It will be near impossible to touch Borat as far as the genius he stumbled into while skewering an entire culture’s ingrained flaws, but at least Sascha Baron Cohen is finding time to confuse hummus with Hamas when interviewing victims for his latest outing as Bruno.

The British born, Cambridge-educated, 37-year-old actor, who took what Christopher Guest started with Spinal Tap to hysterically offensive, interactive new heights, managed to dupe a former Mossad (i.e. badass Israeli secret service) agent while masquerading as his gay, Austrian alter-ego.

“What’s the connection between a political movement and food,” Bruno asks at one point.

Universal ponied up some serious dough for Bruno based on Borat’s success – hopefully they get some headier satire in the process.  (Unfair knock; Cohen’s below interview of hapless meatheads spring-breaking on Daytona Beach ranks up there with just about anything he ever pulled off as Borat).

[youtube]UBTvAHFKbTs[/youtube]

A byproduct of Cohen’s attempt at the Borat brand of culture-prodding may have shed the most light exactly where he was aiming.  Check the difference in how it was reported by the Jersusalem Post vs. the UK’s Telegraph:

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.

vs.

Comedian Sacha Baron Cohen has duped a former Mossad agent and a Palestinian academic into a spoof interview in which they debated the difference between Hamas and hummus.

Israeli Yossi Alpher and Palestinian Ghassam Khalib agreed to be interviewed by Austrian television presenter Bruno, unaware that the camp character is Baron Cohen’s latest alter ego.

In the interview, which took place in Jerusalem, Bruno asked: “What’s the connection between a political movement and food? Why hummus?”

One of the guests politely explained: “Hamas is a Palestinian Islamist political movement. Hummus is a food.”

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, or maybe it’s just innocent ethnocentrism, but it’s funny that the Israeli newspaper simply says “a Palestinian” whereas the British paper sets them on equal intellectual footing.

Obama’s use of a single word in in his speech at the AIPAC policy forum on Wednesday may prove to be the demise of his campaign in the eyes of Arabs, Jewish people, or perhaps both.

In the lead-up to securing the nomination, Obama has slowly distanced himself from pro-Palestine positions he espoused during the primary (“no one is suffering more than the Palestinians”). His insistence that Jerusalem remain “undivided” was the out-of-left-field culmination of that retreat. No policy being pushed by the current administration or Israeli government calls for the complete removal of Palestinians from East Jerusalem.

I spoke with several friends in the region last week who said that Obama’s appearance at AIPAC would be taken as a referendum on his stance toward the entire Arab world. Accordingly, when he leveled the claim that Jerusalem “will remain the capital of Israel” and “must remain undivided,” much of the Arab world was shocked and appalled.

For all of Barack Obama’s insistence on a new regime sprouting forth from the purported seeds of change his campaign has strewn, that one word made it feel as if he kicked off his stint as the presumptive nominee lock-stepped with the rest of the AIPAC-pandering herd in Washington.

But wait! A Friday article in The Jersualem Post contains a clarification from the Obama campaign:

But a campaign adviser clarified Thursday that Obama believes “Jerusalem is a final status issue, which means it has to be negotiated between the two parties” as part of “an agreement that they both can live with.”

“Two principles should apply to any outcome,” which the adviser gave as: “Jerusalem remains Israel’s capital and it’s not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967.”

He refused, however, to rule out other configurations, such as the city also serving as the capital of a Palestinian state or Palestinian sovereignty over Arab neighborhoods.

“Beyond those principles, all other aspects are for the two parties to agree at final status negotiations,” the Obama adviser said.

Sooooo, was that undivided, as in Israelis don’t have to split it with anyone? or undivided as in we just don’t want to see lines of masking tape running down the street?

If we’re assuming he meant the second point, as his campaign clarified, was the use of “undivided” actually pro-Palestine then? No walls, no dividing lines, just everyone living in a John Lennonesque state of harmony?

The article in the Jerusalem Post describes how the remark felt like a cold shower, just as many right-wing Israelis were basking in the afterglow of the initial statement. Arab media is all asunder with cries of being hoodwinked. And these people can’t even vote.

For a man that handled himself so well tip-toeing through several minefields created by his (or an associate’s) choice of words, he really screwed the pooch here. Almost instantaneously, with one sentence, Obama obliterated credibility with an entire region in which we so desperately need an image boost. One further clarification left him in equally bad standing with the people he set out to mollify in the first place.

The Obama campaign is now being praised for strategic genius in securing him the Democratic nomination. There was undoubtedly a great deal of thought put into his speech to AIPAC as the statement that would celebrate his nomination by solidifying his presence as a foreign policy visionary.

His campaign obviously doesn’t yet have a full grasp on the Arab-Israeli conflict, however, if they underestimated the wont of enormous swaths of a population to hang so desperately on the implication of one word. “Undivided.” Those four syllables shouted louder about an Obama administrations’ policy toward the most contentious aspect (Jerusalem) of a labyrinthine geopolitical conflict than any other word, sentence, passage, or paragraph he uttered that day.

