What a Ceasefire Really Looks Like

In America, when someone visits your house casually, say a repairman, you offer a glass of water, or a cup of coffee or tea. The person says no, thank you, and you get down to business without pause. Of course they declined, as you knew they would. This is the American ritual: hospitality is offered, then declined, because the visitor should not put the host to any trouble nor spend more time in their home than is necessary.

In Israel, when someone offers you coffee or tea, you say yes even if you actually need to get going because in the Middle East, hospitality offered is a sign of generosity and honor, and saying no is a sign of disrespect.

You will drink the coffee, and you will marvel at your surroundings.

That’s the ritual.

Only then can you get down to business and fix the cable, unplug the drain or ask how much the car repair will actually cost.

Such are the delicate social constructs and expectations of humans around the world.

When Ahmad handed Gidon and me tiny paper cups of blisteringly hot, bitter coffee, which, in my opinion, is exactly the worst way to have coffee, I knew I would sip it and seem to enjoy it while marveling at his grimy garage from the vantage point of my white plastic chair.

Ahmad is a mechanic, and his garage is located in Manshiyat al Zabda, a small Arab Muslim village near where I live. Ahmed and his son are currently my heroes since they rescued me from a Weird Noise in the Car While Driving the other day. I pulled over near Manshiyat, knowing something was wrong, and was directed to Ahmad’s nearby garage.

Ahmad’s garage truly is something to marvel at, owing to the huge number of swallows flying in and out as we spoke over coffee. I was struck, once more, even after all these years living in the Middle East, at the difference between American ideas about time and those of the Middle East.

Ahmad knew there was a problem with my car. It was already up on a hydraulic lift as coffee was offered and accepted. Yet we did not talk about the car for at least fifteen minutes. No, we had to have the coffee and get to know each other, as the birds darted and floofered above us, ruffling our hair.

Where was I from? Where was Gidon from? Did we like BBQ meat? Where did we usually buy our meat? Was I Gidon’s daughter? What, no?! Kol hakovod, Ahmad said to Gidon in admiration - much respect.

The American in me kept thinking, “What’s the problem with the car, and what will it cost?” But no, that is not how things work in this part of the world. We must visit. We must get to know one another. We must say one thing and maybe mean another. We must express gratitude, warnings, respect, aggression and submission over coffee.

This is the ritual. This is the smallest unit of a ceasefire.

This is what Americans do not understand about the Middle East.

Ahmad, I discovered, really enjoys BBQ meat. In fact, his favorite place to get it was a large Arab village called Kfar Kanna. Did we know the place? Do we like to cook it at home or buy it cooked? Did we like meat? If we wanted meat, please, to call him and he would pick it up for us.

All agreed this was a very fine plan, and all understood that, of course, we would never ask Ahmad to do this, and he would never do it. It was just part of the ritual.

Ahmad turns to Gidon. Where are you from - ah, Czechia? That is a beautiful place! Why did you leave? Ahmad can see Gidon is elderly. He knows why he would have left Europe.

Here it comes. a test of the polite ritual. I brace myself.

Because I am a Zionist, Gidon says, instead of “because I survived the Holocaust.”

I tense up a little, wondering where this Kabuki performance will go.

Ah, Ahmad says. Kol hakovod.

Kol Hakovod? I have no idea how he really feels.

Not two kilometers away, yet another fighter jet emerges from under the Jezreel Valley and rends the sky above us, as it heads toward Lebanon. Another jet follows. They always fly in pairs. The swallows do not cease or alter their flitting.

I notice that one of the huge suspended lights, very close to the grimy, cavernous ceiling, is covered in bird poop. It looks like Little Alcatraz. On the very top, right in the sweet spot, there is a nest. A bird peers down at us as she guards her eggs.

How could I leave California behind, Ahmad asks. Wait, don’t answer. If someone offered him half a million, no, a million shekels to leave this place, he would say no. He loves this land. Yes, I say, so do I.

Oh, how I want to go deeper, to ask Ahmad how he feels about Israel, about Bibi, about Zionism. But it would be too much. It would alter the ritual. It might break the uneasy truce.

Overhead, the swallows do their acrobatics and ruffle our hair.

Later, when we pick up the car, Ahmad’s son tells me, in English, that he loves Canada and would like to live there. We switch to Hebrew, which surprises me. Not that Ahmad’s son can speak it, but that I can.

I ask Ahmad’s son if he’s been to Canada. No, but he wants to go there. He has a daughter who is 5 and a son who is 2 and a half. But his father can’t run the garage without his help, he says. So Ahmad’s son stays.

A story as old as time.

Reader, I am not going to write all the cliched stuff about how you need to read this because there is more coexistence in Israel than you can possibly imagine, because yes, but also: I have no idea, maybe Ahmad hates Jews or Israelis or both. I don’t know. I have been here too long to think shared coffee and swallows mean peace is possible.

Instead, I wonder what will become of Ahmad and his son.

I wonder what will become of me.

A swallow lands on a phone line, or fax line, more likely (this is Israel), above Ahmad’s head, his forked tail twitching this way and that. After some time, he darts up to the nest on the hanging lamp, Little Alcatraz high above, and passes something pale from his beak to that of his mate.