Sayed Kashua: I use a lot of humor, and I follow the saying that if yo...

Here I am, a Palestinian Arab who only knows how to write in Hebrew, stuck in central Illinois.

Sayed Kashua

illinois here-i-am writing

I couldn't lie anymore to my kids telling them that they are equal citizens in the state of Israel. They cannot be equal because in order to fit in and to be accepted and to be a citizen in Israel, you need a Jewish mother. So basically what I'm trying to tell my kids is just, it's their mother's fault and it's not my fault.

Sayed Kashua

mother kids lying

I hope that one day I will gain power somehow, and somehow convince myself that there is still hope and go back and fight, people who's trying to make that place worth living for both Jews and Palestinians.

Sayed Kashua

one-day fighting people

I'm not sure that I recovered, but I also know that I cannot afford going back yet. I see how much the kids are happier, I guess, here and I think that they might have a better future not hiding.

Sayed Kashua

might kids thinking

I knew very well that I could not stay. Everything collapsed. Everything in my life just collapsed, and it started with the kidnapping of three teenaged settlers and then judging the life - the young Palestinian from Jerusalem. That was the day that I decided that I have to go now.

Sayed Kashua

jerusalem three judging

Probably also due to the political situation getting just worse and more extreme, but also this distance and this sadness of this feeling that I gave up - that I surrendered, that I felt that I lost my small war. So the whole column is different than the columns that I used to write back home, back in Jerusalem.

Sayed Kashua

distance sadness war

I always see my wife as the clever one, as the wise one in the family.

Sayed Kashua

wife wise clever

I used to give her [my wife] to read the column every week before I sent it to the editors. And sometimes she was so mad - are you crazy? You're not going to send that, or, you're not going to write that about me. So I would go, OK. You have five hours. Go ahead, write the column yourself.

Sayed Kashua

editors crazy writing

I very much hope that when my wife reads my writings so she reads it as if she is a character and not the real one. Sometimes she takes it too personally.

Sayed Kashua

real writing character

I tell you a joke to have you listen to me, and then maybe I will tell you another joke that we can laugh together and feel equal. And then I will tell you a story hopefully that will make you cry. So I think that's the way that I approach the columns, as a surviving tool in a way.

Sayed Kashua

together laughing thinking

When was the last time an Arab MK who appeared on television wasn't there in the role of the accused who is attacked by a skeptical broadcaster?

Sayed Kashua

last who time television

A lot of my friends in my student days complained about how their parents made them play an instrument when they were kids. I always felt compassion for them and didn't believe a parent could be so cruel, but when I check today, those complaining friends grew up to be quite successful, and many of them are now making their children play.

Sayed Kashua

parents today believe children

Sometimes I wonder if there is any hope left for an Israeli-Palestinian discourse that is built on equality and liberty rather than a fruitless discourse of master and servant.

Sayed Kashua

equality hope wonder sometimes

When there's a revolution in Egypt, you can't really get depressed about not knowing what happens after you die. When there are millions out on the streets, that's not the time to start panicking about contracting swine flu.

Sayed Kashua

die start you time

'Arab Labor' was light, snappy. We got emotional over things, but from a safe place, from the terrace.

Sayed Kashua

place things emotional light

I conduct all my nighttime activities under the assumption that my wife is awake, that she never falls asleep.

Sayed Kashua

she never awake wife

Sometimes it seems as though all parents are certain that their children are victims of abuse by other children.

Sayed Kashua

parents abuse sometimes children

How I'd like to start a new life in a distant land. Not because of racism or politics. But to be in a place that I knew hardly anything about, in a place where I wouldn't even care to know the prime minister's name. A place where names and faces would have no meaning for me.

Sayed Kashua

me politics racism life

Somehow, since I became a family, every minute in which I am alone and not listening to two kids screaming in stereo feels like a vacation.

Sayed Kashua

i-am alone vacation family

If there was genuine desire on the Israeli side, even without a solution, it would be possible to solve a large percentage of the problems between Israelis and Palestinians by means of simple statements from the Israelis.

Sayed Kashua

solution problems simple desire

I use a lot of humor, and I follow the saying that if you want to tell people the truth, you better make them laugh first, otherwise, they will shoot you. So I can tell you a joke and maybe you will laugh at the beginning. But it's not about telling jokes.