A Very Israeli Story

Children of Israel Are Never Alone

Hey, beloved tribe.

So last week a local Israeli friend of mine invited me to coffee because he said he had a story to tell me.

We met today and now I have a story to tell you.

He’s in real estate, and this story starts with him getting a call from a colleague — also Israeli — who’s selling a nearby condo. The seller isn’t in town, but the buyer wants to see the place right away, so the former asks my friend Y. if he would show the condo to the interested party in his stead. Y. agrees.

We meet and I show him around, Y told me. It turns out he’s Arabic. After a while, he asks me where I’m from. And I have no idea what makes me say this, but almost as a reflex, I blurt out, “I’m not going to tell you.”

He says, “You’re Israeli, aren’t you?”

And in response, without saying a word, I hold out my hand for him to shake.

But he doesn’t take it. He stands there eyeing my hand for a long moment, and eventually I drop it.

“And you’re Palestinian,” I say. “Aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am,” he says.

Again, I hold out my hand.

This time, after a long beat, he takes it.

We don’t talk about the war, even though it’s the elephant in the room. I show him the place. I can’t really tell what he thinks.

But then the next week, to my surprise, he calls me on the phone. He had never met a Jew before. He says he wants to talk to me again. He invites me to his agency.

So I go over there, and as I walk in, I see three people turn and just stare at me. I’m thinking they’re obviously three Palestinians. But I’m slightly wrong; it turns out they’re two Palestinians and one Syrian. And they just drop everything they’re doing and come over and sit down in a ring around me. Looking at me. As if I’m an exhibit in a zoo.

And we start talking. And the man I met at the condo, he says to me, “I have to tell you this: I hate the IDF. But I want to tell you something else: the IDF is not made up of Israeli soldiers. Did you know that?

[Here I broke in. “Did he mean the IDF isn’t made up of professional soldiers, but all Israeli civilians when they come of age, except for the Haredim?”]

No. That’s not what he meant. What he meant was in the Twilight Zone. He told me the IDF is an entirely foreign army.

Really, I say to him. I didn’t know that.

He tells me he watched a video in which IDF soldiers identified themselves as coming from Morocco and Roumania and all kinds of other places.

And I say, Well, that’s very interesting, because I was in the IDF, and I didn’t see any Moroccans or Roumanians. So please tell me a little bit more about that.

He says: yes, yes, I saw this in a video. Moroccans and Roumanians.

So I tell him: I think you may have misunderstood. When an IDF soldier says he’s Moroccan, he means he’s a Moroccan Jew. And when an IDF soldier says he’s Roumanian, he means he’s a Roumanian Jew. Maybe the video didn’t explain that.

[Here I broke in again. “Are you sure he didn’t mean he watched some propaganda video saying the IDF is made up of foreign mercenaries?”]

I’m not sure about anything.

But at any rate, we continue to talk, and he begins every other sentence with: I saw a video… I saw a video.. I saw a video…

Another video he watched said that the IDF’s favorite pasttime was to bash in the heads of babies.

And yet another video said that Israel, right now, is trying to conquer and occupy Saudi Arabia.

And I tell him: Wow, I never saw or heard about any of that.

[“So you’re playing it straight?” I asked.]

I’m listening.

[“Okay, but you’re playing along, pretending he’s enlightening you?”]

I’m trying to listen. I want to understand: where are we? Where are we on this map? What’s going on? I need, first of all, to listen.

[“All right. Well, you’re a better man than me,” I said, which is also my favorite way of slyly “conceding” to my husband.]

Next he tells me there’s only one thing worse than what’s happening in Palestine. And that’s the situation in Syria.

[“Okay,” I said. “So he understands that over the previous decade, Bashar Al-Assad killed more Palestinians than Israel did?”]

Yes. And I ask him why he thinks no one ever gets upset about that.

He gives me the most perfect answer. And he isn’t trying to be funny. He isn’t being ironic. He answers in a serious way. He says: Well, it’s hard to find videos about that.

And the conversation continues in this vein. And we talk and talk and he’s telling me all these amazing things. And finally I ask him: so what do you want? What do you want to happen now? What’s your desired outcome in this conflict?

And then, to my surprise, he totally loses it. Right in front of everyone, he starts to cry like a child. And he says: I just want it to stop.

