Palestinians Assume ‘Black Friday’ Just Another Terrorist Group

“It certainly sounds like one of ours.”

Jenin, November 18 – Broadcast, online, and print advertisements touting an annual reduction in prices and augmented inventory to launch the winter holiday shopping season caused some confusion among Palestinians this week, owing to the popular term for the period bearing an uncanny resemblance to Palestinian militant organization naming conventions.

Black Friday, which is widely assumed to derive its name from retailers’ reliance on Christmas shopping to tip the balance sheet from the red – net losses – into the black – net gains, could also refer to any one of who knows how many “popular resistance” groups, the proliferation of which in Palestinian society has long caused confusion even without overlapping nomenclature. Inquiries failed to turn up firm leads to a specific organization, but the majority of Palestinians to whom a reporter addressed the question voiced certainty that the Black Friday organization not only exists, but has perpetrated at least a handful of attacks on Israel or Jews over the last six decades.

“Didn’t they kill that Israeli minister?” mused one resident of this northern city. “No, wait, that was the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. They must have participated in the bombings of the Second Intifada, though, no? Maybe the war against King Hussein in Jordan? I swear, the name rings a bell.”

“It certainly sounds like one of ours,” concurred a Tulkarm resident. “Probably one of several in Syria or Lebanon. Are they communist? Maybe I’m thinking of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Or maybe it’s just the official name of one of the groups we usually refer to by other names, such as Abu Nidal, or the ‘Popular Resistance Brigades.’ That’s probably it.”

Commercialization has yet to hit Palestinian society in force, mostly because the Palestinian economy depends heavily on employment in Israel proper, or in Israeli communities beyond the 1949 Armistice Line with Jordan, known as the Green Line. International aid also finds its way into Palestinian bank accounts, but that remains largely confined to the offshore accounts of Palestinian leaders. Palestinians encounter the term “Black Friday” primarily in Israeli commercial media, which draws heavily from American cultural content. Black Friday advertisements grace Israeli radio, TV, billboards, and online media starting long before Thanksgiving, the “official” start of the American holiday shopping season.

“I’m pretty sure Black Friday has caused serious damage to Israelis, hurt them where it does the most damage,” stated Gaza resident Ahmad Jabareen. “I’m just not entirely certain it’s the kind of damage we notice.”

Please support our work through Patreon.