Sunday
It was a long way to travel to attend the theater. Seven hours from Washington to Frankfurt, another three and a half hours to Israel. Arrive, pick up the bags (minus the case containing lights that got left behind in Frankfurt), pile into an overstuffed minivan, and then head straight to the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv for an evening performance.

“Plonter” or “Tangle” is a kind of ‘reality’ play that explores both sides of the violent and painful struggle between the Israelis and Palestinians, to let each really see the ‘other.’ It’s presented in Hebrew and Arabic, with subtitles in English as well. Jews play Arabs, Arabs play Jews, each telling stories with humor and drama of the lives of the occupied and the occupier, the bomber and the bombed. The performance we attended was done for Israelis teenagers. They laughed at moments that seemed meant to be laughed at. They also laughed at some that did not. That, the theater representative said, was nervous laughter.

It was an unusual start to what, in many ways, is an unusual mission: To come to a place that’s often in the ‘geopolitical’ news and typically seen through the eyes of politicians and political experts, and instead talk with cultural figures to get another, perhaps slightly angled view of the world. Poets, not politicians.

Monday
Today was our one ‘news’ day, at least the only one we knew would occur before we left for the Mideast. Several weeks ago Condoleezza Rice surprised us by scheduling a three-way meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem on February 19th. Even though it was to be just our first full day on the ground, we decided to produce a story around the event. The result, which we’ve just edited and fed to our office in Washington as I write, will be on tonight’s program.

Some instant impressions: Everything here has echoes and layers. You can’t miss the ancient ones, of course. The recent ones can be a bit more jarring. Walking along Ben Yehuda Street, a busy pedestrian promenade, a local producer who’s working with us says, ‘just up there is the pizzeria where 15 kids were blown up a few years ago by a suicide bomber.’ We walk that way, but she can’t find it and is puzzled. Then she figures it out: The pizzeria is now a falafel shop. We’d just passed it.

On the Arabic side of town in East Jerusalem, Naim Tarazi, an older gentleman who runs a travel agency and speaks wonderful English, agrees to talks with us. He takes my arm and jokes for several minutes, entertaining us all, a twinkle in his eye, playing to the camera as it’s being set up. But then he says, "Let me tell you something," turning deadly serious. He talks about the injustice around him, a life of small and large humiliations, of promises made and broken.

As he said "Let me tell you something", I think he’s joking, still playing with me and telling stories. Then I realize: Of course, he is a serious man, a funny and serious man. And this is a very serious place.