I reach out and put my hand on his shoulder. I say, okay. Okay, I’m with you. I hear you. But let me ask you this: let’s say we stop. Let’s say we call a ceasefire right now. Then what? What next?

And here, for a moment, I switch to Arabic. And I have a flawless Arabic accent. In Arabic I say to him: And don’t bullshit me — what do you really want to happen after that? Do you want October 7th to happen again and again?

And he tells me that October 7th never happened at all. It never happened. Nothing like that ever happened.

This is when I finally understand the hatred. All the videos he’s seen. All the facts he thinks he knows. I understand that there’s an internal logic inside the insanity. Because this is what he truly believes.

So this is also when I understand there’s nothing more to say, just as there’s nothing more to say when someone believes that Trump won the election. I thought there was an unbridgeable river between us and now I see that, in fact, it’s an ocean.

So I go, and I think I’m done with him, but then the next week, he calls me. Instead of calling his agent, he calls me. Even though his agent is Palestinian and I’m Israeli. He calls me to negotiate with me directly.

And he says to me: That condo is not worth much. It’s really small, and to be honest, it’s kind of trash. But you know what, I’ll give you $100K for it."

And I thought: what do we have here? We are about to have a Palestinian-Israeli negotiation! On a micro-level, but okay!

Well, the condo was listed for $155K, so I tell him I’ll convey his offer to the seller. Who, again, is also Israeli. And I do that. But the seller doesn’t want to negotiate. He says: I don’t want to sell to a Palestinian.

I tell him: Well, I can’t say that. It’s illegal. I’ll just convey that you’re not accepting his offer.

So I call the guy back and say: I’m sorry. We don’t have a deal.

So next he says: Okay, well, I’ll give him 110.

Well, of course, again, the answer is no.

It takes a full week for him to come back after that. But he does come back, and he says: 130.

My friend says no.

Finally, after yet another week, the guy calls me back again and says: All right, I’m ready to buy it. What will it take for me to buy it?

I tell him: Well, the price is 155. In my experience, you might be able to get it for $150. But I don’t know. I can ask.

So the next day, after talking with his own agent, he writes an offer for 145. Not 150. I call my Israeli friend and ask: Do you want to counter with 150?

He says no. Full price.

Well, that’s when I know the negotiations are over. He’s not going to pay full price. You have to give them something. Emotionally, I mean. He has to feel he’s getting something. But I have to give him an honest answer, so yet again, I tell him: I’m sorry, no, the condo is 155.

And he surprises me. He says okay, 155.

So here’s the end of the story. I get the paperwork. And I look at the closing date. Can you guess the closing date?

[“Is it October 7th?” I asked.]

It’s October 7th. I was shocked. I was completely shocked.

“And what’s your interpretation of that?”

I never asked. I never asked. I just told the seller: Okay, you win, you get full price.

And he says: I still don’t want to sell it to him. I don’t want to sell it to a Palestinian. How do I know he’s not planning to use it as a terror cell?

I tell him: You cannot refuse to sell at the asking price. It’s illegal.

So the deal was done. And afterward, do you know what the Palestinian said to me? He said: Wow, you people — you people! Of course he wanted to say you Jews — but he said, you people are very tough to negotiate with.

Then he added: I’ll give you this much. If I ever needed an attorney, I would want a Jewish attorney. And you know why? My father was supposed to serve a 25-year prison sentence in Israel.

Now, he didn’t tell me what his father did, but I can well imagine.

He just said: My father was supposed to serve 25 years in Israel. But after he hired a Jewish attorney, he only had to serve one.

*

That’s the story, fam. If there’s ever been a more Israeli story, I’ve never heard it.

Anyway, I fly to NYC tonight. I’ll be there through the 24th. On the evening of the 18th, I’m meeting a group of NYC Jews for dinner. If you’re able to join and would like to, I would absolutely love to see you.

Please drop me a note through this site and let me know your conact info and I will tell you the time and location.

I’m in New York for a staggering series of meetings aimed at kicking all our initiatives into high gear. But I’ll still be back with you on Wednesday.

I hope to see some of you there. In the meantime, I’m wishing you a great week. Much love to you all, wherever you are.

Am Yisrael Chai.