When truth is funnier than fiction: The resistance of humour
Ghassan Abdullah, Bassaleh News Network (BNN), 18 December 2002

Introduction

It's never really as bad as it looks on TV. It could always of course be much worse. The Intifada, or uprising, against Israeli military occupation with its curfews, siege, closures and general strangulation of Palestinian society, is also being done with humour. Here is a compilation of a few quips picked up from people in their daily life under occupation. Truth is indeed often stranger than fiction.

Ghassan Abdullah

Ghassan Abdullah is information systems analyst in the Institute of Law of Birzeit University.


Daily life under occupation: Palestinian humour

Since the Israeli re-invasion of Palestinian cities last April has left most of the population confined to their homes, no cases of sun stroke were reported in the Occupied Territories despite the hot Middle Eastern summer.

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With drivers hardly ever able to reach even fourth gear thanks to checkpoints, car accidents are way down. We also save on petrol.

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Sharon is losing the demographic war with the Palestinians. What do you expect people locked-up in their homes to do, especially when the power is out and no TV?

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Outsiders think the Israeli Merkava tank is a formidable machine. But we hear that Israeli soldiers don't like it. It has small openings so they cannot steal whole computers from Palestinian homes and offices. That is why there are so many reports of them opening up PCs and taking out only motherboards and hard disks.

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At the Surda checkpoint, on the road from Ramallah to Birzeit University and other villages, Israeli bulldozers are always busy digging up the asphalt and piling mounds of earth and cement blocks. Every day we find the distance to walk becomes longer. But there are positive aspects to it. The exercise it takes to go across is making us fit, we are using this chance to enjoy nature and the change of seasons, and using the opportunity to meet friends and colleagues, help the elderly and sick across, exchange the latest news and jokes, sympathizing with those arrested by Israeli soldiers and often made to sit on the ground tied up and waiting for 'processing', and putting our remaining energy hating the occupation even more.

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In spite of the terrible hardship, you still won't find people sleeping on pavements like in New York or London. There are still a lot of family and neighbourhood safety nets. So we guess we still have a long way to go before we become an advanced society.

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Ramallah is located between Tireh and Al-Bireh. Our own Tora Bora.

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Palestinians are nowadays afflicted by either one of two diseases: Arafitis or Sharonitis.

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The other day I found, at a friends of ours, a lovely big dog with long white hair. They named her Jessie. When asked where they got her from, they said she ran away from Psagot, the Israeli colony (or settlement) built on a confiscated hill overlooking Ramallah and Al-Bireh. The settlement has multiple barbed wire fences, watch towers, an electrified perimeter, constant guards and search lights at night. The buses traveling out, often with very few passengers, have bullet proof glass and metal, with armoured cars in front and behind for protection. Do you blame Jessie for running away from such a life?

Confined to their houses, Palestinian children around Psagot are excelling in a new/old hobby: flying kites. They are becoming very good at it, flying kites and directing them high above the Israeli settlement with pictures of Arafat or the Palestinian flag.

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The demonstrations that were taking place at night -- which involved people banging on pots and pans to challenge the curfews -- were quite an event. The practice was picked up from Argentina. The kids loved it, banging on anything that makes a noise outside, venting their anger at the Israeli soldiers and trying to scare the evil axe away.

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In the West Bank, we always felt that the people in Gaza have a worse existence, taking a heavier toll of casualties, with a far higher percentage of people living below the poverty line. But, the other day, a French lady diplomat said to us, after visiting Gaza, that people there now feel more sorry for the people in the West Bank, because we have curfews and they don't.

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In Ramallah, we now have no police, no prisons, no security services, no courts, no traffic lights or fines, etc. Yet there seems to be very little crime according to friends and neighbours. This is primarily because there's not much left to steal, not that there's anyone left to compile crime statistics, anyway!

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Old people, especially women, are more popular again. They have so much to contribute now. Under curfew and closures, with no access to hospitals, delivery of new babies is being done at home, without doctors. The skills of old women are needed again as midwives. They are also digging up the old recipes of how to make things at home: marmalade, pickles, preserving fruits and vegetables, etc. They also help in keeping the young children happy with old time stories. But my favourite is the following. The Israeli Occupation forces announced recently that any car going round with men only could be stopped and searched. A good friend of mine found an opportunity to make some money. He is offering to rent his mother in law.

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Palestinians are the highest exporters of international news per capita. Yet we don't get any returns from such exports, not even intellectual copyright royalties.

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Solutions to the Palestinian question were always a plenty. One of the latest is a geological solution, based on the fact that the Palestinian coast is losing about 3 centimeters every year. In a few million years there won't be much of Palestine left to fight for.