 Do you then about the purpose of your visit? I've come to save your husband from his predicaments. Ha, you thought save him? Yes, me. What drives you to do this? Didn't you want to get rid of him? And today I want to save him. Call it what you will, but my sense of honor requires it. Is there no more honor? Do we have to look at every good deed with suspicion? I come with open arms offering my help. Don't refuse me. I don't wish to refuse you, Sheikh, but you shouldn't find it peculiar that I'm surprised by your zeal. And I'm skeptical. You know what happened and what's been going on between you and the nakib al-ashra? Let's forget the past and cooperate to solve the problem. What do you suggest? Were you told the whole story? You told me everything. Then listen to me. You must get dressed up and prepare yourself to leave the house when it's dark. Where do you want me to go? Are you sure no one can hear us? Rest assured. I've made arrangements with the prison guard and everything is ready. When it's dark, we'll take you to prison and exchange you for the prostitute that he was caught with. Well, what a fine arrangement, venerable Mufti. Only the shrewdest of men could have come up with such an idea. And it's guaranteed to work. When the Wali and people realized that the nakib was arrested with his wife, the one with the problem will be the chief of police. Is the difference between a wife and a prostitute so slight? What's important is that we confuse people and surprise them with your presence in prison. I'll be the one who was defamed, who, well, the nakib's turban on my head. They'll be beating themselves up for the mistake they made, and it will be their problem. I'll be the one who was caught nearly naked and was swaying to the beat of the nakib's drums. People will forget all about that when they realize the one doing it was the wife. And the wife was a prisoner in her own home, reading a tale from the thousand and one nights and wandering in the clouds of spring. Have you ever read the thousand and one nights shift? These are not books that a learned man needs. Reading them will give life to your learning. Do you think religious science is dry, Numina? Sometimes I think it's dry. Don't you think it's dry? What do you think of religious science that makes you think it's dry? Would it surprise you to know that I've read every book in my father's library, and the nakib's too. I'll have been at you amazement. With time I'll amaze you even more. Let's get back to our subject. You want me to play the role of the prostitute in this story. Heaven forbid. We're removing the prostitute. The coupling was with the wife. It's a wife prostitute, prostitute wife. It's an appealing and dangerous game. No, Shay, you're pushing me down a treacherous road, and I don't know where it's leading. What treacherous about it? You'll stay with your husband for a while until your identity is verified. You'll both be released and the problem will end. Well, his problem will end, and mine will just be beginning. I don't understand. Why don't you want to save your husband? Well, why should I save him? To protect him for his prostitutes? Yeah, to tell you the truth, I hardly care about that. My concern is it's dangerous. What you ask of me is a frightening gamble. It's a terrible temptation, like walking on the edge of an abyss. What do you feel when you stand at the edge of an abyss? I try to be careful. That is the answer of a composed and settled man. In my case, it shakes me to my roots. Falling terrifies and seduces me at the same time, and between terror and seduction, I shiver like a tree on a stormy day. Would you believe it? Most of my dreams have that combination of terror and pleasure. Why am I telling you all this? I don't think I can help you or my husband, Sheikh. You're strange, Mumbina. I never imagined I'd have to beg you to do a small favor to save your husband from his serious predicament. I understand your astonishment, Sheikh. It never crossed your mind that I live, that I have desires and thoughts. You're worried about the naqib and the impression your good deed will give. I don't ever think you thought of me, except as a submissive tool, one of the naqib's possession. You must be submissive. After all, you belong to the naqib. See, that's how you think of it. I'm nothing but a confidant who belongs to your enemy. You have a plan, and you want to show your gallantry and save my master. How can I not be happy? How can I not accede to every aspect of your plan? You're right. Your refusal confuses and astounds me, Mumbina. I'm not trying to resist temptation. If I accept, I'll start sliding down a slippery slope to where we'll all start crumbling. I'll be at the edge of the abyss, and I'm afraid this time it will call, and I won't be able to resist. I must admit, I don't understand what you're afraid of. I don't see the horrible danger of spending an hour in prison. Have you ever looked inside yourself, Sheikh? I thank God there is nothing inside me I fear, or that I'm ashamed of announcing to the outside world. He put piety in my inner and outer existence and tamed my soul, which then commanded evil to be transformed into obedience and contentment. You're a happy man, Sheikh. One who believes he knows himself must be happy. Yeah, I envy your trust and certitude. Certitude is necessary for a man like me. I don't think this is the appropriate time to talk about the soul and its desires. We have a task at hand. I understand you're upset. It's natural that you feel humiliated and need to