Nahoul and Saraa Barhoum

I love you
You love me
We're best friends
Like friends should be
With a great big hug
And a kiss from me to you
Won't you say you love me too?

There's something wrong with a group that uses children's TV programming to preach martyrdom and murder.

It's sick to work at raising the next generation of suicide bombers.

Jimmy Carter's pals in Hamas are doing exactly that.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face.

Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can't, the young star of Hamas television's best-known children's show said, she would be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land.

With the show's producer helpfully offering written tips during an interview, Saraa didn't get into how she hopes to die for her cause, be it homicide bombing, fighting the Israeli military or some other way. She carefully sidestepped any suggestion that she is subtly calling for the destruction of Israel.

"Israel says that we are terrorists," Saraa said minutes before an interview with her was interrupted by an errant Israeli airstrike that slammed into an apartment building on the adjacent block. "But they are the ones that must stop their attacks against us and our kids."

Saraa is the sweet face of "Tomorrow's Pioneers," a weekly, hour-long Hamas television children's show best known for bringing the world a militant Mickey Mouse look-alike and then having him killed off by an Israeli interrogator.

With her jarring mix of innocent charm and militant rhetoric, Saraa is at the center of the militant Islamist group's increasingly sophisticated campaign to become the dominant force in Palestinian politics.

..."Tomorrow's Pioneers" sparked an international furor in April when it began featuring Farfour, the Mickey Mouse look-alike who sounded more like Iran's firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than a Disney character.

Mustafa Barghouti, then serving as the Palestinian Authority's information minister, called the show a "mistaken approach" to helping Palestinians and tried unsuccessfully to force the show off the year.

The Israeli government and activists who monitor Palestinian programming accused Hamas of poisoning the minds of young children with the show.

After two months, Farfour was beaten to death on the show by an Israeli interrogator. Nahoul, a larger-than-life bee, is now carrying his message.

"A lot of people in Palestine have died as martyrs, and lots of Palestinians hope to be martyrs," Saraa said of Farfour's demise. "This is one of the ends."

This is really disgraceful.

In addition to the anti-Semitism, there's the violence and the glorification of suicide.

Can you imagine Kermit being beaten to death on Sesame Street? Maybe he could be beheaded by an al Qaeda terrorist. Big Bird could vow to strap explosives under his feathers and blow up terrorists as he kills himself.

American preschoolers would be horrified and so would their parents.

On Tomorrow's Pioneers, such terrible lessons are routinely being taught to Palestinian children.

It's absolutely disgusting.

Asked if she hoped one day to be a martyr, Saraa instinctively nodded her head.

"Of course," Saraa said. "It's something to be proud of. Every Palestinian citizen hopes to be a martyr."

Saraa helps deliver similar messages to Palestinian children from a Hamas TV set filled with colorful numbers and pictures of kittens. During the show, Saraa fields calls from Palestinian children who warble songs about Islam, taking control of Jerusalem and finding answers in the barrel of a machine gun.

I don't understand how parents can allow their children to watch this stuff.

...The show has provided new fodder for Israeli activists, who say that Saraa is the true face of Hamas, an extremist group that's using an innocent front to conceal its real agenda.

Hamas television officials defend the show, saying it's designed to help young children connect with their country and their God.

What does that say about Islam?

Programming that urges children to be martyrs is designed to help the young ones connect with their God?

The way to connect with God is by blowing yourself up and killing as many Infidels as possible in the process?

Wow. What a religious experience!

Indoctrinating children in this manner is abusive. It's despicable. It's Hamas.




"Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us."

--GOLDA MEIR
_________________________

On a related note:

At University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the first of three seminars intended to "present accurate information, to help diminish negative perceptions, address stereotypes and create a greater sense of community through education and dialogue" is being held tomorrow.

The series is called, "Combating Islamophobia: A Seminar of Educators. Teaching with diversity in mind."