and empathy, there is no art, only propaganda, if not incite–
ment. I waited for better times.
And in
1999,
when Barak came to power in a massive vote of sup–
port for peace, the trend wasn't reversed . Instead of a period of appease–
ment, the withdrawal from Lebanon brought busses full of Palestinian
refugees from the camps in Lebanon to the northern border in order to
throw stones at Israel-including the "refugee" Edward Said, who took
the trouble to come from New York to throw his stone. In the Egyptian
press, there were unbridled attacks against Israel, and information
began to be published about incitement in the Palestinian educational
system and about armed forces. Still, the financial corruption in the
Palestinian Authority didn't shock, nor did photos of children training
as
shahids,
nor did the semi-official economic policy of stealing Israeli
cars for the Authority. Once again we tried to explain away these events
as due to the oppression of the population, the building of the settle–
ments, and Israeli violations of the agreement. We told ourselves that all
this was part of the story, that we had to be respectful, patient. You go
with the Jerusalem
bans vivants
to jazz clubs in Ramallah, enjoy the
pleasure of the approaching millennium, follow the hordes of tourists
that fill the city with the Pope's visit. I stayed in touch with Raeda, with
the closeness of women artists, a partnership holding out against the
