If you want to know the plot of this post, you will have to read every word of it.

You know there are sometimes things that you hear or see and you just never forget. Things that immediately make it into your permanent memory and pop out as flying-by thoughts every now and then. They don’t have to be major events. Just small clips of events you lived to witness.

Since I was a child, I have noticed there was a major difference between the East and the West in the way women are viewed, and therefore a difference in the way women in the two directions express themselves. The very small details always caught my attention and stayed in my memory. The way they dress, the way they wear make-up, the way the walk, the way they talk (this one needs a separate article), and the way they view the world and themselves.

I have those short memory-clips of some Egyptian women walking like an Egyptian — If you know what I mean — and talking like one: as a weasel in a porn, and using those cliche words like: “Ma3sha Alloooooo, you look like a mooooon.. M3erci3 A3wi, R3abben Ykhal333eeeeky, h3e h3e” (with a weasel tone, get the picture?).

On the other hand, needless to say that Western women always seemed more free and self-assured to me. They could do whatever they wanted, in a good or a bad way, since men often saw them as equals.

Sometimes I really wondered how far those Western women would go..

One evening I was among a group of people, I can’t recall where or who or how, all I can remember is that a Dutch guy (with a stress on *Dutch*, coming from a place where you can be as rude as you want and get away with it) suddenly said: “I would forgive everything, but if I find out that my girlfriend poops, I will immediately break up with her”.

I have absolutely no idea why this sentence is engraved in my memory.

A-HA! So there ARE differences like the ones we have.

But I once had a roommate who insisted on having red wine every evening for dinner.. And to my bad luck we had a morning schedule for using the toilet and the shower, in which I used the toilet after her.

MAN! What can a glass of red wine in the evening do to the odor of your morning-after poop!

I was just sitting there *crying* while turning blue every morning.

A memory clip of me entering the toilet and being overwhelmed with this “HABW” of smell is still saved in my hemispheres.

On the other hand, I have a sister who didn’t do a number two for three months after her wedding out of fear of her husband hearing her fart or find any post-Kaka odeur.

I recalled all this this morning.. As I was sitting on my “throne”, something occurred to me: How do cultures differ considering women and pooping?

As an Egyptian and as a woman, do I poop like others? I wonder.. Has there ever been any research on trans-cultural pooping styles and smells?

There are many options.. You can sit with your knees close together when you squeeze, or have the legs wide open, sit up straight, lean back, or lean forward. Rest the head on your fists during those long poops, or on the tip of your toes as opposed to having your feet flat on the ground; you can sit long enough to have sleepy legs, or to have toilet seat marks on the back of your thighs and two elbow-imprints just above your knees..

Do you read on the throne?

Do you take your time? Or are you always in a hurry?

Is the mission often impossible?

Do you try to be quiet in public toilets? Do you feel any sense of obligation towards other people’s feelings? Do you get the guts to go uninhibited if and only if your neighbor broke the taboo and started an orchestra?

Do you go nuts when a drop of water jumps back to hit you in the butt like a stray bullet?

How would you feel/react if you found out there’s no toilet paper left?

And as an Egyptian, when you go abroad, how disgusted do you feel if there’s no shattafah in da hood?

And afterwards,

Do you ever say goodbye to your poop? Do you ever look back and check on it, taking into consideration that your poop tells books about your health? Dutch toilets have this great feature of a poop scoop, where there’s a platform that receives the stools and keeps them on display until you decide to flush farewell.

Do you try to hide the smell like a maniac?

How would you feel if you found out that the toilet won’t flush?

I wonder. Do pooping rituals say something about us? Are there cultural styles in the way we poop? Does it have to do with our personality?

And one last thought: Old-fashioned French toilets are the BEST invention for the constipation nation. The lower the toilet, the better. Did you know that? If you are constipated, just 2arfas, or put a box under your feet so they would become as high as possible. Satisfaction is guaranteed.

So what exactly is the plot of this post?

All my life I wanted to be famous. For something.. Anything..

And now that the memory of this post, and hence me, will pop out in front of you every time you use the toilet, then it is making me famous enough.

Mission accomplished.

This story happened more than 70 or 80 years ago, in the Galilee Heights, during the British occupation “Mandate” to Palestine, a long time before we had the “honor” to host our “cousins’ the jews. There, in one of the Galilee villages, there was a Palestinian peasant who had a stubborn donkey. Both, the peasant and his donkey, lived peacefully ploughing the fields and eat from their land of “honey and milk”. One day, while they were plouhing the field as usual, the donkey stopped to go on, refuse to cooperate with his friend and owner. The farmer begged him to continue, to finish he field, otherwise they both wouldn’t have enough to eat, but the donkey didn’t listen and kept stubbornly standing, refusing to take any further step that would bridge the gap. The farmer got angry and threatened the donkey, but the donkey insisted on his point of view and rejected all of the farmer’s promises of “peace” an “prosperous future”. Then the farmer got very angry and started beating the poor animal, but there was no sign of “future agreement” between the “two parties”. The farmer got harsher and kept battering the “terrorist” donkey who refused all the “peace” offers.

For the donkey’s luck, a British troop was passing by and saw the fight. The British soldiers felt pity for the poor donkey and approached yelling at the farmer. Another fight started and the soldiers battered the farmer badly for his “inhuman” treatment of the donkey, and went on in their way. The farmer, frustrated and angry of both the donkey and the soldiers, started beating the donkey again yelling at him: “Why didn’t you tell me you have relatives in London?”

The story, just like history, does repeat itself again, but this time in a brand-new postmodern way; well-organized in a kind of “charity” with constitution, colorful papers and handouts, computerized statistics and sharp stuff !!!

Two months ago, a friend of mine (who is the chief of the local council of a neighboring village) asked me if I can meet a European delegate of “Animals Rights” charity and guide them through the village. I apologized telling him that I really don’t have time for such animals, sorry benevolent humans !!!

Later, my friend asked me to design and write a gratitude certificate (a paper that looks like a University Certificate but has both the local council’s and the Charity’s logos on it) in order for him to send it to that “humanitarian” (but animalistic) Charity !!! He explained to me how they came; a huge delegate with 4-wheels jeeps, equipments, medicine and donkeys’ luxury stuff !!! They were professionals on Donkeys and only serve the “Donkeys (Human) Rights”… they took a tour around the village to visit their “kins” of the Donkeys, they healed some sick donkeys, and had a good impression of how we (the primitives) deal with their “relatives”, the humans !!!!

I just wonder, in God’s sake, how many zionist checkpoints they passed to reach this remote village? How many walls and borders they crossed to take care of their “relatives”? Didn’t they see how the Palestinians are treated like donkeys (apology for the donkeys) under the zionist occupation, how they are captured in the zoo of Gaza? Why, the donkeys have “Human Rights” while the Palestinians still (after 100 years of both the British and the Zionist occupation) deprived from the basic “Donkeys Rights”?

I am sure that the next Palestinian elections will witness the right for the Donkeys to vote and even compete for presidency, but what I am certain of is that the next Palestinian president (according to the West electoral standards) will be a Donkey that has kinship to London !!! Praised be the Almighty Donkeys that have kinship to London !!!

