Living in the same building as the Israeli Embassy makes for an uncomfortable neighbourhood. Tarek Atia talks to residents of Ibn Malek Street in Dokki Mustafa -- who lives in the Nile-side apartment building that houses the Israeli Embassy in Cairo -- had fun watching Adel Imam's new film, Al-Sifara fil-Imara (The Embassy in the Building). In the movie, Imam plays an Egyptian who returns from an extensive stint working abroad to discover that the Israeli Embassy opened next door to his apartment; it's basically a comic take on the strange real-life situation in which Mustafa and many of his neighbours find themselves. In the charged political climate surrounding anything Israeli-related in Egypt, that situation is highly sensitive, which explains why Mustafa and the other residents preferred to withhold their real names when speaking to Al-Ahram Weekly. When I visit Mustafa late one night, I too feel like I'm in the film, which takes some of its most hilarious pokes at the extensive security surrounding the building. From the moment I park my car over a block away, a friendly gentleman with a machine gun asks me if I need anything. When I tell him whom I've come to visit, he takes my ID, and points me in the direction of another machine gun-toting colleague, a bit closer to the building. The second plain-clothes security officer takes another of my IDs. Quickly running out of cards, I have a lucky break at the building itself, where I only have to state my name and that of the person I am visiting before being allowed to go up. In the film, the heavy-security joke is plied for all that it's worth, with Imam having to go through a literal corridor of heavily armed guards to get from the elevator to his apartment door. While this is not the case in real life, there are similar security-related quirks. One is that three of the buildings on the street are numbered 6 Ibn Malek; the tallest is the one. But there are other differences as well. The building is not completely devoid of tenants, as the film makes it seem; this is the point at which Mustafa stopped laughing, and began to critique some of the movie's themes. "This is an Egyptian building," he tells me emphatically. "The concept promoted by the film -- that those who live here are somehow traitors -- is completely false." Mustafa takes issue with the way Imam's character is initially anxious to get rid of his apartment, once he finds out who his new neighbours are. "We definitely shouldn't think that way. If we do, then first we'll leave the building, then, we'll leave the street, then we'll leave the whole neighbourhood. And this is what they want." In fact, Mustafa's family moved into the building after the Israelis did, fully aware of the embassy's presence. "It was no big deal. My dad grew up near here. All my relatives live in this neighbourhood. It's central, and has a great view of the Nile." He takes me over to one of the windows, pulls open the curtain and invites me to stick my head out. On the other side of the river, one of the buildings is adorned with a large Hitachi billboard. It is the same sign that, in the film, featured an image of Adel Imam and the words Ramz Al-Sumoud (Symbol of Endurance), to depict his transformation into a national hero, for filing a lawsuit against the embassy because it was causing him, as a neighbour, psychological and practical harm. This lawsuit he eventually drops when the Mossad tricks him into sleeping with another man's wife, blackmailing him with a videotape of the liaison. "Where's the flag?" I ask. "Look up," Mustafa says. There it is, the Star of David flying in the Egyptian sky, above the embassy that occupies the building's top few floors. Does the sight still shock residents? Farid, who lives down the hall, tells me that over the years his initial shock and surprise may have dulled, but that "the flag in your own country, on your own building" is still a troubling sight, especially "with the destructive things we see Israel doing in Palestine". Although both men avoided talking politics (just because they live in the same building as the embassy does not make their viewpoints of any particular interest, they said), both Mustafa and Farid accept the diplomatic necessity of making peace with a former enemy. Mustafa is worried about being targeted by extremists who hate the fact that Israel has an embassy in Egypt in the first place. "Did you know that, just like in the movie, someone once fired a missile at the building?" he asks. "It hit the building next door." For Farid, the heavy security presence was a double-edged sword. Yes, it did mean that penetrating the building would be tough, but it also meant that a lot of people were targeting it. Both Mustafa and Farid admitted to living with that sort of fear at the back of their minds. "It just becomes part of my daily routine," Farid said. "If there's an earthquake, I always wonder whether a bomb might have gone off," is Mustafa's line. Most residents are acutely aware that they serve as de facto human shields for the embassy. "Israel likes to put its embassies, especially in countries that have a lot of anti-Israeli sentiment, in places where there are a lot of ordinary people," Mustafa says, "in central locations where they can be hidden among their neighbours." He thinks that's why this location was chosen -- for its proximity to important and highly secure areas like the Saudi Arabian and Lebanese embassies, as well as to Cairo University. And while Cairo University students have often tried to march over to the embassy, these neighbours have never felt the urge to lash out at the Israelis for their policies. Instead, Farid spoke of several altercations over things like elevator etiquette. The ambassador has a private elevator, so they don't see him or the diplomats; it's usually only security personnel or minor embassy personnel they might come across on their way up or down. The embassy people " biy lemmo el dor ", he says -- they generally avoid trouble. They'll say sabah al-kheir or even salamu alaikum, but no more." In other words, they're not over friendly the way the ambassador is portrayed in the film, always trying to enter into conversations with Adel Imam. Farid says the building has actually benefited in many ways from the embassy's presence. They take care of all the services -- the elevator, the water, the trash. "They're doing it for themselves, of course, but we're beneficiaries nonetheless, and the Ittihad Al-Mulak (Homeowners Association) could not have done a lot of these things on its own." Residents don't like it, rather, when there are elevator delays because of Israeli security concerns, or when the ambassador's arrival and departure delays the road in front of the building for a few minutes. The problems also include lack of access to the roof, Mustafa said, "so when we wanted to set up a satellite dish, we had to do so from our balcony". Farid, who lived in the building before the embassy moved in, said that the idea of filing a lawsuit against the embassy's presence -- a major part of the film's plot -- was discussed extensively in the past. "We were interviewed by the press, and we talked to a lot of people who supported that kind of a move, but in the end it turned into just that -- mere talk. Nothing serious was ever really done." If it upsets him that much, why doesn't he move out? "Why should I? And even if I wanted to, it would be impossible to sell the place. We're out of the market now." That presented another parallel to the film, where Adel Imam's character finds it impossible to sell his apartment. A real estate expert confirmed this fact for the Weekly : "If you had kids, would you want to move to a place where there is a high probability of a terrorist strike?" Yet he said that for potential buyers, not moving into the same building as the Israeli Embassy is "more a security issue than a matter of principle". Which is too bad, since otherwise, these same apartments could sell for around LE5,000/square metre. Rising real estate prices are not the only thing that has changed since the embassy first opened its doors, and 17 Arab nations severed ties with Egypt. Today many of those same nations are themselves establishing ties with Tel Aviv, and Egypt -- at least on the tourist, political and business levels -- is strengthening its own, while remaining socially and culturally cautious. Still, it's telling how a 1980 Jerusalem Post story that appeared when the embassy first opened remarked that, "the normalization of relations which Sadat has ordered ... does not mean that Egypt has been wholeheartedly opened to Israelis". Twenty-five years later, the article's observation that "that process might still be restricted to government inspired circles who would be... wary of how far to go in cooperating with the Israelis without instigating more opposition" still rings very true. "When people find out where I live," Mustafa says, "they might say, rabina yikoon fi'onkum " (God help you). That reaction makes it clear that the wariness is set to continue for a long time yet, especially since Mustafa, Farid and the other residents definitely don't see the Israeli Embassy as being within the parametres of the traditional neighbourly dynamic -- "not in the sense that we care about them in any way," as Mustafa says.
