Tomorrow's Pioneers (partially lost Palestinian children's television show; 2007-2009)
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Farfour the Mouse
Status: Partially Found
Tomorrow's Pioneers (Arabic: رواد الغد Ruwād al-Ghad), also known as The Pioneers of Tomorrow, is a Palestinian children's television show. The series was broadcast by the Hamas-affiliated television station Al-Aqsa TV from April 13, 2007 to October 16, 2009, and featured young host Saraa Barhoum and her co-host, a large costumed animal as they perform skits (or "scenes") and discuss life in Palestine in a talk show fashion with call-ins from children (typically of age 9–13 with some as young as 3).
Tomorrow's Pioneers is highly controversial as it contains antisemitism, Islamism, anti-Americanism, and other anti-Western themes. The original host of Tomorrow's Pioneers is Farfour, Hazim Al-Sha'arawi, stated that it was his idea that Farfour be killed by an Israeli interrogator, adding that the show "wanted to send a message through this character that would fit the reality of Palestinian life."
El-Sharawi states, "A child sees his neighbors killed, or blown up on the beach, and how do I explain this to a child that already knows? The [Israeli] occupation is the reason; it creates the reality. I just organize the information for him". Al-Aqsa's TV deputy manager stated that the program in fact is simply "about Palestinian kids express[ing] their feeling[s] regarding what they witness -- if it's [the] occupation it's about that..."
The show is considered to be the successor to an earlier Hamas-broadcast children's radio program series entitled Ovan and Branches (Arabic: أفنان وأغصان). Broadcast weekly on Fridays and running for 85 minutes, the program is also moderated by Hazim Al-Sha'arawi. Israeli sources have characterized it as "the 'most serious' of martyrdom operations". Arabic sources have said that the broadcasts of Ovan and Branches have been jammed by Israel in the past.
Controversies
Criticisms and responses
The show, brought to Western attention by pro-Israel organizations such as Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI, supposedly deals with Islamic traditions and lifestyles, some as innocuous as the importance of drinking milk, and Muslim customs such as performing one's daily prayers, but also advocates messages of Islamism such as "Resistance Jihad", and the loathing of Israel, the capitalist economic system, the United States, and Western world.
According to Palestinian Media Watch, two animal character co-hosts, the Mickey Mouse look-alike Farfour and Nahoul the bee were used to "champion violence, promote hatred of Israel and preach about world Islamic supremacy." Later in the show's narrative, the characters were, as the show described it, "martyred," with the deaths either directly or implicitly blamed on "The Jews, Israel, Israelis, and/or what they believed to be Zionists."
Criticisms concerning the content and methods employed in the broadcast of Tomorrow's Pioneers have come from a variety of sources. Israeli officials and critics from the Anti-Defamation League have denounced the program as incendiary and outrageous in content. Watchdog groups, PMW and MEMRI have described the show as "anti-Israeli," and PMW has commented on the show's "champion[ing of] violence, promot[ion of] hatred of Israel and preach[ing] about world Islamic supremacy." Within the Arabic community, critics have suggested that the show has potential to introduce bias in children at an age when they are unable to properly differentiate between political viewpoints. Harsher Arabic and Palestinian critics have suggested that the show is nothing short of an attempt at the indoctrination of children.
On the other hand, defenders of the show have suggested that the show's notoriety stands as yet more proof of the political motivations behind the anti-Arabist and Islamophobic subjection of Palestinians to the strictest scrutiny and subsequent generalizations of Arabs to support an improper negative stereotype. The argument has been advanced that "Israel is following all the Palestinians, large and small, and placing them under a microscope with a predefined concept of culture, media and religion. It only wants to catch up [Palestinians] and accuse them on themes of terrorism." Criticism of the show has been regarded as criticism of Islam as a religion.
Furthermore, proponents of the show claim that Saraa Barhoum is only an "innocent girl ... incapable of incitement." It has also been suggested by a variety of sources that, holding judgment aside, the show's content is simply reflective of the realities of life in the occupied territory. Relatedly, it is argued that Zionist critics in particular are disturbed by the fact that the show provides "Arab and Muslim children [with] the opportunity to participate in [a public forum context] to freely express their real feelings [regarding life in] Palestine." Defenders of the show have argued that the reason for the harsh criticism the show has received is that unlike many Arabic television stations Al-Aqsa TV reflects a view of Palestinian thought unfettered by Western social mores. The timing of certain critical publications has also been considered provocative.
Removal by the Palestinian Ministry
After attracting international attention for its use of the Mickey Mouse-lookalike, Farfour, Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti stated the use of the character was a "mistaken approach" and the program was pulled from Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV and placed under review at his ministry's request.
