Hamas TV has replaced the murdered Farfour the mouse with a new character, a bee named Nahoul who plans to take revenge on the “enemies of Allah, the killer of the prophets and of the innocent children” as well as the killers of his cousin Farfour.
One interesting difference is that Nahoul, unlike the defenseless Farfour — who was beaten to death by a hateful Israeli who wants to steal his land — has a stinger. We will see how this plays out.
What chills me about this is that the program is aimed at little children. I remember watching Howdy Doody as a child of six and passionately following Howdy’s struggle to defeat the nefarious plans of Mr. Bluster. Of course the worst thing that Mr. Bluster ever did was to scheme to take over Howdy’s circus.
What they are learning is that Israelis and Jews are horribly, irredeemably evil creatures who want to kill Palestinian children and steal their land. They are learning that the only way to redeem Palestine is through violent Jihad, and that the highest goal is martyrdom in its service. They are learning the value of revenge. And so on.
Looking at the history of Jews and Arabs in the land of Israel for the last 100+ years is depressing, because it’s clear that it’s coming down to this: us or them. There isn’t going to be peace until one side is gone.
Have all the failures to reach agreement in recent history been due to mistakes and miscalculations on one or both sides? Or is it something deeper? Something that keeps coming back, like Nahoul?