Wednesday April 20th

Had a great meeting with Zaqloub Said and Ariel Huler from Seeds of Peace. Ariel runs the Jerusalem office, Zaqloub the Ramalla office. We explored ways of working together and came up with some great ideas that would be good for both. Stay tuned. . .

Later on I had dinner with Liz Sime, who runs the NGO CARE's local operations and various NGO friends of hers. She lives in a wonderful old East Jerusalem restored home. We explored in more detail how to do a comedy workshop in Gaza.

Another schizophrenic day. I'm working on a CNN documentary about terrorism (which I've already filmed part of in Northern Ireland, Londan and Paris) and, of course, whenever I can, I'm advancing Comedy for Peace. So the days are a strangely appropriate mix of discussing pain and joy, the past and the future, tragedy and comedy. I'll have a meeting with a former head of Mossad or Shin Bet. . .then meet someone who was in Israeli jails for years and years. . . then meet someone to talk about comedy.

Today I went to Hadassah hospital. It's a wonderful place that has been profiled on 60 Minutes. It's probably the top trauma hospital in Israel and has seen more terrorism victims than anywhere else. Its trauma chief, Avi Rivkind, is a riveting individual. Haddasah is also unique in that it treats people regardless of where they come from. So in the division between Palestinians and Israelis, Haddasah stands out. One example is how Haddasah treated Ray Hanahia's cousin'g nephew when he had leukemia. The fact that he's a Palestinian from Ramallah made no difference. Hopefully we can find a way to bring comedy there and the hospital's top PR person, Barbara Sofer, is eager to do so. Fingers crossed, or rather, Insha'allah.