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Tomorrow’s Pioneers was aired on Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV every Friday from April 2007 to October 2009, which encouraged anti-Jewish violence and martyrdom.
Tomorrow’s Pioneers was a show on Hamas-controlled TV that glorified violence against Jews. (Photo: X/@MossadIL)
Children in Gaza reportedly grew up watching a cartoon programme, featuring a Mickey Mouse lookalike, which encourages kids to “kill” Israelis, hate Jews and embrace martyrdom.
The show called Tomorrow’s Pioneers was aired on Hamas-owned Al-Aqsa TV every Friday from April 2007 to October 2009. It includes Farfour, a costumed Mickey Mouse lookalike, and celebrates anti-Jewish violence and martyrdom, according to a report by the New York Post.
Farfour promises the children of Gaza that they will oversee Islamic world domination and liberate Jerusalem from the “murderers”, while mimicking grenade-throwing and shooting an AK-47. Farfour was later shown beaten to death by Israeli soldiers and replaced with other characters.
Farfour was replaced by a bumblebee with a squeaky voice named Nahoul, who preaches, “We will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews” and swears “revenge upon the enemies of God”. He is later shown getting sick and being denied a travel permit to seek treatment in Egypt before dying.
He is replaced by his rabbit brother, Assoud, who says, “I, Assoud, will finish off the Jews and eat them.” Assoud later dies in an Israeli strike and is replaced by a bear.
Moreover, in one episode, children were invited into the studio to tell the hosts of their wish to die as martyrs, and then sing a song about it. “It’s a constant stream of horrific propaganda that is almost impossible for a child to break out of. And so the kids grow up thinking that every Israeli should be killed because every Israeli is bad and evil,” said Mia Bloom, professor of communication and Middle East studies at Georgia State University.
‘Directing Trauma In Children’
Bloom said Hamas knew the children were already traumatised by the decades-long Palestinian conflict and sought to traumatise them further with Tomorrow’s Pioneers to “control the narrative” and “direct the trauma” against Israel.
“This kind of layered trauma that you’re deliberately exposing young Palestinian children to was not just a form of child abuse, but a long-term manipulation,” she told the New York Post. “It relates to October 7th. To have those resources and instead of making things better, you’ve just made things so much worse.”
The show’s co-host, Gaza child star Saraa Barhoum, was around 10 years old when the show first aired, and the daughter of a university professor mother and a Hamas spokesman father. She revealed in a 2007 interview that she wanted to be either a doctor or a martyr when she grew up.
Barhoum also launched a singing career, recording pop songs with lyrics like, “raise your sail for the sailors, and let your lighthouse illuminate the sea of blood.”
The NYP report implied that the show demonising Jews played a role in the October 7, 2023, attacks, as many of the Hamas fighters who attacked Israel were aged between 16 and 35 years.
Aveek Banerjee is a Senior Sub Editor at News18. Based in Noida with a Master’s in Global Studies, Aveek has more than three years of experience in digital media and news curation, specialising in international…Read More
Aveek Banerjee is a Senior Sub Editor at News18. Based in Noida with a Master’s in Global Studies, Aveek has more than three years of experience in digital media and news curation, specialising in international… Read More
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