A decade and a half ago, I spent the two most interesting weeks of my life: it was a reality TV show, in which pairs of familiar characters were sent to foreign and strange places for a period of two weeks, with the camera following their experiences there.
Guy Maroz and Aviv Geffen lived in an ultra-Orthodox family home, Lior Schlein and Guri Alfi were flown to frozen Greenland or something similar, and there were more.
Kobi Oz and I were sent to live in a nice family home in an Arab village in Triangle.
When I wrote these were the most interesting two weeks of my life, I meant seriously: it was fascinating, instructive, exciting, thrilling and what not. There were tears and laughter, and very many moments of re-understanding, many of which accompany me to this day. Even though it was a TV production, and despite the cameras that accompanied almost every step, we lived there. We experienced and learned.
Those experiences established many of my perceptions of the conflict in Israel on a wide range of issues. Among other things, one experience stuck in my mind that refuses to let me down, and that is related to the seemingly disturbing gap between the political leadership and the Arab population (a gap that incidentally sometimes also exists in other minority groups, such as the one I come from). One day we toured the village with the figure of Ramat Ma'aleh, the head of the regional council in whose territory our village is located. He was a veteran and accomplished leader, who also published books and made an artistic mark. Conversation with him was a sheer pleasure, for he told historical stories and knew how to present them wonderfully, and the only subject he spoke of was the local Arab narrative. The question of loyalty, identity problems, Nakba, Zionism and so on. The little problem was that the whole conversation, which went on and on, took place on the bank of the stream that crossed the village. The stream, in which little water flowed, was red and smelly, because the butchers whose shops stood on either side of it tended to throw into it the heads of the sheep and other debris.A thick and thundering flock of flies buzzed in the air and blocked the view, and the stench was such that I faithfully assure you that I had never smelled like it before and never had a tile.
Speaking and explaining, I looked away so as not to run into mirrors and breathed heavily through my mouth only, until for a moment I got tired, and I said to him grimly: Say, and what about this hazard? Are you doing anything to take care of it? And he looked at me with wise eyes that I remember to this day, and said a sentence that is a cornerstone: I prefer, he said, to deal with more principled matters. These things will already be resolved by themselves.
I well remember how I felt when I heard that answer.
This is a story I have been reminded of ever since, but usually refrain from telling it because it can be perceived as condescending or racist.
But he is not.
He is not at all.
It teaches a lot about an existing situation in some places, which is only getting worse.
I remembered him this week, when Ayman Odeh confronted Itamar Ben Gvir over the bed of a security detainee.
I momentarily pushed aside the rage at the very act of Odeh and his friends, and was filled with contempt for a leader who in these crazy days, when the Arab street is burning and drowning in murdered blood, finds the time and leisure to engage in "issues of principle" and imagine it is part of a big story. Blood and heads amputated.