I’m a Palestinian. A moderate. A Christian Arab. Married to a Jew. And, a journalist.
No wonder I have no friends.
An editor once told me if I wanted friends, I should get a dog. As a child, I had many dogs, all named Untar. They didn't like me either.
You don’t need friends when you buy a car or home. But you do need friends when you negotiate peace.
Hatred is an inextricable part of the Palestine-Israel conflict. It is an outgrowth of not being friends. Children on both sides are learning hatred from their parents. It’s not just a Palestinian problem. Some Israelis hate Palestinians as much as some Palestinians hate Israelis.
For the majority of people, "hate" is not the right word. The word is "anger." Anger appears to be hatred because we, Arabs and Jews, are among the most emotional people on Earth.
How else do you explain our languages? No one really "speaks" Arabic or Hebrew. The languages are really forms of music. They are sung. Singing requires passion, which easily transforms into emotion.
The very act of saying "hello" to each other in Arabic or Hebrew is emotional. And that emotion only gets worse as things get worse.
It’s easy to hate someone you don’t know. It’s harder to "hate" someone you know. Friends give each other the benefit of the doubt. Strangers do not. Friends share trust. Strangers do not.
A proven way to establish trust is through humor. Humor is very personal. When you share humor with someone, you establish trust. When you laugh with someone, you open yourself up to them.
"If we can laugh together, we can live together" is the mantra that drives the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour.
Unlike other Arab American comedians who have been performing with little real achievement for decades, I didn’t get into comedy to become a professional comedian.
I have been a humor writer since the 1970s, and wrote my first humor book in 1996 ("I’m Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing up Arab in America") which inspired at least one of the Arab comedians to pursue a comedy career.
I know laughter and humor are essential ingredients to friendship, understanding, and to achieve peace between Arabs and Jews.
We are so related. Relatives. Of the same blood, mind and manners. Much of our words in Hebrew and Arabic sound exactly the same. It’s not a coincidence that we have a terrible fight between us.
When relatives get into a fight, the fight may end but the bitterness always lingers. Relatives are more likely to forgive strangers than each other.
Humor, though, can change things. It opens the door to friendship.
A big problem in the Palestine-Israel conflict is our leaders who spend more time worrying about how their actions will be perceived
by the voters than they do about achieving peace.
Our leaders lack the courage to make peace. It took courage for the Israeli "terrorist" Yitzhak Rabin to shake the hand of the Palestinian "terrorist" Yasser Arafat. They tried to rush into peace driven by the emotions that swept up both peoples, hoping to end in a few years a conflict that took a lifetime to build.
It was easy for our leaders to walk away from peace and play to the "choir." Peace is risky. Leading your people away from hatred can be traumatic. Rabin was murdered by fanatics.
The extremists exploit the suffering and the hatred because it distracts the people from their own failure of leadership.
When I returned from the Israeli-Palestinian Comedy Tour in February, the response was swift.
I was blacklisted by most of the "mainstream" Arab comedians. "How dare I perform with the Zionist Entity," a few demanded to know.
Extremists impose "taboos" to preserve their fragile power. It’s wrong to perform with "Israelis," but it is okay to perform with "Jews."
What’s the difference, I want to know?
Five Arab American organizations that had booked my comedy show cancelled my act in the two weeks. It was more than coincidence.
Israelis have their own taboos, too. Some Israeli comedians decided not to join our tour because it might not be good for their careers.
I met many Israelis during my January-February tour who I now consider friends, and many Palestinians who said they wanted more of this. They oppose the taboos and see that these taboos are really obstacles that keep the fanatics in power.
Our "leaders" will never negotiate a real peace until we, the people, take charge. We need to make peace possible.
We need to stand up and demand that our governments stop the killing, stop the incitement, stop the provocation. Instead of living by these taboos, we should, as Palestinians and Israelis, find ways to break those taboos.
This movement is not over. I’m coming back to Israel and the West Bank in May.
Ray Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" in 2006 by the New America Media. You can get more information on his comedy tour at www.IPComedyTour.com
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