[Published in Israel Imperial News no. 2, October 1968; the Hebrew translation was published in Matzpen no. 46, November 1968]
A Dialogue on the Nature of Security
(Two guardsmen in front of a cinema in Tel-Aviv)
A: Not a thing.
B: No, not a thing.
A: Absolutely nothing.
B: You sound as if you’re complaining.
A: Good lord! Why should I complain?
B: You just sounded as if you were.
A: It’s because I’m bored.
B: How can you be bored defending your country?
A: I wish I were defending my country.
B: Of course you are.
A: The hell I am! Searching people’s pockets…
B: It’s our duty. You don’t want a bomb to go off in the cinema, do you?
A: But why me?
B: Somebody has to do it.
A: Yeah, somebody has to do it, but if we were a bit cleverer it wouldn’t be such a bore.
B: What do you mean?
A: Do we really have to search everybody?
B: You can’t tell Arabs from people.
A: But why can’t I?
B: Because you can’t. If they’re clever, they’ll send someone fair, someone who doesn’t look very AraB:
A: But if we mark them…
B: What do you mean?
A: Make them all carry a mark.
B: What kind of mark?
A: Any mark. A star for instance. Something to distinguish them from the others.
B: Are you suggesting that every Arab should carry a mark on his clothes?
A: Exactly. With a mark we could spot them immediately and search them. Save us time and trouble.
B: Don’t be ridiculous. We can’t do that.
A: Why?
B: Behave like Nazis? The world would despise us. We couldn’t do it.
A: Who cares about the world? The world didn’t care about us.
B: Even so; you can’t do it. We still need world sympathy.
A: To hell with world sympathy. Security is what we need.
B: You won’t get it by antagonizing the rest of the world.
A: All right then. We can’t mark the Arabs, but we can still mark the Jews.
B: The Jews?
A: Yes, the Jews. Do you think they’ll object to that?
B: Who?
A: The world.
B: Marking the Jews?
A: Yes.
B: How shall we mark the Jews?
A: Same as usual. A yellow star. We’re already used to it.
B: Well…
A: The world can’t object to us wearing yellow stars, can it?
B: Well…
A: Don’t you see? They won’t be able to go into a public place without being identified and searched.
B: The Jews?
A: Idiot. The Arabs!
B: I see. Are you sure it will solve our security problem?
A: If this won’t solve it, nothing will.