Sami, the Bedouin.

Every summer or holiday season, I convince myself that the Egyptian movie I’m about to see is going to be different. It’s going to have an actual plot , it’s going to lack sexism and racism and if I got lucky, it might divert from the usual (Read: corny!) slapstick humor. Armed with a friend( to keep me patient ), all the understanding I can muster and cinema-specific comfort food, I sit down a few seats away from the nearest kid.

Most of the time, I leave the cinema hall feeling disappointed, offended and ripped-off. Here I am, after wasting nearly two hours of my precious life, feeling slightly older and bitter that my intellect wasn’t stimulated in any way.

The question we need to ask here is not why such pathetic attempts at film-making are still being made, it’s simply: why is the public still interested in such films?

After all, the supply of what Egypt Today, called “brainless comedies” reflects the demand for such films.

I have to admit, the Egyptian cinema was blessed in recent years with the production of films such as Sahr Al Layaly and Yacoubian building and even the recent controversial “Ehky ya Shahrezad”.

The aforementioned movies reflect Egypt’s bittersweet reality.

The divorce rates are increasing at an alarming rate, Sahr Al Layaly points out the reasons, it introduces us to the problems and challenges of marriage in modern day Egypt.

Yacoubian building takes us on a long rollercoaster-style journey into Egypt’s social ills, economic woes and the current politically-chaotic scene.

I’m writing this with poor Mona Zaki in mind, the media wasn’t particularly nice to her this summer. She delivered a memorable performance as a talk show host on a difficult mission to give a voice to voiceless Egyptian women. She gives them a voice and lets them take us hand in hand down an often painful memory lane.

Let’s go back to the other side of the wall. Egyptian comedy movies usually rely on the actor’s looks for “cheap laughs”. Maybe I’m naive, but I always thought comedy should depend on clever and witty writing. This is exactly what a lot of comedy flicks lack, good writing. Whether the movie features Mohammed Saad or Saad al Sagheer, the actors try to generate laughter based on their looks or their ability to play dumb. Al Limby, a popular movie, features Mohammed Saad, as a “mentally-challenged” person. Al Limby went on to become one of Egypt’s highest-grossing films.

It’s a shame that making fun of mentally-challenged, overweight, unattractive people makes a lot of people laugh, it doesn’t make me laugh.

Any Egyptian or non-Egyptian feminist or any woman interested in the portrayal of women in the cinema is surely mortified when she hears sexist jokes. Even good-old Adel Imam, one of the greatest actors in Egyptian history seems to be saying a lot of sexist jokes lately. Foul jokes about a women’s body are not funny, they are just foul, for lack of a more bitter word!

Then, there is the blatant racism, I cringe every time I hear “jokes” about dark people being dirty, ugly, or if there are women involved, then they are really ugly “prostitutes”.

In yet another Egyptian comedy, Ali Spicy, Hakem walks into a room only to find his friend in bed with a black woman. The racist epithets go on and on, until he scolds him by saying “they are not women, they are animals”. This was of course one of the many tasteless climaxes in the movie. I wasn’t as bothered by it as I was by the fact that it was one of the funniest scenes for most of the audience members. It was so funny, it deserved a round of applause.

It’s hard to think of contemporary Egyptian cinema without such nuisances coming to mind. I appreciate good films and I can name all the well-respected and talented Egyptian artists, but I just can’t be bothered to sit through another sad excuse for a movie.

My friends tell me the interest in such movies comes down to one thing:- economic problems. The Egyptian public wants to escape the difficult living conditions by laughing out loud. I reluctantly believe them….although I think the public deserves better.

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The Iranian regime has adopted the mission of preventing the progress of Baha’is, both within and outside Iran, and there is no telling how far it is willing to go to fulfill its mission.

Our CENSEO team has created a comic about the absurdity of this situation:

He’s apparently now converting to Islam. I am still in the “not caring” category. So why is this post here?

Considering the amount of serious articles we have on the site, I thought that this satirical piece may light things up. It’s a letter from Michael Jackson addressed to the world, written about 2 years ago.

Dear everyone,

I wake up each morning with the same pain and demons that came to visit me a year and a half ago. I know that I’ll never ever recover from it or stop it from crushing me every single day. Something took away the best thing in my life without asking or warning me and it kills me like a razorblade through the chest, constantly. I won’t go into detail as to what I’m talking about, here. The media’s done enough in exposing everything there is to know about me.

As some of you may already know, I’m in Bahrain, the land of midget extremists and camel-humping bores. I’ve spent a large portion of my time here writing songs with the prince (who can kill 40 live ostriches with his bare hands) and talking to 4 year olds about hamsters. I like 4 year olds. They make my loins stir and my heart soar. I’m glad I’m finally overcoming my fears of children. When I was 39, a 5 year old crept into my bedroom and molested me, claiming that if I told my parents or the authorities, he’d get away with it on the grounds that there is “nothing wrong with a little bump and grind.” He won’t go to jail. He’ll just grow up twice as fast and end up starring in The West Wing like similar offenders do. Goes to say why you shouldn’t trust anyone. I only invited that brat to my home so I could show him the right way to iron a collar.

I’m afraid I’m legally banned from going near any playground since this whole unfortunate misunderstanding with my trousers. That story has gotten a lot of attention from the media. Speaking of the overzealous media, I don’t know why I’m surrounded with cameras all the time. I’m sure the boys and girls of Bahrain don’t want a succession of blurry photos showing me thrashing around my bedroom with a framed picture of their King.

I started wearing an abaya. Covered from head to toe. When my lawyer first suggested this idea, I said “Don’t make me laugh please, it makes my colostomy bag shift to the right, causing intense discomfort.” Little did I know he was being serious, and after I’ve given it much thought I figured this would be a fun way to disguise me. The media here is starved, and the people seem mislead. It’s a wee bit depressing watching all the sheep following the flock. But, like bell-bottoms, BBMak & Capitalism, I think it’s just a faddish phase that will disappear when the novelty has worn off.

Everyone knows I wear an abaya now, the people here are smarter than I ever gave them credit for. I went to the women’s bathroom in a mall and some girl yelled, “IT’S HIM, get your handbags out, ladies!” I ran like I never thought I could run before. Why do people assume that all celebrities are supposed to act responsibly? I am under no orders to make the world a better and safer place. Stop expecting the impossible.

Scarlett Johansson has been stealing my thunder lately, thanks to her recent ridiculously clichéd movie. I really wish that every other magazine would stop telling us how beautiful she is. She needs to be taken down a peg or two. Also, she is a horrible actress, did I mention this? It’s a mathetmatical fact and arguing against it is like debating the colour of dirt. I have seen her big budget stuff and her smaller indie films. Her acting in all of them is wooden.

I won’t be coming home, I’ve made my decision and I’d like to settle down in the Persian Gulf. I figured, if I can’t annoy the hell out of Arabs with my sulky, melancholy whining, what else CAN I do…?