express your displeasure, but that's a matter between you and your husband. You can confront him afterwards. This is what you've understood from what I've said. What do you want me to understand? The matter is larger than your jealousy and suspicion. It's been decided that you will go to prison end of discussion. We have, I and the notables of this city. Our reputations depend on the success of this scheme. You're a cultured woman who requires respect. We're in a sensitive situation here which won't allow for coquettish ways and delusions of danger. Yeah, me, you don't understand a thing, Sheikh. I'm telling you for the last time, you're pushing down a slippery slope. This slippery slope exists only in your delusions. Is that what you believe, Sheikh? So be it. You and the notables have decided that I should dress up and go to prison like a prostitute. One prostitute in place of another, obviously. I understand your motive for doing this gallant thing. You don't want to save the nothing. You want to humiliate him with your generosity. You'll tie his neck up with a favor from which he can't escape. You want him at your mercy and under your control. We're back to suspicions. That's not finished. I'm not insinuating anything and I don't care what happens to your relationship with Nakib. I'm certain you've won and if your scheme succeeds, Nakib's reigns will be in your hands. But it is clear to both of us that the scheme will not succeed unless I agree to do it. And since your lives are all based on bargaining, I myself will bargain before I agree. Bargain for what? Are you forgetting that I'm saving your husband and you? Here's the bargain. I'll dress up and go to prison if you guarantee me a divorce as soon as the story ends to your satisfaction. You want a divorce? Yes. And I won't go to prison unless you guarantee it. How can I guarantee that? That's something I have nothing to do with. Perhaps it's beyond my control. When he gets out, he'll be more pliable than your own fingers. He won't be able to refuse you anything. Anyway, that's the way I want it. Why don't you put this off until later? You're angry and when one is angry, it doesn't make good decisions. I'm not angry. You want me to agree, this is my condition and that's final. You're an unusual woman, very unusual woman. Do you accept? I'll do what I can. No, say he'll give the order. Say I'll see that it's done. How strange. Get dressed and a man will come escort you as soon as it's done. And the prostitute will be ready. An unusual woman? Truly unusual. Namumina. Shall we answer the call of the abyss? Shall we change? I have a cold chill running down my spine. Shall I sit in front of the mirror and make myself up? Shall I throw out my name and break the strongest shackle that has bound me since birth? I have a chill running down my spine. And now one very brief scene from act two in which we see these same characters later. Namumina has now left her husband, the naqib, has changed her name to al-Mazah, meaning the diamond, and become the most famous prostitute in Damascus and turn the city upside down. The Mufti has invited her and her father, Sheikh Mohammed, to his house so that Mohammed can convince her to abandon her profession and save the family name. She, in turn, has accused her father of child molestation of multiple females who worked in their home, and he, in fury, has disowned her, spat upon her and left. Did you arrange this meeting? Because your father wanted it and because we're all shocked and dismayed. How could you fall so low? You astonished me. Why are you? You pulled me responsible for this atrocious act. I'm not holding you responsible for anything, but I believed I explained to you at length about the seduction of the abyss. You said words that I didn't understand very well. And I don't understand you now. I don't understand you, woman. How you think or why you act as you do. There's no need to tire yourself trying. But I need to understand you. You're wrong. If my scheme created this fate for you, I'm ready to correct it. I don't want my conscience to be burdened by sin. I'm asking you to marry me. Marry a whore. Sheikh Kasim. Don't be so hard on yourself. Yeah. You're of noble origin and what happened was a mistake we can overlook. This is a generous offer, which I don't think I deserve. You are most deserving of it. I'll forget everything and make you the most cherished of my women. You'll do all this to clear your conscience. Rather to. Well, why not? I want to have a clear conscience. Don't burden it with sin. I was waiting for an opportunity to follow my desire. What I'm doing is what I choose to do. Regardless, I'm still asking you to marry me. I didn't divorce my husband so I could marry his double. Are you refusing my offer? My position doesn't allow me to deserve or accept it. What are you, woman? What do you want? What are you looking for? I'm looking for something a man with a tranquil soul such as yours doesn't understand. Who said I have a tranquil soul? Didn't you say you had a clear inner self and nothing to hide or be ashamed of? Maybe I did. I no longer have a peaceful soul. Tell me, what do you want? What are you looking for? This will sound vague and it's difficult to explain. As I sway on the edge of the abyss, the abyss calls me and I imagine at the moment I fall colored feathers will grow out of my pores, will sprout from the roots of my soul, blossoming into perfection. I'll fly like birds fly, like the breeze in the rays of the sun. I want to cut these harsh ropes digging