October 17th, 2024: Palestinian-American comedian Sammy Obeid and Humour as Resistance
Over onion rings, iced tea, and other pub grub, we dove into the comedy shows of Palestinian-American comedian Sammy Obeid - heavily steeped in jokes about Palestine and Israel - alongside a research text analyzing the unique role of humour in resistance acts.
We discussed Obeid’s use of humour, the propaganda and colonial violence spewed by the West, and the dynamics that may draw or repel people from joining activism efforts.
And, of course, we laughed.
We discussed the following texts:
“Former math teacher turned stand-up comic weaves the war in Gaza into his act”: https://www.npr.org/2024/08/14/nx-s1-5050553/former-math-teacher-turned-stand-up-comic-weaves-the-war-in-gaza-into-his-act
“Humor as a Serious Strategy of Nonviolent Resistance to Oppression”: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0130.2008.00488.x
For some more examples of humour wielded as resistance, see:
Satirical song “Safina Safina” on Yemen blocking Israeli ships from crossing the Red Sea: https://rumble.com/v53dt7l--safina-new-houthi-music-video.html
Satirical website where Lebanese people “rate” Israel’s sonic booms in Lebanon: https://jidarsot.com
On Obeid’s use of humour:
A: When Obeid was talking about making fun of the Israeli military, he was getting a lot of backlash.
B: I liked the excerpts of his shows. Especially when Obeid is talking about his shows during a show and says that the audience is “under his jurisdiction and he was the occupier”… His delivery of this is so deadpan that if you don’t listen carefully, you’ll miss it.
C: Even when you actually hear what he says, the reaction is slow. It’s like a ‘loading and delayed’ reaction, and then people will actually start laughing.
D: And how he uses wordplay to get his point across and that’s his most valuable way to get something across that’s politically charged and nuanced. Some people go dark, for really dark comedy, and that gets uncomfortable for everybody involved. But this is a way to ease people into discomfort.
C: The shows could easily turn into a TedTalk about liberation, but these jokes make you laugh before you realize.
B: The bridge from jokes to legitimate education is also very gradual. It’s smart.
C: It takes a person a lot of hate to not laugh. You have to really be on the other side politically to stop yourself from laughing.
B: That’s a good point to bring up because the laughter is forced out of you in a technical way: if you get offended by the joke, it looks like you can’t take a joke, so you have to laugh or else you look bad; and then, by being forced into laughter, you are also inherently forced to empathize with the other side - because you’re laughing along with them.
D: I’ve been to a few comedy shows with people, to have fun, and I find that some humour can be so divisive and comedians don’t know how to push on these political topics. We don’t know people’s personal connections to things, and the way Obeid does it makes it much less divisive and approachable.
B: Bassem Youssef performed in Toronto on the weekend and he began in a way that really set the tone for the show. He started with a statement like ‘F Israel’ and the crowd roared. They were majority Arab, and I think there would be no way that a heckler from the other side would be in his audience because they know Youssef’s tone and style. In Obeid’s case, there sometimes are heckers because his jokes begin in a subtle way and then escalate. For example, there wouldn’t be anyone calling Obeid out for his math jokes, so his jokes and tone aren’t abrasive enough to repel people from the other side.
C: The people who fit in Bassem Youssef’s dark type of comedy are from a certain demographic, and that dark comedy makes people look bad.
B: There was a show of Obeid’s where one guy in the audience was upset - and ended up leaving the show - at getting a ‘history lesson’ over math jokes. Someone else in the crowd sparred with the heckler and stood up for Obeid. And Obeid pulled this into the joke - he made a joke about negotiating a peace agreement based on the tension in the room. This is how he navigated the tension in the room and built it into even greater comedy. Youssef is powerful too, but he would never be able to have something like this in his show and keep escalating the joke with the audience tension - because he wouldn’t get a heckler. The opportunity wouldn’t arise.
A: Obeid also said he doesn’t use the word ‘apartheid’ in order to not complicate things, because there are people in the crowd who won’t understand it. And comedians need to engage with people.
C: One of the big things is that comedians may lose their temper when the crowd doesn’t react the way they want them to.
A: Comedy comes from tension and there is an opportunity for jokes. There’s a way for it to be motivational for them.