Disclaimer: This piece is satirical and fictional. If you were offended in any way, there’s not much I can do about that.

The Legal procedure of marriage in Saudi is in two parts, a legally-approved Religious part and a Legal part, and knowing how complex this process can be, one would think the computerized environment would help better it. Well, it would, but is it going to be utilized in that department any time soon?

Other than the old Stamp and Sign procedure with the Marriage Certificate, a paper-back booklet, the remaining steps still remain in the Stamp and Sign. When you’re in the Civilian Affairs Office, Your legal papers have to be signed by an individual and stacked in a folder. Eventually, that folder will be stacked over the other hundred folders until someone takes them to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and logs them in. Notice how the process even avoids the use of Telephones, which are used only for the chatting employees. The only computerized thing about the whole place is the mobiles of the citizens who got bored from waiting, and started checking their falling stock.

The working hours of the office begins from 7 am, you’ll wait in a long long long line, waiting to get a number, with the possibility of the person in charge of handing them out yelling that the numbers for the National ID, for instance, are out and everyone should come tomorrow. Or suddenly pointing out that if you wanted to get a certain issue done, it’s done in the other part of town. When you get your number, you’re given the proper forms and asked to sit down, fill them up and wait until the employees arrive. They arrived at 9 am.

Now, looking through the marriage process, you’re asked to get copies of every legal paper, fill a form, get a picture, dump your folder with a person who stacks it in the folder, and then you’re asked to CHECK the next day, or the same day after Dhu’hur prayer.. However, the process never finishes in a day, being that it’s taken to another office, that uses an old cashier-like XEROX printer to print your name and information. The next day, another person would get a stack of certificates and then call out names, and later on organize them in a wooden box according to the Arabic alphabets.

Nothing’s computerized so far? well, the numbers you take and wait with in line are shown on an LED screen.. Happy now?

Assuming that you were told to come back After Dhu’hur prayer, you’re not expected to leave the office and pray and come back.. No sir. Why? because they stop taking citizens in AFTER the prayer, and only those inside will get their deal done. And that’s all the working hours of the office. A lousy, unproductive, 3 and a half hours.

I had a conversation with a very “happy” citizen, saying that he gave them his papers to add his daughter to his Folder, and they happen to lose his photocopied ID. They stopped his process for 2 weeks now, while he went to Makkah and came back thinking it’s all over.

Ironically, thinking of the Flentstones City Hall scenes, they used Historic technologies to achieve modern-day tasks.. However, we choose to finish our work in the most historic way possible, while leaving those modern-day technologies aside.. Unless there’s an interesting game of Solitaire that people are betting on.. Moreover, you’d be able to skip the whole process by knowing the right people, or by going to any smaller city or county in the kingdom and get it done in less than an hour. Amazing how advanced the kingdom is, and how it manages to keep such a stupid infrastructure in one piece.

I got my Marriage certificate finally, and thinking am done with all this bull, They seem to keep a small gift intact.. They logged me in the record as a 170 cm tall male, with hazle eyes.. However, am 185 cm tall with dark brown eyes.. It’s ok, i guess i can live with this legal distortion.. Since they told me happily that i’ll have to change the papers Anyways to the new small Card format, but they had to finish the remaining Old certificates, since they think it’s a waste of resources to throw all of that away.. And they say Saudis have it easy, wait till a Foreigner tells you how his process goes.

Does marriage seem that appealing now that you’ve lived through a semi-3-day story? Single N Proud should get a kick out of this

Yours,
Lou

Although a landmark ruling in January decreed that Baha’is can obtain identification papers, the government has yet to implement the ruling, and recently, a lawyer for Egypt’s Islamic Research Council filed a challenge intended to stall the process.

…and in the meantime, thousands of Baha’is are left waiting.

Recognizing that no society can possibly be built on a denial of individual freedom, and that the best road to progress is freedom’s road, Ahmadinejad’s new policies represent a dramatic shift in Iran’s policies.

The news was met most enthusiastically by women – long denied equal rights by the constitution – and religious and ethnic minorities – particularly the Baha’is. After all, if we cannot now end our differences, at least we can help make the world safe for diversity.

This explains the banter Ahmad Mansour indulged in before beginning the interview, with a lot of theatrical antics followed by the extraction of a promise that there will be nothing but effusions of praise for our beloved leaders on this show. Al Jazeera, Mansour said gravely, has taken the decision to be good and follow the rules.

In keeping with this promise, Sanoussi praised Arab scientific and technological achievement in undertaking this giant leap for mankind (the giant leap being the establishment of space police), and lauded the fact that were once we had rigged elections, we now have elections that are rigged in a fair and transparent manner. Leaders were referred to as Our Lord so-and-so. Sanoussi also reverentially spoke of His Royal Highness the President.

That little preamble over, they proceeded with the by now well-worn substitution of South American for Arab. “Arab leaders…” (Sorry, I mean South American leaders…) As evidenced by this incredibly ancient formula, much of what Ahmad Sanoussi had to say was recycled, and overly insisted upon. Sentences you would have laughed at once don’t seem quite as funny repeatedly rephrased.

That said though, the incoherence of the pseudo-analysis was very real, in its baffling juxtaposition of our Golden Age and this present time, consistently couched in your every-day Arab demagogue’s high-flown spittle-spraying rhetoric. Wonderfully uncanny, including the section with Andalous, illegal migration, fat cats and fat whales all in one sentence. This was achieved by transforming Tariq Ibn Ziad’s famous words: “the sea is behind you and the enemy is in front of you, so by God there’s nothing for you but constancy and patience” into the words of would-be immigrants today: “injustice is behind you and the racism is in front of you, so by God there’s nothing for you but drowning or death!” Bziz then praised state-sponsored “terrestrial TV” as a fool-proof method of torture and advised Information Ministers to introduce a little rhythm and turn the Leader-met-with-Minister type news into songs.

Asked whether there were any limits or rules in satire, he said that there was one, which was that satire should be directed at the powerful, not making fun of the oppressed. So there were some serious moments, albeit brief. One of the high points of the show was probably when Egyptian actor/comedian Mohammad Subhi called, in the role of an Information Minister accusing Ahmad Mansour of laughing, which is against the regulations. Mansour’s response: La ya Bei!

Subhi also wondered why people are upset about this document, since as Sanoussi said, the miracle of Arab Ministers agreeing on something is in itself an achievement. Subhi then dismissed the regulations with the persuasive argument that they won’t be implemented, obviously, because it would be too much for anyone to hope that anything Arabs have unanimously agreed upon will actually be implemented. From there, Subhi got a little sidetracked into the return of the Danish cartoon controversy and video clips determined to prove we really aren’t terrorists, honestly. He then encouraged Sanoussi to continue down the satiric path, with the following reassurance: “Don’t fear! Hint and insinuate all you want, wallahi they don’t get it. You’re lucky if they manage to understand what you’re saying when you’re actually saying it directly.”