in my flesh and suppressing my body. Ropes woven out of horror, modesty, feelings of being filthy, out of evocations of the Almighty, warnings, parables in the counsel of our ancestors. I want to liberate my body, shekhasim, to untie these ropes that suck the life out of it. I want to be free and return to the orbit for which it was born. I dream of reaching my inner self and becoming as clear as glass. Having the eye see my inner being, my heart burns with passion and full root desires. I have difficulty finding words fit to explain. Your situation is strange, Lumina. I told you my name is Almasa and I'm very keen on protecting my name. Your situation is strange, woman. What do you say is unfathomable to any reasonable person? What do you mean? Are you trying to dress up immorality? Do you think you'll find it in prostitution what you're searching for? What a strange and deviant notion, tell me. Tell me, it's no more than a win. Does it overturn one's fate? According to your norms, what I'm doing must seem deviant and strange. It's not just my norms, it's everyone's. Okay, you're right. And the first station on my journey is to put your norms behind me. I must free myself from your judgments in order to attain my true self. I must overcome the danger of being violated in order to become acquainted with my body. You made me and all women into defective, vulnerable beings susceptible to violation by a word. A glance, you made it your business to incessantly abuse this imperfection until we all turned into reptiles tearing at one another in a swamp of appearances, lies. I have decided to leave the fetid swamp, Sheikh Qasem, and become a sea that can't be polluted. I'll exist beyond the limits of fear and violation. I doubt you'll understand me, though. It's no longer important if you understand me. You make me dizzy, Al-Massa. Your determination, your tone of voice give me shivers. You grasp at sin with a recklessness no woman in the city has ever matched. I know there are violent desires in you, but I can't. Can I really let you continue along this path? A woman with your determination and power can corrupt a sultanate of women. You're undoing our lives, our system, our future. No, no, I cannot allow it. A religious decree is a powerful weapon. Are you declaring war? It's a war I neither want nor desire. Listen, there isn't a single person who in solitude doesn't have desires and passions. Who among us in a heedless moment doesn't hear the temptations of Satan? Are you admitting you have desires and temptations? Yes, but I control and suppress them. I care about you and despite these admissions, I still want you. You'll make me think I'm one of your temptations. I don't know if it's a temptation or madness. From the moment I met you, your image has been following me. You've troubled my spirit and perturbed my heart. I don't know what to say. Please, be reasonable. Accept my offer. What is it love? Thank you. I don't know what it is. Don't ask me. Do you accept my proposal, a marriage or not? Paths are different and my desires can't be satisfied by marriage. Don't answer too quickly. I beg you, take your time. Think it over. I... I... Confession would make any woman proud. But what can I do? I already told my father my fate has been decided. I can't hide from it or deny it. If that's the case, it's you who has declared war. If war breaks out, it too will be part of my fate. When one goes beyond the edge and swims in the vast sky, it's impossible to go back. It's goodbye for now, Mr. There's nothing beyond the edge but the abyss. That possibility hasn't... Woman, there's this. Where am I sliding toward? How do I calm this agitation in my soul? Lord, I'm possessed. There's no happiness left in this heart. Only temptation and sorrow. Thank you very much. Thanks, you guys. We're gonna have... We're gonna move right on to the next participant and next play so that we can save our discussion at the end of all of them to make sure everything... We can have time for everything. So I'd like to invite the artistic director of Mosaic Theater, Ari Roth, and please start the video. The incarceration of artists under siege and house arrest. This is shown 2.0 with comments from the populace that have listed and documented portrait rights from today's headlines at Mosaic Theater Company of D.C. Thank you, Steve. And if it's valuable to you, it's so humiliating to see that in the face of this news that the country that presents you is going to be presented in the near future. All the people that you have known as a laser is to be better than this. Because your money is just a little bit free to teach you how. It's not worth to be so you have to be a good artist. When you're free, then you have to teach you how you're an artist. You can make the change from then. All the liberating music is to be measured, to undermine it. This is possible. This is how you do it. When you're going to do something, you should have a sort of freedom. Because you're going to do something about Israel. Israel is, you cannot talk to women. When you say something about them outside, but here inside, you couldn't say, look, there are the women. You can try and talk to them about colonialism, okay? Occupation, too, but say, outside, and see how tough they are. A bit boring. All these monologues, yes? Powerful, of course. Provocative, like you artists enjoy. But no debate, no action, no interaction, no sing-along, what I like in the show. Why so much missing? There's a reason, an ideology. It played out in rehearsal, in the