"So how is your friend doing?" asked the slightly spacey, but very sweet, waitress at my local cafe, as she added up the bill for our morning coffee.

"I think he's having a pretty good time," I answered. "We've met a lot of interesting people and he wants to extend his visit in order to see and write about more stuff. Tell me, what do you think of the idea of an Iranian Muslim visiting Tel Aviv?"

"I think it's really cool," she answered. "When I was in India I went to the Osho Ashram in Pune and it was full of Iranians, even whole families. I really connected with the women, especially in the dancing meditation. They're so spiritual."

Then she smiled sweetly and wafted off.

While I was waiting for Hossein at the airport I ran into Asher Tsarfati, an Israeli actor who lives in my neighbourhood; he had come to pick his daughter up after a class trip to California and shushed away my concerns that Hossein might not make it through security. Asher is currently acting in a Hebrew version of Shakespeare's The Tempest at the Hebrew-Arab Theatre of Jaffa; until he went off to Hollywood last week Ali Suliman, who played one of the protagonists in Paradise Now, also acted in the play - which I saw and loved. When we ran into Asher at the cafe this morning, I introduced him to Hossein as "the guy I was waiting for at the airport"; they shook hands and Asher said jokingly, "Wow, we touched. Can we make world peace happen now?" He then offered to set up a meeting with the Arab and Jewish actors at the theatre. More on that when it happens.


Hossein and Asher Tsarfati

On an unrelated topic, I'm very intrigued by the huge gap between the media's deep concern over the Hamas victory and the near-total indifference of practically everyone I've asked  - like the guy who owns the corner grocery, an acquaintance who teaches Iyengar yoga, friends who work in a variety of professions and a taxi driver. It's not just that no-one has expressed surprise; no-one seems to be terribly interested, or to understand why I'm asking their opinion.

So you wouldn't mind if there were an Islamist state on the border of Israel?" I asked the guy who owns the grocery store (I stole that question from a foreign correspondent).

"Should I mind?" asked the grocery store owner.