Hasn't everything been tried already? The issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians are so deeply entrenched that almost no solution comes to mind.
I think I have the answer, though. It's all to do with finding points of commonality, of convergence of view. There's only one: Bollywood.
Yes, that's right. Bollywood. Both Israelis and Palestinians love the effervescent product of the Hindi film industry. So much so that a recent book, co-written by the Israeli Etgar Keret and the Palestinian Samir El-Youssef, titled Gaza Blues: Different Stories
, has pivotal paragraphs alluding to the great Indian filmography.
I think I have the answer, though. It's all to do with finding points of commonality, of convergence of view. There's only one: Bollywood.
Yes, that's right. Bollywood. Both Israelis and Palestinians love the effervescent product of the Hindi film industry. So much so that a recent book, co-written by the Israeli Etgar Keret and the Palestinian Samir El-Youssef, titled Gaza Blues: Different Stories
, has pivotal paragraphs alluding to the great Indian filmography.I was angry and sad. And I cried. I cried until tears ran down my cheeks. People in the street looked at me and thought that I had just come out of the cinema, and I had seen an Indian film, the tragic story of which had torn my heart apart. How could anyone cry in that way if he hadn't seen an Indian film?And again:
"Shoshi - what's that stand for?" I tried to steer the conversation onto a new track. "It's short for Shoshana. My parents always wanted a daughter," Shoshi came around. He closed his eyes and wiggled his arse, and I could tell he was about to start singing. He does that sometimes. You can just tell he watches lots of Bollywood movies. "When I was a tot / Father beat me a lot / He didn't want a son / But what's done is done."So, to conclude, what's the solution? Here it is: deprive the two parties of Bollywood films until peace breaks out between them.