C: I see instances where comedians turn a bad reaction into a better joke.
D: I think that tension requires greater laughing to relieve it. Like, there’s a greater release from laughing after tension. But since Obeid is so grounded - he’s coming with this very complex view and understanding of these issues - you need this laughter after the tension. I’ve seen men try to joke about women’s issues, and that can go so wrong. It’s significant that Obeid is taking the reins as a Palestinian.
C: When a man jokes about women’s issues, they bring up sensitivity and whatnot. When a comedian jokes about racial discrimination, there’s a weirder type of tension that doesn’t get resolved because the comedian might not have that depth of understanding.
B: When someone with more power is making jokes about the victim, then it’s very hard to see the joke as something other than supporting and reinforcing the power imbalance.
C: The power dynamic can be very off. That's when some people ask questions about who is allowed to make these jokes.
D: In the research article, humour is used to belittle the oppressor and strengthen the resistance. You can see Obeid doing that in such a smart way.
“OBEID: The Palestinian people are very, very strong.
(CHEERING)
OBEID: They’re the only ones who could be surviving this madness. Like, we’re going to cut off their food. We’re going to cut off their water. It’s like, have you heard of Ramadan?
(APPLAUSE)
OBEID: You’re messing with the wrong folks. They’ve been training for this their whole lives.
(LAUGHTER)”
A: It goes on to say that the Palestinian people are very strong and this is his way of supporting them. Like his joke: “When food and water get cut off, have they heard of Ramadan”…
C: This is a way to have control in a shitty situation. This is a way to deal with the life that you are given. You can control your attitude but not much else. The food is cut off anyway - might as well make a joke about Ramadan.
B: There are people who go to these shows and do not understand what’s going on. There are still some funny things that will stick to people, that can still spark interest. And since Obeid is Palestinian-American, people who go in there and don’t know much about Palestine and are influenced by Western media construing Palestinians in horrible ways - they will see this person who’s Palestinian, who’s incredible and charming and emerges even funnier when hecklers attempt to tear him down. That impression they have of him in itself fights the narrative. The fact that Obeid is like this - besides his jokes - helps the cause by fighting the narrative portrayed by the media. People can say ‘I met a Palestinian and he’s the funniest person I ever met, there’s no way this press about Palestinians is right.’
C: People forget that there are comedians and people with different positions from Palestine and they can be funny. The narrative that the West pushes on the Middle East portrays them as serious, uptight, extremists, angry people. For years.
“OBEID: I am now sharing and posting videos showing the animals from Gaza - dogs with PTSD, cats with shrapnel in their eyes. Where are the animal activists? Where are you at, PETA? Everyone knows that pita goes well with hummus.
(LAUGHTER)”
“In the humorous mode, on the contrary, there have to be contradictions, because that is the basic principle of humor. Contradictions are not problematic, but a necessary feature of the humorous mode. Here we play with the misunderstandings, incongruity, and duality. In order for something to be amusing, it usually has to turn things upside down or present itself in more than one frame at the same time”
B: This brings me back to the Obeid joke about “where’s animal rights? Where’s PETA? We know pita goes good with hummus.” It’s the “temporary suspension of reality” where contexts that never interact clash together; and it’s funny because these tensions cause things to be funny. The suspension of reality causes a strike in a normal space. I like that argument about humor and it is applied in a special way because it’s a context that’s never talked about especially with this suspension of reality.
C: Most of the conversations around Palestine are serious because we suddenly see babies getting killed. Joking would probably be the last thing to be said. Especially because if we’re not Palestinian, we wouldn’t joke about it.
A: Obeid did say that if his jokes can give his people solace, he’d do it.
B: He still does listen to critiques about what is too far or not. But these complains were about his jokes on the Israeli military. Some of the jokes included having a Jewish roommate.
A: Some people can get these jokes completely while some only get a surface level understanding.
B: There’s such a loaded history in the joke. And if we don’t know the context, you won’t actually find it funny. There’s another one about Palestine being a taboo topic and he was able to mention it. He said once “I’m Palestinian American, I came out in 2019 with the Hadids.”
D: The internet also really changes the way we cope with things now. Like there’s a meme culture and everything… I think we can’t judge when someone is coming from conflict and using humor, because we cannot judge how they cope with conflict.