At one point, Bziz lapsed into reality stripped of all humour. (Today, there are people who inherit millions, and there are people who inherit millions of people.) But the term Jumhalakiyat is anything but new. I don’t think it is Ahmed Sansoussi’s invention either. Neither is the Chair Disease, once a staple of CBM’s type of soft-centred comedy. Sanoussi waved a small throne around while holding forth on the epidemic of love affairs between South American leaders and their chairs, and the side-effects of this disease, more than apparent in the woodenness of their words. He did dub the الجامعة العربية (Arab League) المانعة العربية which I haven’t heard before, but that’s no stroke of genius.

What all this tired repetition seems to underline though is how little things have changed. Tragicomic in itself.

The reality is that Israelis and Palestinians in Israel and Palestine are not as extremist as Israelis and Palestinians are in the US … I think the reason is because Israelis and Palestinians in the US live in a form of subliminal guilt. They live inluxury while their people back in the Middle East live the real conflict. So, I get more pushback from Arabs and Jews in the United States because I “crossed the line” and dared to appear with an “Israeli” — it’s called the taboo that also exists among many Jewish Americans and Israelis, too. But, the difference is it is more so here in the US than in Israel and Palestine.

The shows are sponsored by MASA/Israel Journeys. They organize trips for Americans Jewish students to spend asemester in Israel (I wish the Arabs were smart enough to organize similar programs as effectively). I’m not against Israel or Israelis, but I am against some Israeli policies, as I am also against some Palestinian and Arab policies.

Here’s the tour information and the campuses, in case you are in the area.

The media coverage has been massive and I can’t keep up with it but you can see some of the reports including the Los Angeles Times story and NPR at www.IPComedyTour.com. The tour ends at the three day conference at Limmud LA in Coast Mesa where we perform two evening shows!

Here’s the schedule. I’ll post during the trip.

Ray Hanania
(PS … I also started a new expanded live radio talkshow in Chicago on WCEV 1450 AM Tuesday and Thursday from 4 to 6 PM … www.RadioChicagoland.com) as well as building the new “Point to Point: Online TV Interviews with no boundaries” at www.ArabAmericanTVOnline.com)

=============

Feb. 9 – 18, 2008 Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour College Tour
Hosted by MASA/Israel Journey

Feb. 9, SAT: University of Wisconsin, Madison: Overture Center for the Arts, 8 PM
Feb. 10, SUN: University of Chicago, Chicago:(View Poster?): PM Reynolds Club, Third Floor Theater, 6 PM
Feb. 11, MON: University of Iowa, Iowa City: Englert Theatre, 7 PM
Feb. 12, TUES: Ohio State University, Columbus: Wexner Jewish Student Center, 7:30 PM
Feb. 13, WED: University of Michigan, Ann Arbor: Michigan League Underground, 8 PM
Feb. 14, THURS: Washington University at St. Louis, Missouri: Brown Hall, 7 PM
Feb. 15-17, FRI-SUN: Limmud LA Conference Costa Mesa, California: Hilton Hotel, Orange County/Costa Mesa

END

While such traditions seem comparable to the earlier forms of European dramatic art from which the theatre evolved, a few play scripts have recently been discovered, suggesting an Arab theatrical tradition comparable to the Chinese or Indian for example.

However, as with music, Arabs made no real attempt to preserve a fixed record. In the case of music this was because improvisation was seen as essential, which might also be the case for drama. But, while both music and performance arts survive in the folkloric tradition, the native theatrical heritage does not have an equivalent to the ‘high’ status form of classical Arab music. Historical records provide the life story of the legendary Zeriab, who brought the music of Baghdad and Damascus to the Andalusian court; but no mention is made of playwrights, which indicates that dramatic performance were seen as mere amusement.

The Arab world only began to consider drama as ‘art’ after the introduction of works by European playwrights, of whom Shakespeare was the foremost, the ‘canon of canons’, as Khalid Amine puts it.

Amine goes on to argue that the “making of the Shakespeare myth” in the Arab world was not spontaneous, but “was induced through the implantation of a whole apparatus of translation and theatrical reproduction” following an unequal colonial encounter.

After independence, Amine says, “Shakespeare becomes a paradigmatic icon of the ‘Western Other’ or the Other’s dramatic medium”, so that artistic engagement with his work by the postcolonial dramatist “amounts to a dialogue with the West and the Western dramatic tradition”.

The Nigerian Wole Soyinka has another take on the relationship of the Arab cultural establishment to Shakespeare. In his essay “Shakespeare and the Living Dramatist” he surveys Arab appropriations which seek to “claim him as one of their own”, and disparages Arab “translations and adaptations” of his work. However he ends by concluding that this still leads back to the immortal source, “to the gratification of celebrating dramatic poetry anew”, which reverses the earlier power dynamic that presents the English genius as the object of inept manipulation, and seems a positive spin on the process Khalid Amine describes.

Margo Hendrix argues that Soyinka’s essay anticipates two related points later raised by postcolonial theorists: recognising that importing the Shakespearian canon requires the absorption of culturally alien elements; but also the fact that the plays contain so much foreign material (settings, characters, topics, or just the odd reference –like Lady Macbeth’s “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”). The plays themselves are in a sense internationalised in their own right, as texts and not just in terms of appreciation.

Shakespeare’s fascination with the unknown and unfamiliar was a feature of the theatre during the Western ‘age of exploration’ (or exploitation for those on the receiving end); but what sets him apart is his complex treatment of ‘the other’.

Shakespeare’s play Othello, in it’s exploration of paradoxes and inconsistencies, is frequently cited to as the most striking example of this complex treatment . The title character being a North African commanding Christian European forces against an invasion by the expanding (European Muslim) Ottoman Empire, and the hatred, or at best ambivalence, with which he is regarded by the Italians whom he ‘defends’, have been linked to similar paradoxes and inconsistencies in Shakespeare’s Britain.

Although ‘Turk’ and ‘Moor’ were words that inspired fear and loathing, Queen Elizabeth I had alliances with both the Ottoman Sultan and North African states against her Catholic rivals. Mark Hutchings discusses the fearful fascination with the ‘Turkish Threat’ in English plays of the time, arguing that by drawing on memories of the fall of Constantinople and “perhaps an older ‘crusader’ narrative”, plays provided a safe thrill for an English audience who, as opposed to most of Europe, were not in reality threatened. The Turks were essentially the Godzillas and King Kongs of Elizabethan cinema. Nabil Matar’s book Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery details extensive commercial relations and cultural exchange, including the fact that it was much more likely, and profitable, for an English adventurer to move to North Africa than North America.

Khalid Amine, in “Moroccan Shakespeare: From Moors to Moroccans”, charts the development of a range of responses to Othello specifically and the Shakespearian canon more generally, from “celebrations of Moroccan presence in the English Consciousness”, to more radical rewritings of Shakespeare’s plays.

Such subversive strategies are present in the titles of Abdelkrim Berrchid’s two plays. Otheil Wa Alkhail Wa Al Barudu re-arabises the Othellos name, and to anyone familiar with Arab poetry echoes a line by Almutanabi, while Imri’u Alqais Fi Paris replaces Hamlet with the pre-Islamic poet who faces a similar “to be or not to be” predicament in a destructively futile revenge tragedy.

