...
self.server.manager(MGR_CMD_SET, PBS_HOOK, {'events': 'execjob_begin'}, id='hook1')Solution
If any of the strings in the list have quotes or special characters, it will separately set each one, so qmgr does not get confused as to what is a string boundary and what is actually in the string.
Otherwise, it will handle it in one qmgr call.