Lysistrata

Palestinian George Ibrahim is a well-known producer and the general director of the Alkasaba Theatre and CinemathËque in East Jerusalem. He attracted international attention for co-producing, in collaboration with the Jewish director Eran Baniel, a joint Palestinian and Israeli production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (1994), sponsored by the Palestinian Akasaba Theatre and the Jewish Alkhan Theatre. The production was presented in Jerusalem as well as in several European cities.

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I became acquainted with Aristophanes and the play Lysistrata at the beginning of my artistic life; I was very much impressed by it, by its creative concept, its political theme and its call for reconciliation and peace. I was lucky to have seen productions of the play several times in different languages and various styles. Even though I have been very interested in staging Lysistrata, I have been unable to find a common factor between what had happened in Greece and what is now happening in Palestine. The Peloponnesian war in Greece involved people of the same nationality, whereas the war in Palestine is a war of survival, whether to be or not to be. Palestinians have suffered greatly and are still suffering from the woes of war that has brought about killing and separation from their homeland. The Palestinians are the owners of the land and the Israelis have occupied that land by force and claimed it as their own, their claims relying on the Torah and the legends that had been written 4,000 years ago. It is even unclear to me if we can apply to word "war" to the pervading situation, for war usually takes place between armies, and Palestinians, as it is known to all, have no army but factions and groups who are struggling against the Israeli occupation army that is equipped with all kinds of sophisticated weapons, including nuclear bombs.

An analogy to Lysistrata is that there are several groups of women from both parties who are calling for peace and for putting an end to aggression such as "Women in Black" and "Four Mothers" in Israel. Moreover, there are peace movements in Palestine. Unfortunately, however, all these groups up until now have not succeeded in influencing the Israeli military institution.

In 1994 during the final negotiations leading the signing of Oslo Accord, those of us in support of the peace process embarked on a joint production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. This was undertaken by the Palestinian Alkasaba Theatre and the Israeli Alkhan Theatre, featuring the Romeo family as Palestinian and the Juliet family as Israeli.⁹ We presented the play in an old barn located on the border between East Jerusalem (the Palestinian part) and the West Jerusalem (the Israeli part). We were surprised to notice from the very first days of performance that the majority of the audience was Israelis who all belonged to the peace movement or to the left party, whereas members of the right group or the extreme right did not show up. Palestinians who wished to attend could not enter Jerusalem because Israeli military checkpoints were everywhere, preventing them from moving between one town and another unless they obtained special permits. We tried in vain to obtain permits for groups of Palestinians from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to enter Jerusalem so as to attend the play. We wondered "where is the peace process that we hoped the play would bring into the limelight?"

Later we tried to show the play in Israeli towns such as Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Akka but none of the Israeli theatres were willing to host the production for fear of extreme reactions by the Israeli radical right who didn't encourage the peace process. For this reason, we agreed to go abroad and show the play in European countries, starting with France and then moving to Switzerland and Norway. We were angered to observe that European audiences received the play with enthusiasm, thinking that peace between Palestinians and Israelis...