Israel TV Develops Comedy About Arab-Jewish Relations

Itzik Harouv is an ordinary Israeli who has just moved into an ordinary Israeli apartment building--or so he thinks, until he reads the name on the door across the hall: “Muna and Bassam Midawa.” In a panic, he rushes to tell his wife the news.

“Our neighbors are Arabs !”

Itzik’s serene young wife is not at all distressed. “We live in a country with Arabs, right? We eat in the same restaurants and work in the same offices. And you even sell them life insurance,” she adds.

Itzik is not won over by his wife’s logic. “Why do I have to be the living example of coexistence?” he demands.

Enter Muna Midawa, a handsomely coiffed woman in fashionable sweater and jeans, who drops by to ask for help repairing a blown fuse. Moments later, she is joined by her husband, Bassam, a huge man wearing a mechanic’s cap and gripping an automobile tire to his chest. Bassam sets the tire by the door and awkwardly salutes Itzik and Dorit with the Hebrew greeting “Shalom.”

Dorit responds warmly while Itzik sputters incoherently. But when Bassam’s tire rolls across the apartment floor, Itzik regains sufficient composure to wisecrack about Palestinian tire-burning in the Occupied Territories. “So now the tires are invading my house!” he exclaims.

This scene opens the pilot episode of “Neighbors,” a comedy series that the Arabic division of Israel Television (ITV) plans to begin producing in September. Unlike previous entertainment shows aired by the state-run television station, “Neighbors” directly--and humorously--addresses the gravest challenge facing Israeli society today: Arab-Jewish coexistence.

Israel’s small size--about 4 million people--and the government’s enormous military outlays do not allow for generous funding of domestically produced TV entertainment. Low-budget variety shows and reruns of English-language programs such as “Hill Street Blues” are standard prime-time fare on ITV’s single official channel.

Given these constraints, the introduction of a new entertainment series is a hallmark event. Though “Neighbors” will be shown during the time slot designated for Arabic programs, those involved in its production anticipate that the show will reach both sides of the country’s vast political divide. Both Arabic and Hebrew are spoken on the show, with subtitles translating each language into the other.

When Uri Porat, director-general of Israel’s broadcasting authority, previewed the pilot episode of “Neighbors,” some feared he would reject the series as too controversial. Porat is affiliated with Prime Minister Shamir’s conservative Likud coalition.

As it turned out, Porat was delighted with the show. He promised the producers full funding for future episodes and proclaimed Itzik “Israel’s Archie Bunker.”

Gadi Yagil, the comedian who plays Itzik, cautions against taking the Archie Bunker analogy too literally. The political issues underlying Arab-Jewish tensions in Israel, he says, are far more fundamental than those confronting black and white Americans in the 1970s.

“Here the argument is Israel/Palestine,” says Yagil. “There is no problem like this in America.”

Bassam Zu’mot, the Arab actor who plays garage owner Bassam Midawa in the show, agrees with Yagil that “Neighbors” alludes to key aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“I see the building (in ‘Neighbors’) as the land we are living on,” Zu’mot said in a recent interview. “The Jewish apartment is Israel, the Arabic apartment is Palestine.” The central question posed by the show, he says, is, “Can they live peacefully side by side?”

Zu’mot, a 38-year-old Christian, grew up in Jerusalem’s Old City when it was still under Jordanian rule. Following Israel’s capture of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six Day War, he confronted Jews for the first time.

“I am not an Arab who believes that the Jews must be thrown into the sea,” he now says. “I believe that Jews are a people who suffered much in the past and must have a right to live in a country that is their own, just as I . . . must force them to believe that I have the right to live here and make my state here.”

“Neighbors” avoids dealing explicitly with political issues such as the Palestinian demand for statehood. Its message is a more general one--that peaceful coexistence between Jews and Arabs is, with some courage and creative effort, attainable.

“I hope people will see that living together is not impossible,” says scriptwriter Dalia Cohen. “We can live together and we do live together. It’s not a fantasy.”

In Israel today, coexistence as shown on “Neighbors” is, in fact, quite rare. Jews and Arabs often work together in factories, restaurants and government offices, but seldom live in the same neighborhoods or apartment buildings.

Scriptwriter Cohen, for example, lives in a suburb of Jerusalem where, she acknowledges, her only contact with Arabs is “for services.” And actor Yagil, who lives in Tel Aviv, has no Arab neighbors.

It is precisely because Jews and Arabs rarely find themselves living next to each other that “Neighbors” is seen by all involved in its production as a political mine field. Zu’mot, who supplements his actor’s income by running a housewares shop in the West Bank town of Ramallah, agreed to perform in the show only after carefully reviewing the script.

“There are Jews, such as (right-wing activist Meir) Kahane, who don’t like this program, and there are also Arabs who don’t like the program,” Zu’mot said. “From both sides, I was expecting a bomb in my house.”

“Rejectionist” Palestinians, who oppose the very existence of the state of Israel, would certainly have little use for the show’s implicit endorsement of peaceful coexistence. Also likely to take offense are members of Israel’s extreme right fringe, who have recently called for the mass expulsion or “transfer” of Arabs as an essential step toward securing the future of the Jewish state.

The terminology of Israeli extremists is ridiculed at several points during the pilot show.

When the Midawas return home after their first encounter with Itzik and Dorit (played by Israeli actress Ofra Weingarten), Bassam fumes at Itzik’s bigotry and gives him a nickname that recurs throughout the episode: “Mr. Transfer.”

Muna, played by East Jerusalem Arab actress Marlene Bajjali, tries to placate her husband. “Maybe he just needs time to get used to us,” she suggests.

But Bassam’s ire is not abated. “What are we,” he seethes, “some kind of contagious disease, like AIDS or tuberculosis?”

Itzik is undeniably crass, but he does not really fit the label, “Mr. Transfer.” He is merely an Israeli who prefers not to face his fears every time he opens his apartment door.

And Bassam is not a tire-burning protester. He is a Palestinian who identifies with his people but is primarily concerned with the mundane challenges of running a garage and satisfying a comically gargantuan appetite.

Because of the sensitivity of the subject, scripts for “Neighbors” are being prepared with great care.

Actor Yagil, who worked closely with writer Dalia Cohen on the pilot script, said, “You have to think about every sentence 10 times--not to offend one side or the other.”

While sharing Yagil’s concerns, ITV’s director of Arabic programming, Yosef Barel, does not want the show to downplay the very real tensions and conflicts facing Jews and Arabs in Israel today. An Egyptian-born Jew who came to Israel in 1957, Barel warns: “You cannot have a pastoral symphony and say that’s what’s going on.”

Barel joined ITV shortly after its establishment in 1967. He recalls that a guiding hope of the station’s founders was to provide Arabs in hostile neighboring countries--as well as those in the newly conquered West Bank and Gaza Strip--with a more sympathetic view of Israel.

Today, ITV reaches about 10 million viewers, more than half of whom live outside Israel’s borders--in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. Frequent references by TV critics in Amman and Cairo to Israeli programs provide just one indication of ITV’s regional significance.

In appealing to this diverse audience, Barel has set two goals for ITV’s Arabic programming: “to bring another picture of the Jew to the Arabs, (and) to bring another profile of the Arab to the Jews.”