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Last Updated: Jul 8, 2008 - 9:42:56 AM |
It's unclear whether his Mossad retirement benefit card will be
confiscated, but former spy and current political analyst Yossi Alpher
is certainly feeling sheepish after being fooled by actor Sacha Baron
Cohen, aka Borat.
Cohen was in Jerusalem two weeks ago filming scenes for his next movie,
Bruno, based on a character the British comedian played in his Da Ali G
Show. In that show, Cohen played Bruno as a flamboyant Austrian fashion
and celebrity journalist, regularly interviewing unwitting members of
the public who weren't aware he wasn't a real person.
Cohen's producers contacted Alpher, a writer on Israel-related
strategic issues and co-editor of the Israeli-Palestinian political Web
site Bitterlemons, and asked him to be interviewed along with a
Palestinian for a documentary that would explain the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the youth of the world.
"The producers explained that our interviewer, a German rock star, was
the perfect person to establish strong communication with our
audience," Alpher wrote in a column that appeared in The Forward.
Alpher - who served in the Israel Defense Forces as an intelligence
officer, followed by 12 years' service in the Mossad and senior
positions at the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv
University and the American Jewish Committee's Israel/Middle East
office - realized something might not be quite kosher when the "rock
star" interviewee brought up Hamas:
"Vait, vait. Vat's zee connection between a political movement and
food? Vy humous?" asked the interviewer in heavily accented English,
echoing the obsession with the chickpea spread shared by Adam Sandler's
Zohan. "Yesterday I had to throw away my pita bread because it vas
dripping humous. Unt it's too high in carbohydrates."
The absurd Hamas-humous confusion went on for several minutes, and
Alpher began to smell a rat, but stuck with the interview nonetheless -
thus joining the long list of prominent figures down the years who have
sought to maintain their gravitas while being tricked by one of Cohen's
ridiculous personas.
It got worse, Alpher acknowledged: "Then the interviewer declared,
'Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse.'"
Alpher and his Palestinian partner exchanged puzzled glances at the
comparison of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to Jennifer Aniston and
Angelina Jolie fighting over Brad Pitt, but because they had both
received a fee for their appearance, and still hadn't completely
internalized that their interviewer was not exactly who he seemed, they
soldiered on.
"We played it straight and square... We smiled at the idiotic questions
and answered them patiently... We knew something ludicrous was
happening but couldn't quite figure it out," Alpher wrote. "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."
Only after the completion of the interview did Alpher realize he'd been
had, and that Cohen in the guise of Bruno had struck again.
Alpher had signed a release form before being filmed for the movie, due
to be released in May 2009, so he won't likely be filing a lawsuit
against Cohen like some of the comedian's patsies in 2006's smash hit
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation
of Kazakhstan.
Trying to make the best of the experience, Alpher asserted, "We
ourselves were not being ridiculed - only the conflict that occupies
and preoccupies us."
***
What Kind of Interviewer Confuses Hamas and
Hummus?
Yossi Alpher, Forward 30/6/08
They 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.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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