Ten Thousand Things
Multicultural Webfinds

"Ten Thousand Things" is a Buddhist expression representing the dynamic interconnection and simultaneous unity and diversity of everything in the universe.

Palestinian-Israeli Comedy Tour – Acclaim from Palestinians & Israelis Sick of Hatred, Anger, & the Failure to be Positive

"Any Arabs in the audience?"

No answer....

"All arrested already, huh."

Palestinian-American journalist and comedian Ray Hanania writes at his blog about his recent peacebuilding mission, the Palestinian-Israeli Comedy Tour.

The site has a couple of YouTube clips that include two painfully stiff and grimacing British CNN anchors who serve as unintentional foils in juxtaposition to the warm, witty and humane comedians including NPR commentator Aaron Freeman, an African-American convert to Judaism, who has a great blog at Huffington Post. His riffs on American bigotry are hilarious in response to his converting to Judaism.

"Don't you have enough trouble? Were you just trying to be an extra-credit target for a KKK sniper?"

The ensemble is made up of Hanania, three Israeli Jews, whom he calls his "hostages" - Charley Warady, Yisrael Campbell (who I introduce as "Zionist Entity Campbell"), Sephardic Yemeni-Israeli Shachar Chason, a popular star on Israel's Channel 10 TV – and Second City comedian Freeman, who have been performing for English-speaking audiences in Israel:

"The troupe performed shows at the popular West Jerusalem nightspot The Syndrome, which was packed to the rafters on only two weeks notice of the show being organized. Standing Room Only (SRO).

"That show was followed by one in East Jerusalem at the American Colony Hotel that was SRO also. Many Palestinians attended this show while the first was mainly an Israeli audience. We spoke and performed for the high school assembly of the Anglican School, which included Israeli and Palestinians and the children of foreign diplomats. And the students most of all were enthusiastic. The Palestinian students surrounded me and repeated a message I hear far and wide in my community: "we’re tired of the old losing ways, the hatred, the anger, the back-stabbing, the divisiveness and the failure to do something positive."

"I couldn’t agree with them more and I was determined to break the ridiculous and stupid taboo that prevents Palestinians from performing IN Israel WITH Israelis.

"We then did shows at Tzavta in Tel Aviv, and to help drive home the point we were making, Yisrael (I just call him "Z" for short) and I staged a spoof where we appeared to be fighting. (It’s on YouTube. Most people who saw it think that "Z" and I are really fighting after I make a joke about Tel Aviv being "Occupied Territory." That’s because people only believe that when Palestinians and Israelis come together, all we do is fight. And the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour proved that to be wrong. We can come together and do something positive that was overwhelmingly endorsed and supported by Palestinians in the West Bank and in Israel, too. And Israelis, conservative and liberal, also came together to see the show.

"We ended the show at the Kol HaNeshama Synagogue where we started with seating for only 80 and then moved it to the larger theater where more than 250 people stood in long lines to pack the place SRO again.

"One reporter asked the tough question, noting I am American born, Warady is American born, Yisrael is American born, Aaron is African American Jewish and Shachar is Yemeni born. How could we claim to be Palestinian and Israeli? Good question but irrelevant. The fact is when I walk through Israeli security, you can bet they are going to stop me because I am a Palestinian. And when Charley, Yisrael, Shachar or Aaron walk through Arab customs – if they were to even be allowed into an Arab country – they would definitely be criticized as being "Israeli."

"The purpose of the shows is to break through the phony glass ceiling that the extremists use to hold our community hostage with hate and fanaticism. They like to tell everyone what to do, what to think and how to act, and they end up violating all of their so-called rules. Worse, their strategies of rejection and denial and refusal and criticism have FAILED, FAILED, FAILED. Suicide bombing homicide has only worsened not helped the Palestinian cause at all. In fact, the violence has undermined the Palestinian cause throughout the world, and has resulted in a rising tide of religious fanaticism and failed ideology. Hand-in-hand, rightwing Israeli policies have used Palestinian failures to justify horrendous policies that are rightly decried but NEVER prevented by Palestinian political movements.

"Palestinians and Israelis need to take back control of their lives from the extremists and the best way to do that is to allow the people to see each other as human beings. And humor and standup comedy – which is a new form of comedy in the Arab and Islamic Worlds – can help achieve that goal. Once people begin to see each other as human beings again, rather than as enemies and statistics, it will be easier to bridge the gap of differences and achieve a two-state solution which is the ONLY possible solution to the conflict...

"The shows were covered by media across the world, although the Arab World was a bit short. That’s not unexpected as most Arab media have a hard time saying the word "Isra … Isra … Isra … eeel.""

Dan Sieradski, who owns Corner Prophets, arranged the tour and also puts together other Palestinian-Israeli joint peace efforts including many hip-hop and rap performers.

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