room where I was caught. That's right. Guess what else is missing from this video with no drama? Me. There were three actors in the show. I'm there in the trailer. The antagonist. They researched me for months. This one here, this is the adapter, producer. He joined my Facebook page. Every day he got my feed. Still does, poor guy. Me from my kitchen. Me on the campaign trail. Wrote me into the play. Problem is, it wasn't his right. He thought it was. He thought they came to an agreement. A tripartite, American, Israel, Palestine Joint Consensus. Kind of went the way of your Oslo. A big stink. Thought you had a treaty. A clear contract. That's why you called it chain 2.0. Because it was to be different. This American version, bigger. To have the minister of culture of state of Israel on stage. Or in the audience, I should say. They would never let me on stage. That was their point. No sharing of platform. No posing of questions to the radical left. All this was cut. You lost control. How does the artistic director lose control of his own theater? Embarrassing question. No wonder you struggled with this report. I see you working on it. That's what the video was for, yes? You had your staff make it. To show to the funder to get the money. The final payment. The final $2,500 from TCG Global Connections in the lab. And this grant program narrative is the difficult self-assessment you need to finish. What's TCG? Is the Theater Umbrella Distribution Center for the left-wing handouts. Just send in a video, complete a few questions, get your cash, but you can't. I see the empty boxes. In 300 words, it lists two to three things that you learned and two to three things that your international collaborators learned from the grant experience. 300 words for an Israeli. This is like us clearing our throat. I usually don't have a problem expressing myself, but... They want you to speak with your collaborators. That's stupid. Don't speak to others. Answer to yourself. What have you learned? I don't know. I don't know what to say or want to say because it kind of almost broke the theater. We got through it. I don't fully understand how, except... Don't do it. Don't dwell with delegitimizers. They delegitimized the state. They delegitimized you because you loved writing me. You told them I'd be the subject of ridicule. I wasn't. You thought, let her hoist her on her own petard. I didn't. You thought I was the great denier of free speech, but it was then they denied you as we fell in love. That should be the 300 words we learned, the opening speech you gave me that was cut. I wish you could see the country we see when we wake up every morning, our majority. And we thank God for the beauty of the land, this land flowing with milk and honey and wholmes and desalinization factories. I am representative of what's been missing, the people's voice. You will hear it tonight. All cut. Allow me to quote from Act 2. Also cut, the whole act. Actual text from the Knesset. So many fascinating stories in our society. And yet all the time to bring this story of occupation, occupation, it's enough. Enough is enough. Weitzman talks about prisoners with blood on their hands. Terrorists who murdered children and women only because they were Jews. And I need to give them a stage performed by the public. It's delusional. Freedom of incitement is not freedom of expression. We expressed a clear stand that the government of Israel will not use its cultural budget for plays or institutions or artists who boycott our country. Is there something immoral about this? Does it harm freedom of expression? Whoever wants to defame Israel can do it alone. We won't block it, but we won't fund it. You know what I say? Go to Ramallah and put your festival on there. Talk to your friends. Ask them what they learned. This is written by staff, good staff, smart staff. One, Mosaic learned that collaborations can both be harrowing experiences for some key personnel with breakdowns in trust and working protocols while still being rewarding and redeeming for others. Two, Mosaic stayed true to mission and made good on a commitment to present uncensored material of an urgent nature from the person closest to the incidents being explored on stage. Three, when you bring guests from a place at war, you bring that war into your home. As the host, you must prepare to become a participant in that struggle. You'd better understand the contours of that struggle before you welcome the struggle in. Here's what Anat said. I started the collaboration with great expectations and excitement. At some point, I realized how difficult it is and that Ari and I have different styles and ideologies. This is, of course, normal, but to come to an understanding was almost impossible. As this story is a very personal one, it became even more emotional. I had my contract that says I should agree to any change. Ari asked me to postpone the decisions to the rehearsal room, which was fine with me, but then it became too late. I wasn't there, so I couldn't really get any idea about the reading. Only that Marat didn't like it. I don't have all the details. Finally, I had to write my own version, which was the best. I think it should have been like that from the beginning. Things could have been easier, but at the end of the day, I got a lot of support from the theater and super professional attitude, and I am grateful. I feel that I've learned from their noble behavior after we began to face problems. I also learned from my mistakes with the preconception that someone else