The packed audience and its enthusiastic participation demonstrate how thirsty Palestinians in Gaza are for the arts, for a cathartic outlet.

We seem to have forgotten as though, with the explosion of knowledge, the whole human genome mapped out at our feet, we are lulled into inattention, forgetting that the ritual is cathartic to the physician, necessary for the patient forgetting that the ritual has meaning and a singular message to convey to the patient.

All such promises in history have ended either at the gates of the gulag or, as in Egypt and Tunisia, with the deceived masses cathartic overthrow of the rulers. In none of the Arab monarchies have protesters gone after the king s head their demand is for limits on absolute power, not an end to the monarchy.