This Ramadan television season, one Palestinian show is boldly going where few sitcoms have gone before - poking fun at the people in charge, and on their very own station. The absurdity of modern Palestinian life has become the grist of satire in Watan ala Watar (Country on a String), a sketch comedy show that has debuted on Palestine TV during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. In one episode, it is 500 years in the future and a man bearing a striking resemblance to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas is determined to negotiate a Middle East peace deal with Israel. In another, Hamas policemen with fake beards creep up to the border with Israel - not to fire rockets but to stop other militants from doing so in order to keep a truce with the Jewish state, their sworn enemy. Across the Arab world political satire - though lively - usually takes place far from the ears of political and religious elites, but Watan ala Watar has broken new ground by mocking the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority on its own official network. We are in great need of this kind of media criticism, says Emad Farajin, one of the three actors and writers behind the show. There is no way for us as artists and people of culture to be silent about the state of division in which we live, he says. In one episode Farajin plays a president like Abbas addressing his Fatah party s seventh convention in the year 2509 - the sixth was held last month and the fifth convened 20 years earlier. I won t have any shooting, Abbas tells the delegates. I am for negotiations... and then more negotiations... and then more negotiations. And anyone who wants to shoot guns - We will shoot them! The delegates include Dahlan XIV and Abu Al-Wilaa XVI - the fictional heirs of senior Fatah leaders with similar names - a dig at the decades-old party that many Palestinians see as impervious to reform. The Abbas character then looks around for his Palestinian ID and his Israeli travel permit - the implication being that 500 years from now the Palestinians will be no closer to ending the Israeli occupation. The actors behind the show - which has also mocked Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad and other senior officials - say they have yet to run foul with the authorities. We (Palestinians) have always done satire with the understanding that we don t air our dirty laundry, says producer Emad al-Asfar. But now we live in a period of new freedom in Palestinian television, and this program is part of that, he says. The show is popular in cafes that broadcast soap operas in the occupied West Bank following the breaking of the fast during the month of Ramadan - with many viewers surprised at the novel approach. The first thing I thought about when I saw a TV program criticizing the Palestinian president is: Are they going to be arrested , said Khalil Ahmad, 48, referring to the show s producers and actors. Said Abed Karim, a 25-year-old student, admitted: I was very surprised, because it s the first time that I saw Palestinian TV criticize Palestinian leadership, even in a funny way. When an earlier show poked fun at the Hamas movement in Gaza for halting rocket attacks on Israel, critics accused it of serving the interests of the PA by making jokes about its Islamist rivals. But since then the program s popularity has grown as it has dished out the same treatment to elites in the West Bank, tapping into widespread Palestinian frustration with both parties and the internal political divide. The two main movements have been bitterly divided for years but their conflict came to a head in June 2007 when Hamas seized power in Gaza, cleaving the Palestinians into hostile rival camps. It s interesting, especially as it actually criticizes both Hamas and Fatah leaders, says Ghasan Sajdeyah, 42. One of the most glowing reviews of the show ironically came from one of its main targets, Mahmud Abbas himself. The president watched the episode (about the Fatah conference) and was very happy with it, said Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official close to Abbas who also heads Palestine TV. The reality is that we have a high level of media freedom, and this program is proof of that. What s needed now is to bring media freedom to the level of politics, so we have political freedom.
