Hamas Mouse clone still on air
Tomorrow's Pioneers remains on Al-Aqsa schedule, despite ban
May 11, 2007
Source: Reuters/Yahoo)
Two days ago, I told you about the Hamas television show Tomorrow’s Pioneers, and Farfur, the show’s costumed host who bears more than a slight resemblance to Disney’s Mickey Mouse.
Israeli organization Palestinian Media Watch claimed the show was encouraging Palestinian children to hate Jews and establish a worldwide Islamist state.
This prompted an international outcry from such people as Walt Disney's daughter Diane Disney-Miller, 73, who denounced the show as "pure evil."
Yesterday, Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti announced that he was ordering Hamas’ Al-Aqsa TV (which produces and airs the show) to pull Tomorrow’s Pioneers, pending an investigation.
"I urged that Hamas suspend the programme and they have withdrawn it, because it was wrong to use a programme directed at children to convey political messages," he said in a statement yesterday.
Barghouti is an independent in the Palestinian Authority’s coalition government, offering allegiance to neither Hamas nor Fatah, Hamas’ biggest political rival.
"I don't think it's professional or even humane to use children in such harsh political programs," said Basem Abu Sumaya, head of Fatah's Palestinian Broadcasting Corp. "Children's nationalist spirit must be developed differently."
Fatah and Hamas are locked in a bitter, and often bloody, power struggle for the Palestinian territory.
However, Hamas said they will continue broadcasting the show.
"The program will continue and it will be broadcast tomorrow at 4 p.m. (9 a.m. ET)," said an anonymous Hamas official to the Cyprus-based Middle East Times. "Mustafa Barghouti misunderstood the issue."
There has been "no decision to shut down the program," Hazem Al-Shara'awi, Al-Aqsa TV's deputy director, said Thursday night.
"Al-Aqsa TV refuses this pressure," announced Al-Aqsa TV chairman Fathi Hamad, "and refuses to cull its program or alter any of its content."
Palestinian Media Watch recently posted several tidbits from Tomorrow’s Pioneers on YouTube. You can watch selected clips from the show by clicking on the links here, and here. PMW was the first organization to raise the alarm over the children’s show.
In Tomorrow’s Pioneers, Farfur and his 12-year-old co-host Saraa’ (dressed demurely in a hijab and bulky clothing) offer eyebrow-raising commentary, such as when Saraa’ chided Farfur for speaking English.
“No, Farfur, you are wrong because you don’t know that the Muslims are the basis for civilization," she said. "If not for the Muslims, the world wouldn’t have got to where it is today.”
During an April 23rd broadcast, Saraa told a juvenile phone-in caller that the revolutionary song she was singing: "It’s not a good song. Why?”
“Because it has (the word) surrender,” Farfur proclaimed.
“We don’t want to surrender,” Saraa’ said. “We want to resist against the enemy.”
Later on in the broadcast, Saraa’ told the viewing audience, “I remind you that Al-Aqsa (the Jerusalem mosque hotly contended for by Jews, Christians and Muslims) and the prisoners are a trust on our shoulders, and Allah will ask us on Resurrection Day what have we offered for their sake.”
In another broadcast, Saraa’ asked a young viewer who is calling in to the show, “What will you do for the sake of the Al-Aqsa mosque? How will you sacrifice your soul for the sake of Al-Aqsa? What will you do?”
“I will shoot,” replied the child, who is barely old enough to speak. “We want to fight. We will annihilate the Jews. I will commit martyrdom.”
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