could re-edit such a personal play. There's truth in what she says, even though we disagree on which versions were stronger and the process by which we got through the impasse, which was bruising. Here's what Morad said in his opening on the first day of rehearsal, at least as read by Ahmad Kamal, who might have done the role had he been available. And this is my story as we have performed at first in 2015. In that period, time has passed. And events have happened that add to shame, which is still documentary theater about our struggle to use art as a tool for resistance. I don't know how I feel about following this woman, Miri Raghav, on our stage. No, I do, I don't like it. I wouldn't do it, except that she is not the real woman. She is the intelligent American actress, Julianne, as you just heard, which is different from the real Miri Raghav, who some people may see as intelligent, a clever actress. But I don't. I see her as dangerous, which is why I am in Washington, because she may be coming here someday. It's true, they don't call me BB and heels for nothing. A final note. We perform shame in separate sections because our stories are separate. There is a Nats experience as a Jewish Israeli, and there is mine, as a Palestinian Muslim with Israeli citizenship, as opposed to Arab Israeli. I live in Israel, I am separate from this identity. And my role in this play is not to be part of a coexistence conversation. We are separate, and this is the structure of the play in 1.0. At your mosaic, you want dialogue, you believe in dialogue. Okay? We will give you a little dialogue. But no shared narrative, no relationship drama, except what you infer. Our situation under occupation should not be normalized by relationship talk. So those of you looking for seen work, you will be disappointed. Even though we have performed in such plays between Israeli and Palestinian, and we will describe one, we may even do one backstage scene or three, but we don't like these plays. We don't believe in them. Yet we do them. So we have our contradictions. This is an inevitable theme. Morad did not wind up saying any of this. He liked it for a while. The speech thought it built anticipation in November, but by January, he refused, refused all backstage scenes that we had created in workshop in the summer, rejected Miri and the audience on stage, only on screen. On the third day of rehearsal, he had an idea to reorganize the opening and cut the play in half. On day four, he announced he was taking over his writer. He stepped out of lane. We thought about canceling. We shouldn't have. We should have either done it or not mention it because in mentioning the possibilities and having that hangover head, he took it as a threat, a breach of trust, which it was. And from there it was lost, the partnership. It became open warfare in the room. I was asked not to return. There were work stoppages, demands for more money. Now the production was hanging in the balance the other way and having decided not to cancel, mosaic leadership was determined that the play would go forward according to the will of those closest to the material. Meanwhile, a knot was in Israel, working on several plays and trying to save this one, which she did by throwing out all that had been added and going back to the original, creating a new epilogue for an exchange of letters between herself and the prisoner, Walid Dhaka. Material that Murad read with her on the same stage, a dialogue. In the end, ours was a thwarted collaboration, half success, half disaster. Our kinship had been the connection of both of us being censored. She had Akko, the Jaffa Theater, I in Washington with the cancellation of a festival. We each had been pilloried with hate mail. The idea was to drive through the original shame to get to the new battlefield, where Miri Regev had forced cancellation of several of a knot's new plays, had railed against her partnership with the poet Darin Tatour, poet's silence under house arrest for writing she had written employing her people to resist from which another in battle play would emerge. We never got there. Largely because of voice. Shame was originally written in Hebrew by a knot for herself and Murad in their voices. 2.0 was written for them and Miri by me using research, interviews, dramatic license. And in the case of Miri, theatrical satire by way of Stephen Colbert. It was not pure documentary, not even close. And on that stylistic difference, our drama hinged and our kinship contorted. I'm left to wonder how our approaches veered even as over the months of development we seemingly came closer to a fusion of sensibilities and a script. How much did political differences on matters of BDS and anti-normalization push our approaches in different direction? And how am I left now with Miri Regev, a political actor I can't abide or respect, a shield for Netanyahu and his corrupt regime, still a theatrical muse and creation I can't let go of? What is she still doing in my head? For me she was and remains a destructive seductress illuminating the appeal of a resentful anti-elite nationalism. Her disdain for so much of the values we hold dear comes presented in a package that is perversely provoking and therefore arresting theatrically. The idea was always to let the dramaturgy have its revenge in determining her arc, which can largely be described as everything she touches backfires, which can be found on the Amazon recommended list right next to the title Everything Trump Touches Dies. And to prove that case, we'll give Miri