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Talent or traitor? By Ruta Kupfer Tags: Sayed Kashua, Arab Labor "I browsed the Hadash [party] Web site in Arabic today, like I do every day, and I was glad to see that at long last someone - Sufa Abdu - had written that she supports the series," Sayed Kashua said after Channel 2 aired the final episode of the first season of "Avoda Aravit" ("Arab Labor"). From the moment the first episode was shown, the comic series he created together with director Roni Ninio and Daniel Faran has been under constant attack by the Arab press in Israel and abroad. The season finale ended on a minor, pessimistic chord. The protagonist, Amjad (Norman Issa), who always tries to please, drinks spoiled wine, struggles to eat raw meat and is stuck in a tight suit, while everyone around him is dancing and having a good time at a restaurant. The prospects of the romance between Meir (Mariano Edelman) and Amal (Mira Awad) do not look rosy either. But this sad ending is not exceptional for this successful, interesting and innovative series which, in typical Kashua-fashion, has funny moments that bring tears to your eyes. It was a true pleasure to watch the series - despite the irregular broadcasts, the cancellations and the late hours during which Channel 2 franchisee Keshet broadcast it. "Arab Labor" justifiably received good reviews in the Hebrew press and considerable exposure in newspapers abroad as well, among them The Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times. Its ratings were also high, considering the drama was not entirely in Hebrew: a 19.1 percent rating per episode on average and 24.9 percent for the climactic episode. Advertisement However, if the Channel 2 surveys showed an increase in the Arab viewers' rating from one episode to the next (although overall satisfaction with the series declined), the criticism in Israel's Arabic press was, as noted, deadly. "They accused me of treason and Mohammed Bakri crossed every line," Kashua says with regard to a critique the renowned actor published in Al-Sinara newspaper, in which he wrote: "I am not, heaven forfend, accusing the actors of treason," and "Sayed was sent to school with Jews ..." "In Balad's Fasl al-Maqal newspaper, they attacked me for having accepted a prize from the prime minister and for writing in 'the Zionist Haaretz newspaper.' [He writes a weekly column in the Haaretz Magazine.] In another newspaper they attacked me for writing that an Arab woman could 'be with an Israeli good-for-nothing.' They wrote that I 'suck up to the Israelis' and that I betray my people. Kul Al-Arab also mentioned the fact that I called the sheep in the series 'Aisha' - a name that always appears in Egyptian movies, just like Jewish Israelis will always call a cow in a barn Hava or Sarah. But in this case, the writer accused me of having chosen to call the sheep by the name of Muhammad's wife. 'Why didn't they call her Clara?' he wrote." "They are making me part of a conspiracy, as though I was aware that the broadcast of one of the episodes would be followed by a program about [Ariel] Sharon, that neglected to mentioned the intifada. They made me part of a plot," Kashua declares. What is worse, the assertion that you are a bad writer or the claim that you are a collaborator? Kashua ponders this at length before answering: "That I'm a boring writer." But he hastens to add: "They also wrote that. Mohammed Bakri wrote that not only is this treason, it is also crap. He wrote that the characters do not evolve and are not believable. "I couldn't understand what was happening. I thought to myself, 'Am I an unwitting collaborator?' On the other hand, I saw the reactions in the street, from high school students, university students, people around me. I could tell that they weren't faking. But that it should reach a point where they talk about me in the weekly sermon in Tira? What have I done?" Did you feel you had turned into Salman Rushdie? Were you afraid that a fatwa would be issued? Kashua: "No. My father told me that if they believe I work for the Shin Bet security service, they won't dare come near me," Kashua says sardonically. "Last Friday, the series was discussed on [Nazareth-based] Radio al-Shams, on Bernard Tamuz's 'Friday Table.' The guests were attorney Maisa Abu Alhaja, who is in favor of the series, while the other guest, journalist Abed al Hakim Mufid, attacked it. I was glad that they were finally discussing the series. "There are also a number of writers, even in the Balad newspaper, whose articles are in favor of me. One of them wrote, 'What do you want? I am not ashamed to say that each Thursday morning I run to the mailbox to get the newspaper so I can read Sayed.' "There wasn't a single journalist who didn't write that I had done it 'for a handful of shekels,'" Kashua says sarcastically, "when in fact this was the worst deal I have ever made. I already began writing the pilot for the series back in January 2004." How Israeli Arabs speak Ultimately, the pilot became the series' first episode. Kashua was criticized for it, too, because the Arabs that feature in it sometimes speak Hebrew to one another. "At first the broadcaster was worried about the Arabic," he explains. "They proposed that the series be 80-percent Hebrew and 20-percent Arabic. I told them that under those conditions, I wouldn't do it. In any case, we wrote the pilot so that the main character speaks Hebrew with his wife and also with the village mechanic. I didn't think this episode would be broadcast. In the following episode, none of these people spoke Hebrew among themselves, just a few words now and then." According to Kashua, this is how Israeli Arabs speak and they are known for this trait throughout the Arab world: "In Mecca, the peddlers offer Arabs from Israel an item for a certain price and then they say 'Beseder?' in Hebrew - 'All right?'" Once Kashua took a trip to Jordan and "the Arab passengers on the bus wanted to ask the driver to turn up the air conditioner, but none of remembered how to say 'air conditioner' in Arabic." Did you think you would become the subject of criticism for writing about the romantic relationship between an Arab woman and a Jewish man? "No. I really didn't think so. As I see it, religion shouldn't interfere in a relationship." In addition to "Arab Labor," whose second season Kashua has already begun to write, another Arabic-speaking series, some of whose characters are Palestinian, is scheduled to be broadcast on Channel 2 in prime time (this time on Reshet): "Ochelet Yoshveyha" ("All Consuming"), whose script was written by Ronit Weiss-Berkowitz, the scriptwriter of "A Touch Away." Kashua predicts that "the Arabs are going to go wild over this," adding: "It tickles me that Ronit, my editor at Keter Books, is creating characters the Arabs love. This is going to put me over the edge." In the meantime, there are other data that could easily do the same, especially as they have been touted as an achievement. The Shiluv Institute has carried out a survey among Jewish respondents aged 18 and above with the aim of examining the extent of tolerance toward Arabs, with a special view to those who viewed the series and those who did not. Only 55 percent of the program's viewers said they would agree to have people like Amjad and Bushra as their neighbors, as compared to 40 percent among those who had not watched the series. To this Kashua responds: "It doesn't seem to me that Amjad would want to live near the remaining 45 percent anyway." Bookmark to del.icio.us   Land of milk and honey Israeli model Bar Refaeli poses for Sports Illustrated's swimsuit edition. Finding fault Shas MK blames gays for recent earthquakes in the region.   1.   Good summary of situation 23:57  |  Israeli citizen 16/02/08

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