‘I don’t care who your uncle is. Rules are rules.’ Even children knew this was not true. Rules were sometimes rules. At other times, depending on the circumstances, they were empty words, absurd phrases or jokes without a punchline. Rules were sieves with holes so large that all sorts of things could pass through; rules were sticks of chewing gum that had long lost their taste but could not be spat out; rules in this country, and across the entire Middle East, were anything but rules.
