Fun with Dick and Jane on Israeli-Palestinian comedy tour

by Ray Hanania (Palestine/USA)

We did two shows so far, one at the University of Madison, hosted by MASA/Israel Journeys, the Middle East Studies Association and the Jewish Agency/Hillel at the University of Wisconsin. We had 120 reservations (four days planning and 30 more who walked up and attended) so 150 was nice for the small theater with the big stage. Wisconsin is cold but the audience was warm. We got an enthusiastic reception from the students and teachers, including many Jewish, Arab and Muslim students. I always go into the audience and chat mainly to gauge the reaction and it is usually always great. But I figure if someone doesn’t like me, they won’t come up and say anything unless you give them the opportunity to say something. But everyone seemed excited.

The University of Chicago was great, too. We were at the 3rd floor theater at the Reynolds Clib. Man was it cold outside too. But the reception at the Hillel House was good and the audience at the University of Chicago was great, too. The only problem with the University of Chicago was the rejection from the large group of Arab and Palestinian extremists there who refused to attend and refused to even circulate the notice about the show.

They always send me their notices about their Jew-bashing events at the University of Chicago and when I asked them to circulate the note about a positive event like bringing Palestinians and Israelis together, they refused. But that is the problem with the “hate-the-Jews” crowd of Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians. They not only hate the Jews, but they hate the moderates in their own community.

It opened my eyes a bit to see how active and diverse the Jewish students are at the University of Chicago and I feel sorry for the Arab and Muslim students at the University of Chicago who are forced to either accept the hateful and spiteful activism of the small group of extremists there, or to have nothing. That has always been a problem in the Arab American community. The extremists control our community and the moderates, because they feel mistreated by the pro-Israel lobby and activists and pro-Israel media int he United States, don’t speak out to challenge their own extremist leadership.

But I won’t hesitate to speak out because I know that the bigger challenge we face as moderate Arabs is to silence and marginalize the growing extremist movement, mainly Islamicists, and the growing apathy of the “we-don’t-care-anymore” Christian Arabs.

That’s why this show is so important. Putting Palestinian and Israelis up on stage sends a message the extremists hate. They don’t want us to realize that we are not demons, that we are not monsters. They want us to think we hate each other because then it makes it easy for the fanatics among us to exploit our fears and stereotypes so they can empower themselves. Extremists empower themselves by demonizing others and using that demonized stereotype of the enemy to silence those among them who might ask the intelligent questions and make their leadership accountable.

Extremists can be a lot of things. They can be loud. They can be intimidating. They can be hysterical ready to exploit one side of the principle when the violence only hurts them and offer only silence when the violence hurts the other side. But the one thing that extremnist can’t offer is accountability. Extremists can’t be accountable. They use hatred to keep their people from questioning their own failures, and the Arab World and Muslim World leadership has been a HUGE FAILURE in America.

While I often lambaste the anti-Arab racist hatred in the American media, I do know that a major part of the problem is the failure of Arabs to get off their asses and actually do something. But they tend to always take the easy rod driven by emotion, and rarely ever take the effective road of logical, creative and strategic planning. Emotion is the easy way to organize. And if tyou can keep Arabs and Muslims hating Jews and Israelis then they can continue to control their people and keep their people from ever questioning their own leadership and making them accountable.

Despite some great work by the Arab American Institute and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, we havce far too many other hate groups out there intimidating the Arab American and Muslim community and trying to silence us. They play little games of blacklisting and boycotting like at the University of Chicago, and they do everything they can to rally around emotion and prevent people from rallying around reason.

That’s my rant for the morning. But I will say despite the fanatics, there are far more moderates in the Arab, Muslim and Palestinian community and all we need do is reach out to them and give them a choice, an alternative to the Jew-bashing hatred and the extremist fanaticism, and an option based on reason, intelligence, common sense and applying a principle fairly to both sides.

Ray Hanania
from the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour road trip through the American heartland
www.IPCOmedyTour.com