Overview

Big Birds are rare in Palestine. After a surprise phone call from Children's Television Workshop, Daoud Kuttab took the chance of a lifetime to create a Palestinian coproduction of Sesame Street. But the challenges of producing a world-famous children's program quickly escalated beyond just teaching Elmo to speak Arabic. From finding actors and puppeteers in a country starved of training to dealing with a community that considered the production too provocative, the early days were less than easy. Animating hand puppets against a backdrop of the turbulent Palestinian-Israeli peace process drew him into exciting, tense times that made Cookie Monster's search for sweets seem like child's play. Days after the first episode aired, Daoud was arrested. Journey into Kuttab's unusual world, where the signing of the Oslo Accords, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, Hollywood star Richard Gere, and the King of Jordan played important roles. Not even Kermit could have imagined this unique, exciting, and undeniably fascinating expansion of America's most enduring children's show into a new world bound by the West Bank desert, politics, media, and money.

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9781094130811

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Daoud Kuttab's Sesame Street, Palestine is a remarkable combination of a great story and brilliant storytelling. -- Salam Fayyad, former Palestinian Prime Minister and current visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson Center for Public & International Affairs [Kuttab's] narrative reflects his passion for Palestinian children and his genuine desire for peace in the Middle East. -- Gary Knell, CEO of National Geographic Partners, former CEO of Sesame Workshop

"""[Kuttab's] narrative reflects his passion for Palestinian children and his genuine desire for peace in the Middle East."" -- ""Gary Knell, CEO of National Geographic Partners, former CEO of Sesame Workshop"" ""Daoud Kuttab's Sesame Street, Palestine is a remarkable combination of a great story and brilliant storytelling."" -- ""Salam Fayyad, former Palestinian Prime Minister and current visiting professor at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson Center for Public & International Affairs"""

Author Information

Daoud Kuttab, a Palestinian award-winning journalist and television producer from Jerusalem, co-produced Palestinian Diaries. He is a former Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, columnist for Al-Monitor, and reporter for Arab News. He established the Institute of Modern Media at Al Quds University and was the first Palestinian to interview an Israeli Prime Minister for the leading Al Quds daily in June 1993. He writes regularly in major publications, such as the Washington Post, New York Times, and Jordan Times, and often contributes to Project Syndicate. He established the Arab world's first internet radio, AmmanNet, and is the founder and director of Community Media Network in Amman. As a leading activist for press freedom in the Arab world, he was the first Arab to be elected to the Vienna-based International Press Institute, where he holds the portfolio of press freedom. Nat Segaloff covered the motion picture business for the Boston Herald, CBS Radio, and Group W. He has also been a studio publicist, college teacher, playwright, and author. In 1996 he formed the multimedia production company Alien Voices with actors Leonard Nimoy and John de Lancie and produced five bestselling, fully dramatized audio plays.

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