Sulayman Al-Bassam, the British-Kuwaiti writer and director of ‘the Hamlet Summit’ and ‘Richard III: An Arab Tragedy’, presents his project of adapting Shakespeare’s plays to the politics of the modern Arab world in exactly the opposite way.

He insists on the “aura of authority”, or what he calls “the global accreditation”, with which Shakespeare is invested; seeing it in positive terms as giving the Arab dramatist “not merely a mask but a bullet-proof face” with which to face the censors.

More problematic is Al-Bassam’s assertion that “A fundamental pre-modernity is at the core of both the Shakespearian world and today’s Arab world”, which sounds like something straight out of The Collected Orientalist Stereotypes. His adaptations engage with the original context in a much more complicated and productive way.

But this point is made in even broader terms by reviews of his plays, which inanely and repetitively begin by saying that Arab world’s woes cry out for Shakespearian treatment, and back it up by noting one thousand and one parallels with England emerging from the Middle Ages.

Perhaps the best commentary on such reductive simplification of a postmodern and postcolonial situation to stereotypes of towel-heads in the dark ages is the fact that ‘Richard III: An Arab Tragedy’, part of the RSC’s Complete Works Festival, was on at the same time as another Richard III adaptation – set in modern Britain.

The director of this Richard III, Michael Boyd, sees both his and Al-Bassam’s plays as dealing with “the tendency, very difficult to resist, of pulling more power where power was in the first place, of increasing the centralization of power”, and draws his own parallels, the totalitarian behaviour of democratic governments in the context of the war on terror, citing the manipulation of information to create and use “fear as a political weapon, fear as a means of censorship, a means of mobilization, a means of justifying arrest”.

This is the same ‘war on terror’ which in ‘Richard III: An Arab Tragedy’ is used as a pretext for tyranny and occupation, setting up an equivalence between the invading American general and the Arab Dictator. The French adviser to the Emir boasts that he “can make a mockery of the judiciary; thread an axis of evil through the eye of the press; I can turn a democracy into a tyranny and keep it all as clean and transparent as a Security Council resolution”.

What the two Arab re-makers of Shakespeare, the Morrocan Berrchid and the Kuwaiti Al-Bassam, have in common is their mixing of Arab and Western forms of performance in their theatrical art. In Berrchid’s case, as in that of many Arab dramatists, this includes a conscious decision to incorporate native dramatic traditions, such as the Albsat tradition of improvised comedy with a political message. Al-Bassam’s Arabian-Shakespearian tragedy contains recitals from the Holy Quran and folkloric dance and music, as well as email messages, phone conversations, Aljazeera newscasts and a religious TV show. They both create a mixed form which mirrors their content, a hybridized product of Arabia and Europe, East and West.

published in the Tripoli Post

Sandler plays an Israeli commando who decides to fake his own death and move to New York City to fulfill his dream of becoming a hairstylist. Familiar story for Israelis of course, except for the commando-fake death part.

Since when do American filmmakers center jokes around Arab-Israeli conflict? An entire comedy? I can’t decide if I’m impressed or shocked at the balls of it, offended at  the horrible Israeli accent or just plain dumbfounded. Too dumbfounded to laugh, even. Just wasn’t expecting that.

Well it’s chock full of stereotypes, for the sake of humor. I would hope it focuses a lot on the humor surrounding Israeli ex-pats in New York; there is a lot to go on, there. It does come  complete with Hezbollah dial-up hotline jokes.

My friends say they are surprised Sandler didn’t do it earlier.

Here’s the trailer:

It was a long but fun night. I gave every new comedian who signed up as long as they wanted to perform — up to 15 minutes, and that’s a lot for five new comedians in addition to the two regulars, myself and Israeli Charley Warady (Yisrael was off for Shabbat) and a new performer who joined us this tour, Egyptian Sherif Hedayat (www.FunnySherif.com). Sherif served as the evening’s emcee.

The first comedian was Fadi, a Palestinian from Jerusalem. It was th every first time that he ever did comedy. It was amazing. He had great jokes. A great experience for him to learn about delivering comedy on the stage in front of an audience. Now, I don’t know about you, but standing up in front of an audience is terrifying — I’ve been doing it 30 years (as a speaker, journalist and the last six as a standup comedian too). It’s tough to do, but he did it. It was great and he was very funny. MC Deuce, an Israeli who often performs in Tel Aviv, also joined the show this tour. MC Deuce served as our emcee during our very first show in Tel Aviv at Tzavta. And we had several more. Benji and Luke also got up and, inspired by the comedians, a fifth comic, a journalist, Gil Yaron, got up and performed some comedy, too.

We then turned it over to Sherif, who lampooned the hassles he had when he was detained at Ben Gurion Airport by the Israelis. Here’s the link to his column. And then Charley and then me. Charley and I both added new material ont he real comedy show so far, the Annapolis Peace Conference.

Israeli-Palestinian Comedy, “It’s a blast!” (In a good way).

Ray Hanania
from the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem

Sherif Hedayat and I stopped by Off the Wall to say hi and of course, David invited us to do time … on the stage, of course. The audience loved the material. No one got angry about my Palestinian humor and they roared over the Palestinian-Jewish wedding bit that audiences love and is the basis of my show. My opening joke just for his club, “Sherif and I got lost. We were looking all over for the club and we’d stop Israelis and ask, ‘Do you know where the Off the Wall comedy club is.’ The Israelis would look at us and scream indignantly, ‘It’s not a wall. It’s a fence.’ ” And I still go to do my Wall-Fence joke regarding my son, Aaron. (By the way, Sherif wrote a great column on his experience being hassled by Israeli security at the airport. Imagine, they didn’t stop a Palestinian, but they did stop an Egyptian.)

In contrast, very few theaters in Palestine want a comedy troupe that partners with “Israelis.” Not that they don’t want it but they live under fear of the fanatics who are struggling not to destroy Israel but to destroy the secular beauty of Palestinian life. These religious fanatics force the Palestinian community to the lowest common denominator of life. Fundamentalist. Boring. No excitement and all religion. No wonder they’re always upset.

So I couldn’t get one theater in Palestine to agree to do a show. Definitely not with the Israelis, although one location in Bethlehem (where half the disappearing Christians there are related to me) said they wanted the tour but they feared they could not give the two Israeli comedians with the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour, Yisrael Campbell and Charley Warady, proper security. It was the Palestinians who were concerned. Another place said they might be interested, but despite public claims that they want peace with Israel, the truth is many Palestinians are no different than the Israelis they blast and deep down do not like Jews or Israelis at all. They won’t say it because it is not PC.

We do have two shows at the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem in Sheikh Jarrah. This is one of the top hotels in Palestine and they are not afraid to provide great quality shows to their customers. In fact, the first show we ever did there last June was packed, mostly with Palestinians, who not only laughed at my comedy routine but the comedy of the two Israelis, Charley and Yisrael, and my friend Aaron Freeman, who is African American and absolutely hilarious.

