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Surreal Column

At a wedding the other night my friend Simon said this column is becoming increasingly surreal. He is probably right.

One of my favorite jokes is:
Q. How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Fish.

You see it is very difficult to be anything other than surreal if you want to survive the Middle East, at least from a mental perspective. The realist is depressed, the optimist is deluded and the pessimist is beyond salvation.

As a result one is very restricted in mental approaches to life in the fast lane, as it most certainly is here.

The surrealist sees Saddam magically transform into a bunch of daffodils as the missiles flying out of southern Lebanon are fluffy white clouds. The map of the Middle East rotated 90 degrees takes on the image of a bearded lady. Israel’s parliament, the Knesset is a box of assorted chocolates. And so it goes on.

I admit it, Harris probably really has lost it this time, but it would certainly serve as a refreshing, light-hearted approach to the region, if we could see things from a different perspective. Perhaps even the perspective of the other.

That is one of the main philosophies of Palestinian academic Muhammad Dajani. He firmly believes that seeing things from the other side of the fence (or security barrier) can be highly educational and make people rethink their own beliefs and policies.

Speaking to ISN News radio this week, Dajani said that if the Palestinians could see things from an Israeli viewpoint education in Palestinian schools could be far more positive. Currently, he explained, the teachers speak of Haifa, Acre and Jaffa as Palestinian towns, even though they have been part of Israel since 1948.

Presumably Dajani would offer parallel arguments about Israeli schooling, although there is little in the way of anti-Palestinian sentiment in the Israeli curriculum.

Dajani sounds a little naïve, perhaps even a little surreal in the black-and-white world that is the Middle East.

However, if more people could be persuaded of his philosophy, perhaps there would be fewer pessimists, and we surrealists could get back to the drawing board and leave politics well alone.