Mickey Mouse clone off air

(Source: www.bcdb.com)

The controversial Hamas children’s show Tomorrow’s Pioneers, which featured a Mickey Mouse clone preaching hatred and Islamism, has been removed from the air pending a review, says a spokesman for the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti announced that the use of a cartoon character to indoctrinate children represented a “mistaken approach” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In his statement, Barghouti announced that his ministry "would continue to ensure freedom of expression and freedom of the press, but that media outlets breaking the law would be penalized."

"I urged that Hamas suspend the program and they have withdrawn it, because it was wrong to use a program directed at children to convey political messages," he said.

Farfur (which means “butterfly” in Arabic) was a tuxedoed mouse whose image and high-pitched voice shared a more-than-passing resemblance with Walt Disney’s iconic Mickey Mouse.

He, along with a young girl named Saraa’, were the hosts of Tomorrow’s Pioneers, a children's show that aired every Friday afternoon on Al-Aqsa TV, a television station controlled by Hamas.

“We are setting with you the cornerstone for world leadership under Islamic leadership. Isn’t it so, Saraa’?” Farfur said to his co-host in an episode that aired April 16, 2007.

"You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists," the costumed character squeaked in another episode. "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate (Jerusalem mosque) Al-Aqsa, with Allah's will, and we will liberate Iraq, with Allah's will, and we will liberate all the Muslim countries invaded by murderers."

Many children called into Tomorrow's Pioneers, reciting songs and poems promoting violence.

"We liberated Gaza by force/From your death,” sang a young Palestinian girl in an April 30th broadcast. “The people firmly stand/In their fire is a flame/Rafah sings ‘oh, oh’/Its answer is an AK-47/We who do not know fear/We are the predators of the forest."

Hamas is a Palestinian political group that has been denounced as a terrorist organization by many countries, including Canada and Jordan.

The Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation, an organization run by Hamas’ rival Fatah, also opposed the program. Fatah, founded by the late Yasser Arafat and currently headed by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, is currently in a coalition with Hamas running the Palestinian Authority government. Despite this outward display of unity, the two organizations are locked in a bitter, and often bloody, rivalry.

Mustafa Barghouti is an independent cabinet minister, associated with neither faction.

The Information Minister also complained that the story received attention by several American media outlets long after it had been resolved, but those same outlets didn’t air footage of Israeli human rights violations supplied by Barghouti’s ministry in recent weeks.

Diane Disney Miller, the only surviving daughter of Walt Disney, was horrified at what Tomorrow’s Pioneers did to her father’s creation. Walt Disney was the original voice of Mickey Mouse.

"The world loves children, and this (show) is just going against the grain of humanity," Disney-Miller said to the New York Daily News. "What we're dealing with here is pure evil, and you can't ignore that."

Farfur of Tomorrow's Pioneers

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