I can’t get any support from Palestinians in the states, and from the leftist cadre of professional organizers. These are people who live the suffering as a career in the Occupation and can’t seem to see past the mission to enjoy life. And in enjoying life, you actually make life for everyone better. The Israeli press, again, is covering us. But the Arab media is silent. No problem. Maybe Palestinians and Arabs haven’t reached a point where they can enjoy life the way our people did many generations before we became a “people of tragedy.”

I don’t like it because “people of tragedy” tend to wallow in tragedy and never rise above it. It’s easier to whine and complain than to do something positive. For some, anyway.

So it was a real pleasure for me to perform at Off the Wall Comedy Club and I recommend everyone should go there who has a sense of humor, doesn’t hate, and recognizes that humor and comedy are the fuels that run your inner souls. Without humor, we are not human beings. Humor is important to any society, especially those who are “people of tragedy.” Humor can help them dig themselves out of the struggle.

On a side note, no matter how many times I pass information to the PLO “Ambassador Afif Safieh, he never passes it along. Although he does promote those events who meet his personal political agenda, I guess. But, as a Palestinian, I learned long ago you can not expect any help from your own people. As “People of Tragedy,” we find it so much easier to beat up on each other than to respond to suffering and rise above the challenge. Thats the only way a diaspora people can win and survive. They disappear when they wallow in self-pity and constantly complain about their terrible lives while rejecting any suggestions on how to make them better. They always say “No,” but they never offer solutions. That is true tragedy.

Ray Hanania in East Jerusalem

The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour is returning for its 3rd Tour. While we don’t try to resolve all the issues between our two people, we do try to inject humor as a way to calm things down and allow people to discuss and debate issues more reasoinably and respectfully … as you know, it’s not easy between Palestinians and Israelis.

I am also organizing a journalism conference through the National Arab American Journalists Association and Society of Professional Journalists-Arab Section for Monday Dec. 3 from 12 to 5:30. MidEastYouth.com will be represented on the first Internet panel by Liz Cohen, and I will moderate the second panel on print journalism. The details ar at www.NAAJA-US.com.

The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour believes that “If we can laugh together, we can live together.”

Our tour is returning to Israel/Palestine with:

– two shows Friday Nov. 30, and Saturday Dec. 1 at the Ambassador Hotel in Sheikh Jarrah in East Jerusalem,

– one show in Haifa at Or-Hadash Synagogue on Thursday Dec. 6,

– and a 4th show in Jerusalem at Kol HaNeshama.

We have been trying to arrange other shows but as you can imagine, not everyone likes the idea of Palestinians and Israelis being friends. We’re supposed to hate each other.

But we won’t do that.

We all have strong views based on principle, but we also believe that we must find a way to end violence and compromise so that both sides can live in peace.

The comedy show features myself (father from Jerusalem and mother from Bethlehem), Israeli comedians Charley Warady and Yisrael Campbell, and two new additions to the show, Israeli Gil Kopatch and Egyptian American Sherif Hedayat (www.FunnySherif.com).

Our web site is www.IPComedyTour.com …

there are too many things that make us cry and pain … there is not enough that make us laugh … we’re going to keep trying

Please help us spread the word … if you know people and contacts in Israel, that would be great

Thanks and best regards
Shalom and Salam
Ray Hanania
www.IPComedyTour.com

PS … we also have shows in the United States beginning in January, with a kick-off performance at Spertus College Jan. 12 … and a bigger tour in March … we’re not giving up

SEARCH FOR THE FUNNIEST NEW PALESTINIAN COMEDIAN CONTEST

During our next Israel-Palestine Tour (Nov. 27-Dec. 9, 2007) we are going to conduct the Search for the Funniest NEW Palestinian Comedian.

We are looking for new Palestinian comedians who have not performed on TV or on a professional stage before. (We’ll host another Search for the Funniest New Israeli Comedian later.) Entrants can produce a short video, post it online and submit it through the Web Page www.IPComedyTour.com for consideration. Submissions will be posted. Judging will be by public voting AND by the four founders of the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour Aaron Freeman, Charley Warady, Yisrael Campbell and Ray Hanania.

In the meantime, you can get information or encourage someone you know to submit their comedy video to compete, or pass the word around to any Palestinians you know who would like to participate.

The winner of the contest will win Cash (I’m working on the Prize Sponsorship Now) … and the Crown of being the Funniest New Palestinian Comedian in the World.

go to www.IPComedyTour.com to get more information. There is a form there than you can fill out to submit a video once you have created one. And, as videos are placed, you can vote for the ones you like best. The best videos will be featured at our Ambassador Hotel Show in East Jerusalem on Friday Nov. 30, 2007. The winner/s will be announced that night also.

Get in front of a camera and produce your video if you are Palestinian … please help me spread the word, too.

Humor is a powerful way to overcome animosities and no place needs it more than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour has performed to enthusiastic audiences of Palestinians and Israelis in January in Israel-Palestine, in May in Toronto, Canada, and again in June in Israel-Palestine. The response has been tremendous. Nothing is more moving than being among hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis after a show and watching them talk, laugh and get to know each other.

Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com

Oh, the Protestants hate the Catholics
And the Catholics hate the Protestants
And the Hindus hate the Moslems
And everybody hates the Jews
BUT NOT ON NATIONAL BROTHERHOOD WEEK!

However this show seems to have it inversed; everyone hates everyone! Outside of the issues conflating all Jewish (rightwing or otherwise) radicals with Rightwing Settlers and lumping all Muslim fundamentalism together, from London to Lebanon, and from Afghanistan to America while saying Palestine and Israel is at the core of it all, this “ground breaking series” is nothing of the sort.

I got say that the point of 24 hour news stations is to get ratings and these pieces were very entertaining. If I was some Joe American I might even think that all Jews support everything that the Settlers do and every Muslim in America under the age of 40 supports suicide bombing. While both groups have their set of crazies, and it may even seem that according to CNN both have about the same amount of wackos, that religion is an evil and scary thing to be studied in a laboratory and kept far away from the safety of tolerance that is the West. (oh that is FUNNY!)

The thing that cooked my goat however was the Kuala Lumpur Amanpour repeated “God’s Jewish/Muslim Warriors” almost every three or four minutes. COME WOMAN! Expand that intelligently-accented lexicon and say something else! At the beginning and end of each of the shows I saw it was clear that she was reporting as a Westerner and a secularist, an outsider. She would say things like “Millions throughout the woooorld see life through a religious lens.” No kidding!

OF COURSE millions of people see the world through a religious lens! But just because they keep kosher or read the Koran doesn’t mean they are going blow some shit up! Get real!

I have the last episode taped at home for watching this weekend. It is on God’s Christian Warriors. I am excited to see how Kuala Lumpur Amanpour deals with the fact that Christian fundamentalist come from the West, fight in the West and blow shit up in the West.

This is Peter Jacob – CNN.

CHICAGO/Common Ground News Service – In the post Sept. 11th world, I learned several things.

