The current crisis with Gaza, which has led to confrontations and violence between Jews and Arabs within Israel’s borders, has also opened dialogue between the two groups, and the latest example of this is a video in Arabic and Hebrew called “Let’s Talk Straight.”
In the clip, a Jew (Uriya Rosenman) speaking Hebrew and an Arab )Sameh “Saz” Zakout) responding in Arabic and Hebrew face off in what looks like a garage — a place where Arabs and Jews often work together — as each spouts off stereotypes about the other, punctuated by the refrain, “I’m not a racist,” that both make throughout.
Rosenman is an Israeli Jew active in socially conscious business development, who works as a manager for a company called Empower Africa, which is described as a “values-driven company on a mission to accelerate sustainable development in Africa by driving investments, trade, collaborations, and job creation.” Zakout is a Palestinian rapper and actor from Ramle who has appeared in two high-profile movies that are themselves interesting examples of Jewish-Arab collaboration, Udi Aloni’s Junction 48, about the Palestinian rap scene, which starred another well-known Arab rapper, Tamer Nafar and which won top prizes at the Berlin International Film Festival and the Tribeca Film Festival, land Sameh Zoabi’s 2018 film, Tel Aviv on Fire, which received the Best Film Award in the Israeli competition at the Haifa International Film Festival, as well as awards from the Venice International Film Festival and the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
The “Let’s Talk Straight” video is an attempt to put on table what many Jews and Arabs honestly feel about each other. The Jew complains about Arabs not serving in the army, incendiary comments by Arab politicians, reckless driving, honor killings, attacks on Jews and much more. He insists that Judaism is about love and Islam is about hate. The Arab says, in Hebrew,“You Jews have forgotten what it means to be a minority,” and notes that a large part of Hebrew slang is from Arabic, but says in Arabic, “You’ll never understand true Arabic.” Going back to Hebrew, he cites a racist Israeli expression, “The only good Arab is a dead Arab” and asks, “And you wonder why we don’t serve [in the military]?” At the end, he says, in Hebrew again, “Both of us don’t have another country, and this is where the change begins.”
After this, they both begin to eat food that is on the table between them. Rosenman is listed as the creator of the video, and the organization promoting it is called, “Let’s Talk Straight,” or, in Hebrew, “Bo Nidaber Dugri.”
It concludes with the words, “Let’s talk straight. We’re fed up with the racism, the fear and the hate. What will the future of our children look like?” in Hebrew and Arabic. The clip has been widely circulated on social media in recent days.