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Can George Costanza get us out of Hotel California?
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| By Saguy Green |
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There was a mountain of phosphorescent chocolate and marzipan balls, and an immense tray of gloomy looking tuna and avocado sandwiches. Which immediately gave rise to the obvious question: What would George Costanza have done, if faced with a cornucopia of goodies being doled out for free?
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He probably would have pushed away the esteemed guests who had come for the launch of the peace initiative by the One Voice organization and were now crowding around the refreshments, and swooped down on them himself. And for an encore he would have without shame stuck his hand in the glass container, in which the gold lapel pins on which the organization's logo was imprinted, and grabbed a handful for himself. But the Costanza of "Seinfeld" wasn't there, nor was the actor who portrayed his character.
While the invited guests gathered yesterday morning in the improvised lobby of the IBM building in Petah Tikva, Jason Alexander, wearing a beard, khaki pants and shirt and an olive colored sports jacket, was sitting at the corner of a table in a conference room, the door of which was closed to the many photographers present. He was huddling with Mohammed Darawshe and Daniel Lubetzky, the founders of the organization, coordinating positions with them before the start of the press conference. Then he stood up, asked if it was okay to leave his briefcase in the room, and announced that he simply had to go outside now. The only thing you can say about what happened next is that it has been a long time since so many cameras accompanied one person on his way to the bathroom. Costanza would most certainly have had an anxiety attack, or fled, or would have enjoyed all the flashes, but Alexander remained apathetic, and simply shut the door behind him.
He was then directed into toward the hall where the launch of the organization and its peace initiative took place. Imagine George from "Seinfeld" seated in the front row between Deputy Minister Michael Ratzon and MK Matan Vilnai and listening ad nauseum to warm wishes and speeches uttered in a language he does not know: listening to the organization's executive director, David Leffler, explaining in Hebrew the uniqueness of the One Voice questionnaire, in that it is based on posing 10 identical questions to the two peoples that live here, about the way the conflict should be resolved, and about how the questionnaire would help to chart the peace process, based on the answers and the consensus expressed in the answers.
Leffler also spoke about how on the Israeli side, the project includes members of Knesset from the right and from the left. Then Alexander listened as Sagiv Asulin, the chairman of the national Students' Union, said that he does not believe in far-fetched peace initiatives such as Geneva. But he is joining this enterprise, and that means that from now on it is impossible to say that students only look after their own concerns; and then Ratzon, saying that even though he is an out-and-out right-winger, he joined the initiative because even though he harbors a doubt that he may be wrong, he wants to make a sincere attempt to see if there is a partner, that only this way can he live in peace with himself, with his family, with his people. And suddenly, between a quote from Bialik and a quote from Uri Zvi Greenberg, he also used a metaphor from Don Henley, the drummer of the "Eagles," when he said that he wants to be sure that we are not stuck in Hotel California, which you can never leave.
Now imagine George sitting and listening to MK Matan Vilnai, and after him MK Gilad Erdan, and MK Etti Livni and Mohammed Darawshe and Daniel Lubetzky and a host of other speakers, and watching an IBM computerized audio-visual presentation and listening to the ever-lengthening explanations by a representative of the company that is providing technical support for the questionnaire, who tried to amuse the audience with a few key lines from a certain well-known comic series in which four New York friends engage in nothing, actually.
George Costanza would certainly have tried to flee, or would have created a riot of some sort, or maybe would have tried to calm himself down by reciting the code word "serenity now" to himself, but not Jason Alexander. He sat quietly all this time and when he was finally called up to the stage, immediately went into his well-hewn Hollywood spiel.
"This is what we've learned so far," he began. "One, that the paparazzi here will also trample children for a picture; two, we are here at IBM House, a center of modern technology, and no one knows how to set his cell phone on vibrate; three, I'm not Hasidic, I'm unemployed," he said, stroking his beard.
Then he added that he is the least important person in the room. "I'm not a politician, I don't run a country, I'm not a student, and I'm not a journalist. I'm only a storyteller and I make people laugh. The things that my predecessors said are much more important."
He also said that the One Voice initiative is the most logical thing he has ever heard of, and he contributed a story drawn from his personal experience, about how he and his wife have been married for 25 years, and how seven years ago they hit a bump in the road, how they fought, how there was no longer any warmth between them, how they were sure there was no chance. Until they went to a therapist who gave them two keys for understanding the situation. One is that they have children, in other words, there are other people involved in the story; and two is that you can never correct the past, you can only work together for the future. And so, for a year and a half, four times a week, spending a lot of money, that is what he and his wife Dana did, until they solved the problem.
"Your married life is very conflicted," he told the people gathered in the hall, "with a lot of pain, and a lot of suffering. But you are two peoples with an incredible chance for a future. Your only future is peace."
That is what George Costanza most certainly would not have said. After all, it was he who trampled babies and old women as he fled a building that was starting to burn down.
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| In Tel Aviv, Jason Alexander said that the One Voice initiative is the most logical thing he has ever heard of.
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