Column “Everything will be fine”: Time for Hamas jokes

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“Contextualization” is not that popular these days. Because in the face of Hamas terror, it is impossible to make connections and seek explanations without relativizing, simplifying, and defending it. It is recommended that a necessary evil should not be followed by any “buts”—the “mean buts” should be omitted.

If you don’t have to think anymore, can you at least laugh? Is it possible to try to distinguish, distance and classify things under the guise of humor? Of course not, because every good joke contains doubt and self-doubt. Useless in times of forced confession and prohibition of tests. You should no longer be funny, because to be funny means to be non-dogmatic, open to complicity with (almost) everyone, that is, to be human, actually.

Shahak Shapira (35), an Arab-Israeli comedian with a German passport, does just that: in an environment that requires everyone to take one, morally superior side, he distributes positions among all sides.

Shortly after the October 7 Hamas attack, he unabashedly denounced both the perpetrators and the victims, as well as the affected audience. Ignoring so-called good taste, he attacks them with loud laughter: Shapira laughs at “Arabs on paragliders.” He jokes about the consolation song that the rock band U2 dedicated to music festival goers killed by Hamas: “I listened to it and was touched and thought, ‘I’ll never forgive Hamas for making me join U2.'” “

Shapira’s comment on child victims: “I think Hamas has now abused so many children that it has overtaken the Catholic Church.”

Or Shapira about Jerusalem: “Therefore I am ready to give up Jerusalem.” Now there are enough photographs of him, why does the real Jerusalem still need him? Or you could recreate the city as a hotel in Las Vegas called “Little Jerusalem” – why not. The only condition: “Arabs must accept ultra-Orthodox Jews. Because ultra-Orthodox Jews and Hamas: the best of friends! Same values: both hate Israel, hate women, hate gays.”

And so on, Shapira tries to unite (almost) everyone under the umbrella of humor. This reinforces the hope that people who laugh can share the bad and thereby reduce it. Everything will be fine.

Ursula von Arx loves to laugh in carefree times. And I am convinced that humor is never more important than in serious situations. Von Arx writes in Blick every other Monday.

Source: Blick