Al-Aqsa TV board chairman Fathi Hamad replied that the station would neither pull the program, nor change the subject matter. He stated that "[t]his 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." An Al-Aqsa TV representative responded to Barghouti's statements, saying that the station will continue to air the show and that "Barghouti misunderstood the issue." In a later interview with Al-Aqsa TV, Hamad explained that "the vicious campaign that is being waged by the enemies, and especially the Zionist enemy and American imperialism, is not new. It comes from the framework of the vicious campaign against our Palestinian people as an addition to the siege placed on our people. Therefore, we are not surprised by this. They want the Palestinian people to renounce its Islamic religion and belief. In response, we say that whenever our Palestinian people resorted to its religion, Allah supported it. Therefore, we will not renounce our faith and our belief, and we will move forward for the sake of Allah. We are holding to this religion because it is the secret of our victory. They try, as much as they can... Not just by waging their attack on the religion in this context, in order to prevent the Islamic upbringing of Palestinian children, but they also want this people to renounce all its Islamic foundation. They are the ones who called to remove the Jihad verses that appear in the Palestinian school curricula. Therefore, we cannot accept this."
Criticism from Disney
76-year-old Diane Disney Miller, Mickey Mouse creator Walt Disney's last surviving child, commented to the press that, "What we're dealing with here is pure evil and you can't ignore that." She further commented that, "It's not just [about] Mickey, it's [about] indoctrinating children like this, teaching them to be evil. The world loves children, and this is just going against the grain of humanity."
In a response letter by Tomorrow's Pioneers director, Fathi Hammad, said: "Before ... [anyone] object[s] to our [program], we are trying to install in our children's memories the interest in [the] lift[ing of] the siege on our people and [the end of] support for the usurper entity of our land and killing our children. ... [T]he Palestinian people continue to struggle not indifferent to such [as] are left with the executioner and victim." Nevertheless, the show's creators arranged the production of an episode shortly after in which Farfour was martyred off to be replaced by his bumble-bee brother, Nahoul. This arranged martyrdom came in direct response to actions by the Disney family.
Several months later, Hamas television again made use of Disney characters, this time in a five-minute cartoon attacking Fatah. The clip depicted the competing movement and its former local leader Mohammed Dahlan as corrupt and anti-Islamic rats, while portraying Hamas as a confident lion based on the Simba character from the 1994 film The Lion King. While Hamas TV executive Hazam Sharawi said the clip was pulled for revising, including removal of the Dahlan depiction, he said there were no plans to remove reference to The Lion King.
In September 2008, Fatah also began broadcasting a competing show targeting children on the Official PA TV network. This program also features use of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Criticism from the United States
On April 1, 2008, Rep. Joseph Crowley submitted House Resolution No. 1069 in the United States House of Representatives, a resolution "[c]ondemning the use of television programming by Hamas to indoctrinate hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism toward Israel in young Palestinian children." The resolution discusses Tomorrow's Pioneers by name, specifically stating that:
Whereas Hamas uses their television network, Al-Aqsa TV, to air a children's show 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' to breed new terrorists through hatred for Israel and Western nations; ... Whereas in February 2008, Hamas used a Bugs Bunny look-alike to indoctrinate children by inciting them toward hatred and violence by telling children that he 'will finish off the Jews and eat them'; Whereas in May 2007, Hamas used a Mickey Mouse look-alike in the same children's program to teach terrorist doctrines to children; ... the House of Representatives condemns Hamas for using a children's television program to incite hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism toward Israel; and demands that Hamas immediately suspend all television programming that incites hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism toward Israel ...
Translation controversy
Several commentators, such as CNN's Arabic department, have claimed that the transcript of the April 13 show (2007) provided by MEMRI contains numerous translation errors and undue emphases.[88] Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for British newspaper The Guardian, wrote in a blog for the newspaper that in the translation of the video, showing Farfour eliciting political comments from a young girl named Sanabel, the MEMRI transcript misrepresents the segment where he asks what she will do, by attributing a sentence said by Farfour, ("I'll shoot"), to the child while ignoring the child's actual reply ("I'm going to draw a picture"). Whitaker further criticized MEMRI's translation. He and others commented that a statement uttered by the same child, ("We're going to [or want to] resist"), had been given an unduly aggressive interpretation by MEMRI as ("We want to fight"). Also, where MEMRI translated the girl as saying the highly controversial remark ("We will annihilate the Jews"), Whitaker and others, including Arabic speakers used by CNN, insist that based on careful listening to the low quality video clip, the girl is variously interpreted as saying, "The Jews [will] shoot[] us" or "The Jews are killing us." Other sources have also pointed out that MEMRI's translation "I will commit martyrdom" should more accurately have been "I'll become a martyr" – a passive statement rather than an active/aggressive threat.
CNN's Glenn Beck had planned to run MEMRI's translation on his radio programme but was stopped by his producer. Beck then invited Yigal Carmon, a former colonel of IDF Intelligence and founder and President of MEMRI, on to the programme where Carmon denounced CNN's Arabic translation.
MEMRI defends their translation of the show, Yigal Carmon declared, "Yes, we stand by the translation by the very words, by the context, by the syntax, and every measure of the translation."
Availability
Only a few clips from the show are available. Most of the clips come from the first season, the minority come from the later ones.