On propaganda and histories of settler-colonial violence:
D: With the election cycle coming to an end in the US, it’s so intense. What I’ve seen from the media, with the uneducated and inexperienced political leaders, people will be more susceptible to having a bias so people must be approachable and relatable. I’m grateful that I was able to meet Palestinian people and hear their voice because this is a whole different world from the media.
C: It’s crazy how people are susceptible to propaganda and media bias. In some countries, there are such limited interactions with people and thus limited opinions. Everything there is comes from Western media and that creates the narrative. The West pushes a narrative about Islam and Middle Eastern countries everywhere it can.
D: And this conflict too.
C: Yes, I did not know about this conflict until I met X. I knew about Israel. But where I’m from, there’s a lot of internalized racism. Like, my dad believes white people do it better than everyone else. So I know that Israel is a home for Jewish people. Like I did not know where Israel was and assumed it was near Turkey. When I realized it was in the Middle East, something seemed off…
C: I was watching documentaries and figured things out, I thought things weren’t right. I never really looked into it. When I heard about it from X, I realized there was so much overlap with other oppression and colonialism. l didn’t know anything about it at all.
A: I’ve always heard since 9/11 that the US was sending their “brave” soldiers around the world but it’s far from the reality. That’s why comedy shows are more palatable because it allows people to enter discomfort easier. It is a more entertaining and better way for presenting the facts.
C: It’s a good way to swallow the facts about oppression by white people. My country is a small country but has four ethnicities. I’m from the majority, and needless to say there was a lot of conquering in our history. People are in denial because it sounds bad.
D: People are also avoiding grief as well and we all have to face it. Even if it’s not political, grief can be better welcomed through humour and it helps combat avoidance.
C: Better than to bottle it up and put it in a corner somewhere. When I heard the US bombed Iraq or Afghanistan, I was ambivalent and moved on with my life. I just thought those countries did something but then I was really wrong.
A: Yeah but when we realize it’s all settler propaganda then we realize there was an issue.
C: Exactly, and this mindset is crazy. I would be pissed if the same was said about the Vietnam War. When we overcome denial, we see that the way they do it is similar around the world.
B: Now the Israeli government is doing the same thing in Lebanon, the exact same thing, in which they say that they are ‘liberating the Lebanese people from Hezbollah’. They’ve been using the same framework since the beginning of time. I learned recently that southern Lebanon was occupied for 22 years and that West Beirut was sieged and food, electricity, aid were cut off.
C: Exactly, and I only learned this from a YouTuber who made content about fashion. One day she decided to share a photo of the village she grew up in Lebanon and it was reduced to rubble. So it was a way of showing war crimes.
B: The States has said things pertaining to the situation - but their true intentions are shown through things that they are hiding, through leaked documents. There was a film based on a true story - Official Secrets - about a woman who was a translator who got an email that the US government wanted to manipulate a UN vote on Iraq and blackmail officials who voted against the US. The email was hidden, it was behind the scenes. But in the case of Israel - they say explicitly what their true intentions are. They say it straight to press. It’s not a secret, there is no cover-up.
F: Yeah Israel occupied the Sinai before in the 70s.
D: I think there was a leader of Hezbollah that was the main person negotiating for a ceasefire. They were approaching the end of a negotiation but ended up being murdered.
A: Because they didn’t want a negotiation. And in Canada, it becomes more and more difficult because there’s no coverup. We live a settler-colonial society and there’s nothing that’s being done.
D: There’s also blatant misinformation spread by leaders from all parties and they run with those claims even though they’re unsubstantiated.
C: Even in an alternative universe where America goes against Israel, we’ve already been at this for a year.
A: We just know that if it’s an Israeli hospital, it would be on global news.
C: I don’t think they’re above killing journalists and doctors. Like I expect them to do it, but I do think they’d pretend to be nice. But they’re so blatant about it. They’re not even at least pretending to be nice - they’re claiming to slaughter everyone and doing it.
B: The Dahiya doctrine started in 2006 when Israel attacked Lebanon. Dahiya was a suburb in southern Beirut that was a Hezbollah stronghold. The doctrine explicitly said that a civilian area would not be considered a civilian area but a military target. I thought it would be some journalist who uncovered this doctrine. It turned out that it was in a conference with a military officer who explicitly said that in the aftermath. There was no coverup, it was not hidden information.
