Palestinian Leaders Promise To Laugh Only Part Of Way To Bank

Hamas chiefs in Gaza, Turkey, and especially Qatar are highly unlikely to see eye-to-eye with Abu Mazen on this.

Ramallah, March 15 – Palestinian leaders lining their pockets and Swiss accounts with funds intended for Palestinian economic development have vowed to address the flagrant cronyism and corruption this week by laughing only part of the way to the bank, the Maan News Agency reported today.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, now eleven years into his four-year term, and a bevy of Fatah loyalists announced yesterday that instead of chuckling and guffawing as they deposited huge sums of aid money in their offshore accounts, they would politely titter, pause for a reflective moment, and only then, in a fit of giggles, make the deposits.

Maan noted that Abbas was thus departing from the practice of his revered, iconic predecessor Yasser Arafat, whose legendary extravagance and glee in the misappropriation of funds became the model for Palestinian officials across the political spectrum. “Our departed Raïs, may he rest in peace, still serves as a role model for our policies and behavior,” said Abbas. “This is manifest in the political and diplomatic realm, where he used the phenomenon of warring internal Palestinian factions as the pretext for not making, let alone making good on, Palestinian commitments.”

“Above all we have sought to emulate brother Arafat’s personal behaviors, chief among which is the joyful tittering that was a regular feature of his pocketing international development donations or disbursing them as a vehicle for cultivating and maintaining loyalty,” continued the president. “However, the public and political climate has changed, and the outward nature of the laughter to the bank must change alongside it. We will therefor restrict our laughing to the bank to the hours of 8 AM through 12 AM Monday through Saturday, and even then, each episode of laughter will not exceed two minutes.”

Commentators observed that despite the fanfare of the announcement, it will have limited impact on a divided Palestinian leadership. “Hamas chiefs in Gaza, Turkey, and especially Qatar are highly unlikely to see eye-to-eye with Abu Mazen on this,” remarked M. Bezzler. “The poverty, unemployment, and hopelessness in Gaza, where Hamas is in total control, is far beyond anything Abbas has managed to foment in the West Bank – yet they keep adding to their personal wealth on the backs of everyday Palestinians even though they were specifically elected in 2006 as an ostensibly cleaner alternative to corrupt Fatah. I can’t see [Ismail] Haniyeh or [Khaled] Mashal pausing in their laughter on the way to the bank for even a moment.”

Bezzler also noted that Abbas’s sidelined rivals within Fatah were unlikely to comply, as in all probability they are not laughing in the first place.