Welcome to the general election, Sen. Obama. With the presidency at stake and the entire world watching, “bittergate” was just a stroll down Michigan Ave. in the springtime.

This piece is also published on The Huffington Post’s Off The Bus section here.

As a television series backed by elder US diplomats attempts to change Arabs’ perception of the US, casual conversation with a few Egyptian friends reveals that even those intimately familiar with this country still harbor skepticism of America and its relationship with Israel.

The Sunday edition of the New York Times reported that “On the Road in America,” a 12 part series chronicling an RV tour of the US by four Arab twenty-somethings (three guys, one girl) during the summer of 2006 is set to air on the Sundance Channel.

The series was conceived “with the hope of showing Arab viewers in the Middle East a broader and more nuanced view of America than that seen in Hollywood exports.” It drew about 4.5 million viewers per episode when it was broadcast across the Middle East last year.

The show was produced by Layalina Productions, a non-profit that claims George Bush Sr., James Baker, and Henry Kissinger among the many dignitaries on its advisory board. The Sundance Channel is hoping to put the shoe on the other foot by showing American audiences four Westernized Arab youths doing their best Alexis de Tocqueville impersonation, offering candid interpretations of America filtered through their own culture and experiences.

But while such efforts are necessary and should be applauded, a few email exchanges with several friends of mine from high school in Cairo, Egypt indicate that much of the cynicism toward the US, in their minds, is the result of foreign policy and not wayward cultural exports.

It began as a form letter sent to people I knew were US-educated, had lived (or in some cases were born) here, and were now living in various parts of the Middle East. I asked two questions: 1) what are your thoughts on the current state of the Arab-Israeli conflict and 2) what do you think, or what are you hearing from other people, about the US elections?

I got responses from three Egyptians, each living in different areas of the Middle East, and was put in touch with a fourth woman who is not Arab, but attended the same high-school and is now doing graduate work on the conflict.

Below is what I assembled based on all four conversations.

The skepticism stems from the unassailable influence of the Jewish lobby over Washington and casts doubts among everyone I spoke with that Obama could successfully defy the likes of a pro-Israel powerhouse lobby such as the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee.

“The biggest problem Arabs have is the United States’ blind support for Israel,” said Tammer Azzouz, 28, a University of Maryland graduate living in Kuwait City.

“No matter what happens, this is always the root of the problem.”

Wael Omar saw Obama’s appearance at today’s AIPAC policy forum (along with McCain, Clinton, and most of the House and Senate) as a referendum on his attitude towards the entire Arab world.

“It could be a defining moment for him as far as which way the Arab news media will take him,” said Omar, 29, a filmmaker who attended Emerson College and currently resides in Cairo.

“They know he will be a friend of Israel, but to what extent is mainly their concern,” said Omar. “Common to attitudes in Europe, they think his being black is somehow an indication of his progressive politics, but it’s not clear whether they think that Obama is actually going to introduce the kinds of foreign policy changes that will make them change their views drastically,” he said.

Their lack of faith is tied to the US government’s silence as Israeli settlements expand into the West Bank and East Jerusalem beyond internationally sanctioned borders. The push for democratic elections in Palestine by the US and the withdrawal of aid after a Hamas victory compound the mistrust.

“You have generations that don’t remember a functional society,” said Magdalen Hess, a European-American who spent time growing up in East Jerusalem, where she saw her elementary school shut down for two years as Israeli tanks rumbled through the streets. She was able to enroll elsewhere because of her nationality, but her Palestinian classmates were not so lucky, she said.

Hess is now in Ramallah, where her parents lived until three months ago, continuing her graduate work on the role of international aid on the Arab-Israeli conflict. She speaks of how Israeli settlements and walls “cut deep within internationally recognized Palestinian territory” and cripple the commerce of those regions.

When the US turns a blind eye to the social and economic woes of the Palestinians and suspends aid to the democratically elected Hamas, “fissures develop between the Palestinian militant and the more moderate minded,” Hess said.

Typically, this creates a vacuum easily filled by radical organizations and their anti-American doctrines. In the case of Hamas, however, they also offer what Hess describes as “excellent health care” that could theoretically be attached to US aid instead.

“Aid can either reinforce or alleviate divisions,” she said. “In the case of withholding aid from Hamas, you’re clearly exacerbating divisions and further compounding Palestinians real and perceived sense of inequality with Israelis.”

The sense of betrayal runs thick among Palestinians who did “exactly what the US wanted” by holding elections and were “soundly punished as a result,” Hess said.

“So much for the utopia of American democracy,” said Azzouz, calling it an oxymoron that the US pushes for democracy in the region but would rather deal with a Saudi monarchy than a democratically elected Hamas.

On that front, Obama raised Arab and Israeli eyebrows alike with his commitment earlier in the primary season to meet with leaders of Hamas and Iran. He has since backed off the “unconditional” part of his diplomatic intentions and embarked on a PR campaign among Jewish voters to allay concerns over his willingness to talk with two entities that have openly called for the destruction of Israel.