It is easier to hate a stranger than to hate someone you know. And, anger often appears as “hate” when coupled with excessive fear and lack of knowledge.

There is a rising sense of hatred, of “anger gone wild” in America against Arabs and Muslims because of Sept. 11. And there seems to be a growing resignation among Palestinians and Israelis that peace and compromise are no longer possible.

Peace and compromise are always possible. What has changed, though, is attitude. People are discouraged by the unending violence, the failure of the peace process, and the increased negative rhetoric and speech.

Do we just stand by and allow extremists to control us? Or do we take unorthodox steps to remind everyone that we are both human beings and that peace and compromise are in fact the only alternatives to the conflict and violence?

After Sept. 11, I decided to turn to the most powerful form of communication that exists between human beings. Humour. Not just any kind of humour, but stand-up comedy. Stand-up comedy is a controlled kind of humour, involving social satire and sometimes biting commentary, which not only seeks to entertain but to deliver important messages.

Humour alone can’t resolve conflicts like the decades-long Palestine-Israel conflict, but it can change attitudes. It can restore a person’s belief in the humanity of the other people. It can cause people to see each other in a positive way that can nurture improved relations. If people can laugh together, we can live together.

I first tested the theory in a show in East Jerusalem in Oct. 2004, at the residence of the American Consul General. More than 75 Israelis and Palestinians attended.

To press the need to bring humour to Palestinians and Israelis, I co-founded with Israeli comedian Charley Warady the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour (www.IPComedyTour.com), also appearing with Israeli comic Yisrael Campbell and African American Jewish comedian Aaron Freeman.

In January and again in June, we performed 10 shows in Israel for mixed but mostly Israeli audiences, and in East Jerusalem for mostly Palestinian audiences. In May, The Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour performed in Toronto, Canada for more than 1,200 people, mostly Jews and Palestinians.

There has been some opposition. Some Israeli comedians said they couldn’t appear with me because it might harm their careers.

For Arabs, appearing on stage with “Israelis” is considered haram (against values) and is not the same as appearing with “Jewish comedians.” Five Arab organizations cancelled my scheduled performances for them in the two weeks after returning from the first tour in Israel and Palestine. Other Palestinian and Muslim comedians have blacklisted me from their festivals and TV shows.

I don’t mind the rejection because the acceptance is overwhelming.

After the 2004 show, the consul general said it was “the first time in three years” Palestinians and Israelis had come together in the same room. After the Toronto show, the auditorium’s entrance filled with hundreds of Palestinians and Jews who actually talked and laughed together.

We need to do more of that.

During the January tour, a suicide bombing in Eilat made us question whether we should continue. We decided we had to continue because we would not allow one terrorist or a group of extremists to control our lives.

The violence of a few should be reprimanded to the few. We must strive to believe that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians who are not involved in the violence are people who are angered and frustrated but not necessarily hateful of others.

We went on with our shows reminding audiences that the terrorists and extremists do not speak for the majority of Palestinians or Israelis.

We can have compromise and peace if we stop demonising each other; the best way to do that is through humour.

And that’s no joke.

###

* Ray Hanania is an award-winning Palestinian-American syndicated columnist and a stand-up comedian based in Chicago. He can be reached at rayhanania@aol.com. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org .

Source: Common Ground News Service, 09 August 2007, www.commongroundnews.org
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

end

Colorado Republican Tom Tancredo’s racism is slowly, only now rising above the Republican presidential pack. I am not sure if he is a racist or if he is just using racism to define himself as the greater demagogue in a field of demagogues. In Sunday’s Republican presidential “debate” in Iowa, Tancredo said the United States should reserve the right to bomb Islam’s two holiest sites, Mecca and Medina, in retaliation for a major terrorist attack on American soil.

I quote: “If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Mecca and Medina.” (New York Times online)

I don’t mind a presidential candidate in the race who is a rightwing nutjob. Let’s face it, those nutjobs help to better define the other Republicans, sometimes, so we need a few nutjobs in a race. But I do wonder about Tancredo’s logic.

For example. In response to a fanatic who happens to be Muslim actually bombing an American target, Tancredo thinks we should not just bomb any Muslim city, but we should instead target a Muslim Holy City. He didn’t say “let’s bomb Riyadh.” He said “bomb Mecca and Medinah,” cities that mean far more to Muslims than they mean to the average Saudi Arabian.

It would be like a Muslim fanatic saying, he’s going to bomb the Vatican if the American Marines continue to kill more Iraqi civilians or rape another young Iraqi girl (and then murder her family to cover the sexual deviate act up).

This is what we have come to expect from Tancredo. He keeps using the same kind of racism over and over again. No creativity. No demonstration that he could be a leader like President George W. Bush who is the champion of creative rhetoric.

Can’t Tancredo be a little creative and come up with a new kind of hatred? It doesn’t really help him with the Racist Vote if he keeps using the same-old same-old every time he tries to “rise above” the rest of the Republicans in the presidential campaign. I mean, Tom, you have to step up to the plate and say what you mean. Shwo us that y ou have really thought about this. Don’t just use the old phrases over and over again. That won’t win any votes. Already, some Republicans are distancing themselves from him … sliding over a few feet but not really bashing him or calling the ADL to complain, for example, about Tancredo’s racist defamations.

How about this idea? Tom Tancredo can vow that if terrorists attack an American city, he (or a gung-ho surrogate hoping for medical insurance and a living wage and to prove they are patriots) will rape a Muslim Woman in retaliation.

Now that is American Presidential Campaign spin.

That would achieve two things, demonstrating Tancredo isn’t just a one-solution candidate and can be creative when he has to be; and two, it demonstrates that his racism is one based on a logic and not just hate. It assumes a knowledge that the rape of a Muslim woman would be very offensive in Muslim society.

Of course, knowing the Islamic World as I do, the Muslim Woman who hypothetically would be raped in this case (in the hypothetical Tom Tancredo scenario of retaliation for a terrorist attack against an American city) would probably be murdered by her brother under the Honor Killings category which is legal in most Islamic Countries, in some form or another.

Wouldn’t that be something. American presidential candidates pandering to the patriot rollcall by actually targeting something that really needs change int he Muslim World? Stop honor killings or no more American money. (Ooops. I forgot. Honor Killins happen in many 3rd World nations who are our allies, not just those of terrorists and not just at the hands of Muslims.)

Still, I expected (or hoped) the mainstream media would jump to the challenge and lambaste Tancredo for his extremist views. But I didn’t hear anything. The sounds of silence when the victims are Arab or Muslim, again.

I even thought maybe some of the fanatics in this country would stand up and say, “Tom, you’re giving us racist bigots a bad name.” I didn’t hear that either.

Oh, I did hear Tucker Carlson blast the Daily Kos-ers (us) for the assumed criticism of Hillary Clinton’s powerful ties to lobbyists (she defended them ferociously at the Yearly Kos).

