A reader tipped me off to this continuing story...A Hamas-run television station defied Israel and the Palestinian government on Friday by continuing to air a controversial children's puppet show with a Mickey Mouse lookalike preaching resistance.
Israel and Jewish groups have slammed the Al-Aqsa programme over calls made by the copycat mouse named Farfur and by a little girl for resistance against Israel and the United States, and for its overtly Islamist message.
Complete with Islamic songs and calls for cities in Israel to return to Palestine, Friday's episode apparently sought to prepare children for their end-of-year examinations -- with Farfur being told that cheating is forbidden.
Asked why by an Al-Aqsa television reporter, he looked left and right to see what his friends were writing and answered: "Because the Jews destroyed my home and I left my books and notes under the rubble."
"I'm calling on all children to read more and more to prepare for exams because the Jews don't want us to learn," Farfur then said after being told he had failed the test.
On Thursday, the chairman of the board of Al-Aqsa television, Fathi Hamad, refused to bow to pressure to cull the "Tomorrow's Pioneers" programme or to doctor its content.
"This campaign of criticism is part of a plan orchestrated by the West and the occupying power to attack Islam on the one hand and the Palestinian cause on the other," he said.
Palestinian information minister Mustafa Barghuti had asked Al-Aqsa to withdraw the show, which he said adopted a "mistaken approach" to the Palestinian struggle, and said that it was wrong to politicise children's television programming.
Hamas is the senior partner in the Palestinian national unity government and is blacklisted as a terrorist organisation in the West.
I posted on this earlier with some footage from the actual show in question. It is disturbing to say the least...
[Thanks to Darin for the tip!]
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