By changing his tune, Obama is focusing squarely on securing the traditionally Democratic Jewish voting bloc, much to the dismay of those hoping he would be the linchpin for a renewed era of American-led peace brokerage.

And that hope is not exclusive to distraught Arabs following the US election.

A new lobbyist group called J-Street was formed to counteract AIPAC and other organizations that a significant amount of American Jews and Israelis view as counter-productive to achieving peace. J-Street bills themselves as “the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement,” on their website.

“Helping the Palestinians achieve a viable, prosperous state is one of the most pro-Israel things an American politician can do,” said J-Street Exec. Director Jeremy Ben-Ami in a recent article in the Washington Post.

Ben-Ami asserts that “when the United States abandons the role of effective broker and acts only as Israel’s amen choir, as it has throughout Bush’s tenure, the United States dims Israel’s prospects of winning security through diplomacy.”

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera features almost daily indictments of McCain, quoting him in one recent article as singing “Bomb, bomb Iran” to the tune of a Beach Boys song.  Al Jazeera also insists that a McCain presidency will equal four more years of Bush in their report on the White House blocking efforts supported by Israeli Jews to engage Hamas and Iran diplomatically.

Such stories receive far less coverage in the US media, according to Hashim Omran, 31, a Georgetown alum and businessman living in Dubai.

“If the American media had some balls, and if they showed the real opinion of progressive Israelis who want real peace (trust me they exist), the American people would overwhelmingly get behind an equal, two state solution,” Omran said.

“As long as the status quo remains, one state prospers in defiance of global public opinion, while a tortured people fall deeper into a vicious cycle of violence, chaos, and despair,” he said.

To them, Barack Obama, with his African decent, Arab-sounding middle name, and international life-experience growing up in Indonesia, represents the best hope of shattering the status quo in the 21st century. But it’s a long way to November, and a road paved with daily reminders of what the past eight years of American foreign policy has bestowed on the region.

“The majority of people here are cynical enough after eight years of Bush, a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and Abu Gharib, and all else that while they hope for a Democrat, they would bet that McCain will be the winner come November,” Wael Omar said.

“While the conversation is mainly dominated by Obama-ism, the Arabs feel it smarter that always, in the end, they should expect the worst.”

A glimpse of America through the eyes of their own countrymen, delivered straight to 4.5 million TV sets, may or may not alleviate some of the angst Middle Easterners feel toward the US.

It is where that show fails in reach, but succeeds in concept, that Barack Obama or John McCain needs to begin his mission: with peace, tolerance and understanding as the ultimate goals.

No one would ever claim Adam Sandler to be an elder statesmen of understanding and tolerance, but hidden behind the cooky, character-driven marketing strategy Columbia is using for You Don’t Mess With The Zohan is some surprisingly strong satire.

From a New York Times article on the film:

To the extent that “Zohan” deals with the intractable cycle of violence in the Middle East, it is careful not to take sides, and mocks itself for making such perilous source material a subject for comedy. In the midst of elaborate fight sequences, its characters debate the region’s complex history of aggression and retribution, even as they continue to act it out. (“I’m just saying, it’s not so cut and dried!” an assailant shouts as he falls off a balcony.)

The movie does not dare to suggest solutions to these conflicts, or to offer false hope that they will soon be resolved: in one scene, three Arab New Yorkers attempting to take down Zohan call the “Hezbollah Phone Line” for instructions on how to make a bomb. In a recorded message, they are told the information is not currently available during peace talks with Israel, and are instructed to call back “as soon as negotiations break down.”

The article discusses how filmmakers wanted real Arabs and Israelis to play the parts in the film.  Casting on the Israeli side was a piece of cake, but Arabs were reluctant to be in a movie  starring Sandler, who is Jewish and has donated to Jewish charities.

One of the main Arab roles in the film is played by an Egyptian who was skeptical at first but was eventually convinced to take the part by his daughter.  As expected, tempers flared and debates were had on set, but a cross-cultural, impromptu trip to Vegas also went down.

Just as a few stereotypes may have been broken as cast members interacted with each other, the movie may actually serve to do the same thing on a wider scale.

[Sayed] Badreya, who was recently seen playing an Afghan terrorist in “Iron Man,” said that by offering Arab or Muslim characters that are in any way divergent from the usual Hollywood stereotypes, “Zohan” is a step in the right direction.

“The movie presents what happened to me,” said Mr. Badreya, who grew up in Port Said, Egypt, during the 1967 and 1973 wars and emigrated to the United States in 1979. “Since it happened to me, it will work for someone like me.”

Mr. Badreya said that the comedy in “Zohan” was not quite evenly divided between ridiculing Arabs and ridiculing Jews. “The jokes are not 50-50,” he said. “It’s 70-30. Which is great. We haven’t had 30 for a long time. We’ve been getting zero. So it’s good.”

Bravo, Opera Man.  Bravo.