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Rare TV Satire Mocks Palestinian Politicians

[AP/Washington Post] Mohammed Daraghmeh - Every evening during the Muslim month of Ramadan, "Homeland on a Thread," Palestine TV's first ever attempt at political satire, spotlights inept Palestinian politicians, police bullies, and Muslim extremists. In one skit, an actor portraying Mahmoud Abbas chaired his Fatah party's seventh convention - the sixth was just held in August, after two decades of delay. In the skit, the seventh convention is 500 years in the future. TV executives acknowledged they asked Abbas' permission before running the episode. In another segment, a young man tried to take his girlfriend to a quiet place to talk. But the young couple gets caught in a maze of Palestinian checkpoints manned by different branches of the security forces, including police, firefighters and paratroopers, skewering the PA's many grandly named security branches who often harass residents. One show featured a Muslim extremist in Gaza who didn't recognize one of his many wives because she was draped in a black cloak and face veil, a uniform of hardline Muslim women.
2009-09-11 08:00:00
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