So I think we know what the real problem is, don’t we? There are crazy fanatics on BOTH SIDES of the Muslim-West divide. And depending on the circumstances, one turns to sucide bombing while the other turns to holier-than-thou vengeance violence and retaliatation. I would argue that if the tables were turned and the United States was a nation under siege by Muslim World domination and occupied by Muslim military forces, Tancredo would probably be leading his own Americanized al-Qaeda cell. He’d probably even study engineering at a Saudi Arabian university.

You see, the real problem isn’t the terrorists and the evil-doers on one side. It is the extremism on both sides versus the moderation on both sides. It’s a new paradigm. We didivde the “us versus them” Bushism to mean something. Moderates versus extremists, who could be Bin Ladens, or Tancredos.

Ray Hanania
www.hanania.com

But, I have a few suggestions for Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Olmert can help make President Mahmoud Abbas more popular, strengthen support for peace among Palestinians – well, restore faith that compromise with actually lead to a just peace — and achieve Israel’s goal of undermining Hamas.

For example, Olmert could make it clear that Israel supports “two states,” not three. The “other state” being Palestinian that is both politically viable and geographically cohesive. He could declare he rejects a Palestinian state that would be a collection of buntastans divided by Israel’s illegal settlements.

Olmert could also declare that Palestinians could share Jerusalem, at least most of East Jerusalem; We know Palestinians will accept placing the Jewish Quarter under Israeli control.

The Israeli Prime Minister might also call the “fence” a “wall,” and declare a little more convincingly that the “Wall” is just temporary, even if history has shown that everything that Israel declares is “temporary” eventually becomes “permanent.” Permanent not because of Israel’s actions, of course. But permanent because, according to Israelis, Palestinians have a bad habit of forcing the Israelis to make the “temporary” become the “permanent.”

Olmert could go further and argue that the term “temporary” in Hebrew really means “permanent.” That would help Abbas explain away some of his people’s problems. (Palestinians always need reason to explain why they fail in regional politics so often.)

And Olmert and other Israelis might stop telling American audiences that “Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” How about saying that they hope Palestinians might “miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” That would be okay, right?

Olmert could demonstrate that a “two-state future” is genuine and achievable by dismantling a settlement of significance in the West Bank. Not one of those illegal, fake settlements. But a real settlement, like Ariel.

Of course, all that might be too much to ask of any Israeli leader.

Maybe Olmert might need a “Plan B.”

Instead of hugging Abbas and calling him a friend, Olmert would be better off helping his “friend” by denouncing Abbas and attacking his presidential offices. Declare that Abbas is “Arafat-like.”

Put more soldiers in the West Bank, not less, and increase the checkpoints.

Don’t release prisoners, Israel should take more. Israel’s soldiers should become more oppressive, and use alternative phrases like “disputed” instead of “occupied,” and “most generous” instead of “ridiculously meager peace offer.”

Announce more settlements. Don’t forget to put up more hurdles that are impossible for the Palestinians to meet as a pre-conditions to resuming to the “peace talks.”

Olmert could try making it more clear that Israel rejects all Palestinian “pre-conditions,” declaring them “obstacles to peace,” while imposing their own set of pre-conditions as a basis of kick-starting the dead peace process. (Of course, maybe the peace process has been kicked in the head once too often by the Israelis.)

Still, it is very possible all that rhetoric won’t help Abbas at all. I mean, Palestinians not only cut off their noses to spite their faces as a tradition, but they also throw the babies out with the bathwater all the time.

Hey. Maybe Olmert could just be honest with the Palestinians and say Israeli is never going to return any significant portion of the West Bank. They’re going to keep everything just the way they always have. And, they’ll blame everything on the Palestinians.

That way, when the non-existent peace process fails, and the suicide bombings and the violent attacks against Israel resume, Abbas can say it wasn’t his fault.

That’s not good for the Palestinian people, either, but at least it will achieve the Olmert and American goal of making Abbas “look good.”

As it stands now, when the peace process fails because Israel really isn’t going to do the things that need to be done and Palestinians can’t do the things that they need to do, Abbas is going to be the one who is blamed for everything.

And if Abbas gets blamed for anything more, the West Bank will eventually go the way of the Gaza, falling into the hands of Hamas.

Well, at least we’ll be back to the idea of two-states, again.

(Ray Hanania is an award winning Palestinian American columnist, author and standup comedian. He can be reached at www.hanania.com. His columns can be reprinted with attribution.)

They all think I’m being serious, when really, I’m making a joke out of their cluelessness of current events and geography. Let me know what you think.

“The first step to resolve the insecurity in Iraq is the withdrawal of the occupiers and handing over the security issues to the Iraqi government, which is backed by the people,” state television quoted Khamenei as telling Talabani in their meeting.

“Some U.S. agents in the region are the middle men for implementing American policies and creating an insecure Iraq …

“Supporting terrorist groups in Iraq and igniting insecurity … will be very dangerous for America’s agents and also the region,”

Riiiiight, as if 24 years of Saddam Hussein fueled Sunni/Shi’a hatred had nothing to do with it. I would be extremely interested to see how Iraqi security forces would fare against their fellow countrymen. (by the way, I have abandoned the concept that those fighting each other and those fighting the U.S. troops are “insurgents” from other countries) I would also be interested to know how many of those security members are invested in sectarian fighting and support themselves.

“U.S. agents in the region”? Ahhh of course…ISRAEL! If only we had previously known the Mossad was at work in Iraq giving Sunnis and Shi’as more reasons to hate each other. I’m willing to criticize Israel when necessary but a claim like that is simply intellectual laziness. Whatever, I guess every country needs an arch rival or maybe two.

Congress is ready to celebrate with a $20 million victory party.

Lawmakers included language in this year’s defense spending bill, approved last week, allowing them to spend the money. The funds for “commemoration of success” in Iraq and Afghanistan were originally tucked into last year’s defense measure, but they went unspent amid an uptick in violence in both countries that forced the Pentagon to extend tours of duty for thousands of troops

Many are calling this fiscal mismanagment but in fact it explains much of the war on terrorism as practiced.

For instance why did Bush invade Iraq? Considering this revelation and the well established fact of his poor grammer and vocabulary there is a remarkable new possibility.

He could quite possibly have confused a “war party” of the festive type with another definition “war party”:

A band of warriors engaged in fighting or raiding an enemy

Amazing! a simple misunderstanding! And the bombs!
macabre party favors? poorly made party invitations? Who can really say?

Or maybe the U.S. congress and White House are just full of fiscally irresponsibly warmongers.
The 20 million ought to be spent in Washington right now on a going away party for the whole bunch.

In the scene below, Larry is packing in order to attend his sister-in-law’s wedding. She’s marrying a Jew who’s about to convert so that they can get married. He’s wondering, why the hell do people feel the need to force others to convert? I pretty much have a similar take on this when it comes to missionaries in the Middle East. You often see them hopping from one place to the other insisting that Jesus loves you. I don’t have anything at all against religions or how people choose to practice it (religiously-motivated violence is not really a religion in ‘practice’) but I do have something against people who shove their religions down your throat. Larry describes this very well in the scene below.

I didn’t catch the first sentence for the video but he says “I can’t believe he’s converting…”