G: It’s funny because Israel was literally bragging about how Iranian and Hezbollah missiles were targeting only military targets - but that’s the point of the targeting, you’re not supposed to target civilian areas!
C: No one’s even reinforcing the rules of war.
B: That’s kind of how the 2006 war started - when Hezbollah took one too many hostages as part of ongoing hostage negotiation deals and Israel decided to start a full-blown invasion.
D: Isn’t there supposed to be something about how, when the UN passes a resolution, that there would be trade embargoes to stop Israel? The thing is that the major countries are the only ones that don’t sign it, so it doesn’t become effective.
B: This reminds me of the countries that didn’t sign the Rome Statute and made it clear that they were opposed to it: the United States and Israel. So the problem is that the countries that didn’t sign the Statute aren’t going to hold its people accountable for violating international law because they aren’t signatories. But the countries that are signatories have an obligation to arrest those who have violated international law, so the accountability is meant to come externally.
C: These rules do nothing because they hold back others while the West can skirt through it.
D: But when do we say that something’s enough?
C: People say it’s enough but people don’t do anything about it.
B: Yeah, Biden did say that Rafah was the red line but there was no action. Israel keeps attacking and Biden keeps funding it.
A: The US also speaks in terms of Israel and never talks about Palestine.
D: Palestine is always talked about as “aftermath”. When Kamala talks about the whole issue, even when talking about a ceasefire, there is glorifying and memorializing the IDF and October 7 victims but leaves only a footnote for the Palestinians.
A: It’s not even self-defense when they’re backed by a military superpower.
B: Yet there was an article about how Yemen - small as it is - meaningfully cost the US and Israel so much money by preventing ships from crossing into their Red Sea. The article compared Yemen to a pawn on a chessboard, a pawn that may have never moved the entire game but becomes a paramount piece that determines who wins and loses as the game progresses. Yemen is that pawn. It has bled while it blockaded ships and struck at Israel. You don’t have to be in a position of absolute power to do something.
C: Yemen might not be on a list of powerful countries but these countries can still be at a geographic advantage.
On participating in activism:
D: I think a lot of people just think that it’s not their battle. I remember growing up, being white, trying to get into activism. I was told by my mom that it wasn’t my battle. But when you do have the support of people you look up to, like Bella Hadid, then there’s a space for discussion. The doors open.
A: To be pro-liberation, it’s not limited to one ethnicity. You can’t separate the people from the idea. I didn’t even realize that Bella Hadid was half Palestinian. Like you can’t separate that. Your career might be on the line.
B: There is always this conflict of whether one should put everything on the line and potentially sacrifice a career for a liberation struggle, or if one could be more useful by staying within the system. Some people would not be able to afford their basic needs if they put everything on the line.
C: We shouldn’t tell people what to do and what to sacrifice. There are more ways of looking at someone’s character than looking at what they’re willing to sacrifice.
D: It’s so easy to see and feel offended by people in real life who we have to meet and their opposing views. The people who make the difference are those in power and there’s an imbalance. Obeid has that imbalance figured out in a way that he represents his people in his comedy without being an “extremist”.
C: There’s gonna be people who quit their jobs and they prioritize their values above all else. Some people stay to try to change the system on the inside.
E: Going back to how ethnicity shouldn’t be a factor. My mom said the same thing about how it’s not my battle. But we don’t have democracy in my country. I can’t fight for my own freedom. But I know that here, I can fight for the lives of others. And I think that’s a bottom line that people who want to get into activism can imagine.
D: I can see that because my family came to Canada after the Second World War and escaped all that conflict for me to run back into it. I’ve grown up hearing stories about the worst things that have happened and atrocities. I think that’s why they don’t want me to be involved.
C: We just live very different lives from what they lived. I don’t think they’ve ever experienced the privilege and issues. Like we see the problems and see something we can do about it, but I don’t think my parents saw it. When I saw October last year, I was thinking, was it different from what my people went through? Were we merely considered “communists” instead of “terrorists”?
D: It’s funny because whoever wins the war are the “good guys”.
C: There’s a saying where I’m from: “if you win the war, you’re a king. If you lose the war, you’re an invader.”
