Palestinians celebrate Mohammed Assaf's Arab Idol triumph. How Pathetic!

Singer's performances have made him a symbol of hope and unity in the West Bank and Gaza

COMMENT

This whole affair reminds me of an old Egyptian joke, which goes like this:

The High Dam in Egypt was designed and built with major help from the former Soviet Union. During the design phase, a journalist went to Cairo to interview the Egyptian engineers supposedly in charge of this audacious design.

He was told that the whole design team was in a high rise building in downtown Cairo. He went there to find that the first 5 floors were occupied by Russian Engineers. He said, "I want to see the Egyptian engineers." He was told to go upstairs; so he did.

The next two floors were occupied by engineers from the former East Germany. Again  he said, "I want to see the Egyptian engineers." He was told to go upstairs; so he did.

The next two floors were occupied by Polish engineers busy with their designs and drawings.

This kept on, with the entire building occupied by Russian and Eastern Block engineers, until he got to the roof.

There he found a large group of Egyptians, beating their drums and singing a song that was very popular at the time. The title was, "We have said we were going to build the High Dam and now we have done it!"


Harriet Sherwood in Ramallah and Hazem Balousha in Gaza City
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 23 June 2013

"For once, Palestinians had something to celebrate. When the golden boy from Gaza was announced as winner of Arab Idol, the West Bank and Gaza erupted in fireworks, piercing whistles, deafening chants, impromptu dancing and tears of joy.

On stage in Beirut, Palestine's first superstar, Mohammed Assaf, sank to the floor, overwhelmed amid a deluge of celebratory confetti. Later the 23-year-old student showed himself to be a poet as well as an outstanding singer.
"A revolution is not just the one carrying the rifle, it is the paintbrush of an artist, the scalpel of a surgeon, the axe of the farmer," he said. "Everyone struggles for their cause in the way they see fit. Today I represent Palestine and today I am fighting for a cause through my art and the message I send out."
In the studio audience his mother, Intisar Abu Shammaleh, a maths teacher from the impoverished Khan Younis refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, waved a Palestinian flag above her hijab. "I am overwhelmed, feelings I cannot describe. Most importantly I am feeling proud, proud of the Palestinian people who showed they are alive," she said....."