Three Unrelated Things

Firstly, my apologies to Hamas.

A while ago I published a post on how Hamas is passing (or announcing that they will pass) conservative Islamist laws to restrict personal freedoms of women and men in the Gaza Strip. Male hairdressers can't cut women's hair, school girls must wear long dresses, men can't go swimming without wearing a shirt, etc.

Since then, I have learned that Hamas does not generally reinforce such laws, but seemingly only passes them for show. Or something.

So: my apologies.

Secondly, I was invited out for dinner by a French group working on a project together with a West Bank municipality yesterday evening. The donor for the project raised his glass and happily declared that the dinner was on Israel!

The day before, the money changer in Tel Aviv had mistakenly given him a 1,000 euros worth in shekels instead of the 500 euros he had actually bought.

"I take from the Israelis and I give to the Palestinians!" he said.

I couldn't help but smile at his enthusiasm.

Thirdly and lastly, the other day I was sitting with my boyfriend's family when the cell phone of my boyfriend's uncle--a senior official in the PLO--rang for the third or fourth time. Tired of never being left alone, he handed over the phone for Tarek to answer. From the looks of it, preferably something in the line of "He can't get to the phone right now, can I take a message?"

Tarek took it and walked out of the room. We kept talking. Tarek came back. Handed the phone back to his uncle, who went something like:

"Pffffft," in a very annoyed tone of voice. And then: "Who is it?!"

Tarek went: "Salam Fayyad."

Pause for effect.

(For those of my readers who perhaps don't know who he is: Salam Fayyad is the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority).

Wait. I can't let this moment slip by. That's like sitting at your boyfriend's house in the U.K. and Gordon Brown suddenly calls his uncle on his cell. Or the same scene in Sweden, only Fredrik Reinfeldt calls. Or Stephen Harper in Canada, Makhdoom Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani in Pakistan, Bernard Makuza in Rwanda, Vladimir Putin in Russia, Manmohan Singh in India, Jean Bellerive in Haiti... (I like Google).

You get the picture.

Need I mention that Tarek's uncle took the call?