the last word here. As she would have in 2.0, promoting her loyalty and culture bill, which looked like it would be voted into law as recently as November. The state recognizes the need for sweeping laws to contain the small but ever growing group of artists and the institutions who shield them in threatening the security of our country. It is inefficient for us to run after one little theater or performer after another. We are ready to press forward with a loyalty and culture bill which has gone before the Knesset for one vote, the first of three before passage. The law, once approved, will allow the government to pull funding from organizations or events that feature any of these five topics or themes. One, denial that the state of Israel is a Jewish democratic state. Two, incitement of racism, violence, or terror. Three, support for the armed struggle or acts of terror against Israel by an enemy state or terror group. Four, marking Israel's Independence Day as a day of mourning. Five, of destruction or degradation of the flag or any state symbol. While the finance ministry is currently responsible for final decisions on withholding such state funding, my bill will transfer full power over budgets for the arts to the Ministry of Culture and Sport where it belongs. On Tuesday, November 22nd, 2018, the Israeli Knesset's Education, Culture, and Sports Committee approved the loyalty and culture bill initiated by the Minister of Culture and Sport. Now the bill will be put before the Knesset Plenum for its second and third reading, whereas it is expected to pass. Four days later, November 26th, 2018, cultural loyalty bill combusts, calling coalition stability into question, infighting Royals, the 61 seat coalition, leading culture and sport minister, Miri Regev's flagship bill to be removed from Monday's Knesset agenda. A coalition that can't pass an important bill like this won't be able to pass anything. Regev warned, saying that those who led to the bill's downfall are bolstering terrorism. Everything the censor touches, as was the case with Einat Weizmann, Darin Tatour, and so many more becomes amplified. Miri Regev never wins, making her appeal, her powers of seduction, all the more toxic. Today she wages on a loyal member of recently re-elected Benjamin Netanyahu's Inner Cabinet, hoping to become the country's next Minister of Defense, or barring that head of police to dismiss all charges hanging over her leader's head. Despite the setbacks, she remains the country's Minister of Culture today, and next week Eurovision's telecast, the international song competition being held for the first time in Tel Aviv, will be seen as a crowning initiative of her office, while Gaza seethes and reminds the world with rockets that the siege and the seething will continue. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thanks very much. We're going to move now quickly on to the next piece, and I would like to introduce you to the artistic director of the Roundhouse Theater, where Oslo is currently playing Ryan Roulette. Welcome, Ryan. Thank you for having us today. So we are, Oslo is currently running through the 19th at the Landsberg Theater downtown. For those of you that don't know the play, Oslo is written by J.T. Rogers. It won the Tony Award two years ago. It is a fictionalized version of the true story of the Oslo Accords, as seen through the eyes of the two Norwegians that began the process. Theréa Rod Larson, who was a sociologist, and Mona Yule, his wife, who was a diplomat. While Theréa and Mona were in the Middle East for Mona's first posting overseas in Cairo, they sort of fell in love with Israel. And Theréa, as a sociologist, in exploring Gaza in particular, came up with the idea to do a sociological study of the living conditions in Gaza. And then one day while walking through Gaza, they ran into a fight between two groups, but they saw two young men, one Israeli, one Palestinian, who looked very similar to each other, holding guns on each other, both filled with fear in their eyes. And they thought, we need to do something about this. And so using Mona's connections and Theréa's expertise in negotiation, his field was really about a type of negotiation called gradualism, where instead of trying to tackle everything at once, you try to tackle small things one at a time until you lead to a greater agreement. They decided to begin the process of trying to get the PLO and the Israeli government to speak directly together, something that had never been done before. The reason that had not been done is that it was illegal at the time for any Israeli in the government to speak to a member of the PLO. So the first rounds of negotiations that they were able to pull together, the first three rounds of negotiations took place between two Palestinians, Hassan Asfor, played by Ahmad, and Abu-Allah, or Ahmed Kureya, who was played by Mahboud, and Yair Hirschfeld, played by Sasha Olnik. Hirschfeld, excuse me, Yair Hirschfeld, played by Sasha Olnik, who was a professor of economics at the University of Haifa, and Ron Pundak, who's not seen here, who was also a professor. After numerous rounds, because they were not able to get any further with their declaration of principles, which was a guideline for what would lead to Palestinian self-rule. The Palestinians kept asking for an official representative from Israel to join the negotiations. And finally, they were able to get Uri Sevir, played by Yuri Henley-Clone, to join. This is a scene that is the first negotiation between both parties.