Kansas City Blog

The new Sasha Baron Cohen movie Bruno debuted this weekend. Among the more genteel scenes is the clip below, in which the Austrian fashion designer goes to Jerusalem and makes a food faux-pas. Hilarity ensues:  

Yossi Alpher, the former Mossad intelligence officer sitting to Cohen's left in the interview wrote a commentary about what it's like to be interviewed by a man who doesn't know a terrorist group from a hill of beans.

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.... The Hamas-hummus confusion went on for several minutes. Then, the interviewer declared: "Your conflict is not so bad. Jennifer-Angelina is worse.

...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?"

Just in case there is any confusion, Hamas is terrorist group (as classified by the United States) founded in 1987, which doesn't take too kindly to Israel. Hummus is a dish from (at least) the Middle Ages made from chickpeas, lemon juice, oil and spices that doesn't take to kindly to being left unrefrigerated for more than a couple days.