Comedy and Pain By Maysoon Zayid

A famous comedian once said, “Comedy is tragedy plus time.” One of the purest examples of this is when we witness someone falling down. Someone falling down should not be funny. They could be injured. They could be dead. But more

Palestinians and the Discourse of Humour By Ali Qleibo

As children, we were constantly admonished against laughing. “For shame,” (يا عيب) would be the normative idiom with which we would be reprimanded. It is considered bad manners, ayb (عيب), to laugh out loud wi more

Palestinian Political Humour During the First Intifada and the Gulf War By Sharif Kanaana

I have been collecting Palestinian political jokes and other Palestinian folk narratives since early 1988, shortly after the beginning of the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli Occupation, known as the Intifada. more

Engaging in Comedic Disobedience By Amer Zahr

I’m a comedian. Why do I do what I do? I was raised by two educated Palestinian parents. They are both refugees, driven from Palestine. They were educated by more

Humour, Struggle, and Resistance: Laughing to Maintain Our Sanity While Climbing to the Mountaintop By Daphne Muse

Even with the boot of oppression on our necks and up our butts, we sometimes still manage to laugh in order to maintain our sanity. At tables in homes of freedom fighters and liberators in Mozambique, Tanzania, and the United St more