“It looks like Mickey Mouse, it sounds like Mickey Mouse, but do you think Mickey Mouse would ever tell kids to fight Americans and the Jews?” asks FOX News anchor Eric Shawn.   The Mickey Mouse in question is nothing like his Walt Disney counterpart.  His name is Farfur and he teaches Palestinian children to fight for Israel’s destruction and Islam’s domination over the entire world.

“Tomorrow’s Pioneers,” a children’s program aired last summer by Hamas’ official television station, featured this unlicensed Mickey Mouse and a young co-host named Saraa.  Together, the two indoctrinate young views with teachings of Islamic supremacy, hatred of Israel and the U.S., and support of “resistance”—a euphemism for terrorism.

For example, Farfur victoriously exclaims, “We will win Bush!  We will win Condoleeza!  We will win Sharon!” and Sarra warns, “Allah will ask on Resurrection Day what we gave for their sake.”

In one of the most daunting scenes, in which child viewers call into the show and recite images of hate and violence, one child proclaims, “We will destroy the chair of the despots so they will taste the flame of death,” and another sings, “Oh, oh.  Its answer is the AK-47.  We who do not know fear, we are the predators of the forest.” 

Israelis and Americans, including the makers of Walt Disney, demanded the show be taken off the air.  Initially, the station refused—its deputy manager defending, “They express their feeling about what they witness.  If it’s about occupation it’s about that, and about the prisoners and how to deal with the world.”

The Hamas station finally took Farfur off the show, only to have the terror-preaching mouse killed off by an Israeli after he refused to sell them his land.  “Nahool,” the jihadist bumblebee replaced the hero-rodent, proclaiming in his premiere episode, “You and we will liberate the sad Al-Aqsa that is waiting for us.  Yes, we will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews, who killed my grandfather, and killed Farfur, and history will bear witness to that…”  

Since over 25 percent of Shahids (martyrs) are children, according to the Jerusalem Media Communications Center , it behooves us to understand what prompts Palestinian youngsters to ask for death in the name of Allah.  As a member of the media, I feel that it is a journalist’s responsibility to promote objective, well-researched information.  Endorsing such poisonous kiddy propaganda is an egregious misuse of the media’s role in society.

Senator Hilary Clinton, among others, has pointed to the Palestinian media as one of the sources for this alarming trend.  In a Senate hearing on the education and indoctrination of Palestinian children on February 8, 2007 she declared that, “these children deserve an education that instills respect for life and peace instead of glorifying death and violence.”   Clinton and fellow New York senator, Chuck Schumer, wrote a letter to President Bush “urging his Administration do everything in its power to persuade the Palestinians to reverse their hateful rhetoric and to embrace the opportunity to move toward a strong and lasting peace in the region.”

The next president should seriously consider the role that the Palestinian media plays in indoctrinating hatred and violence against Israel.  The road ahead for future generations of Palestinians is paved with early instilled hatred, rather than a respect for the reciprocal humanity for the people with whom they must negotiate rather than wipe out.  How to change this paradigm that stifles peace should be a goal for the U.S., an essential peace broker in the region.