“Every few months the world rediscovers the word peace.” 🕊️
A ceasefire is announced, a handshake is staged, a headline sighs in relief.
And for a moment, we’re all meant to pretend that coexistence is possible.
But coexistence without equality isn’t peace.
It’s PR.
It’s performance.
It’s what happens when we mistake silence for justice.
That’s how I began this week’s episode of Out Loud, and I couldn’t think of two more fitting guests to unpack that truth than Amber Fares, the Lebanese-Canadian filmmaker behind Speed Sisters and her new Sundance documentary Coexistence My Ass, and Noam Shuster-Eliassi, the Israeli comedian and activist whose life and stand-up form the heart of that film.
Together, we talk about what it means to be funny in a fascist moment. About growing up in Israel, a country built on many myths — including the myth of coexistence.
And about how laughter can be both a shield and a scalpel, cutting through propaganda while protecting our sanity.
The danger of being funny when the world is burning
When I asked Noam how she keeps joy alive while surrounded by fellow comedians performing at army bases and entertaining a genocide machine, she told me something that stayed with me:
“People are so eager for laughter, especially during fascism. But there’s a person behind the punchline.”
Comedy, in her hands, becomes an act of love, a way to expose hypocrisy while holding on to humanity. It’s what makes Coexistence My Ass so subversive: it’s not just about an Israeli woman rejecting militarism, it’s about a society terrified of self-reflection.
As Noam says, “When diplomats talk about coexistence, what I hear is their way of avoiding accountability.”
The women behind the lens
Amber Fares’ decision to follow Noam for five years wasn’t just a creative one — it was political, emotional, and deeply personal.
A Lebanese woman documenting an Israeli woman reckoning with her complicity in a system of apartheid — that alone is something worth considering.
Amber told me she began filming thinking it would be a story about comedy.
Instead, it became a story about courage — about what happens when you tell the truth in a place built on denial.
It’s also a reminder that sometimes, the most radical act of filmmaking is simply to keep filming, even when the world is falling apart.
“We just rolled with it,” Amber said. “You plan one film, and life gives you another.”
When “never again” becomes “again and again”
Listening to Noam speak about growing up in Neve Shalom — literally “Oasis of Peace,” the only village where Jews and Palestinians live together by choice — you hear both irony and heartbreak.
Her father refused to serve in the Israeli army. Her mother, born in Iran, learned politics through love and resistance. Together, they raised her to question everything — even the idea of peace itself.
Today, that questioning has made Noam a target.
In Israel, she’s been labeled an “enemy of the state.” Abroad, she’s called “brave.”
But bravery, she says, feels like the bare minimum.
“What we’re saying in this film — Palestinians have been saying for decades,” she told me. “If it’s easier for you to hear it from me, an Israeli, then see that as a warning sign. See it as homework.”
Why laughter still matters
When the world feels off balance — when fascism laughs louder than we do — comedy can still be a compass.
Not because it distracts us, but because it reminds us that truth can survive ridicule.
That laughter, in the right hands, is a weapon against despair.
That’s what Coexistence My Ass captures so beautifully.
It’s a film about contradictions — joy and grief, denial and awakening, the absurdity of normal life in the shadow of genocide.
It’s also a film about women who refuse to be quiet, and who understand that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is to keep laughing through the pain.
🎧 Watch or Listen to the episode
In this conversation, we talk about:
The myth of coexistence and the moral cost of silence
Why comedy can transform trauma into truth
How artists navigate censorship, fear, and self-protection in a fascist world
What it means to find empathy when “empathy” itself is branded weakness
🎙️ Listen now: Coexistence My Ass — The Price of Peace and the Power of Comedy
🔗 Watch the full episode on YouTube
🔗 Listen on Spotify / Apple Podcasts
Because coexistence without justice is performance.
Because peace without truth is propaganda.
And because laughter — real, unfiltered, defiant laughter — might be one of the last honest languages we have left.