ETERNALLY DISTURBING

As I continue to turn the pages on 'God is not Great' by Christopher Hitchens I see an evolving (or de-evolving rather) situation that troubles me to no end. You may have heard of 'Farfour' a Mickey Mouse ripoff character on a Palestinian television children's show (Tomorrow's Pioneers). The beloved Farfour hosts the Barney like program which promotes, instead of cooperation, respect and moral guidelines, the evilness that is Israel and the occupying Jews. The Hamas funded show, which began earlier this year, saw a dramatic turn this week. In a scripted episode, the beloved Farfour was attacked and beaten to death by an assaulting 'Jew' in front of its entire audience of impressionable Palestinian youth. Imagine what impact this incident alone must have had on those children (ages 3 - 10) who watched their popular character brutally killed by their supposed enemy neighbor. I shake my head both in disgust at the mentality that is employed in the name of 'God' and sadness at how such teachings are essentially irreversible on the mindset of the youth. How long would a therapist have to spend with a child to get that image and the consequential hatred toward Jews that resulted out of their head? Ten years from now, what 16 year old Palestinian boy or girl is really going to believe that the Jews weren't responsible for the death of their favorite childhood character? Will any of the youth who watched this staged vicious mock attack be able to say in adulthood 'I realize that that assailant was really a Palestinian merely dressed as a Jew. I realize that Farfour was not really killed, nor even hurt in the least bit for that matter, on that day.'? I am aware that brainwashing a population's youth is nothing new in warfare. The Chinese have done it with the Tibetan youth. But Hamas seems to have used technology and innovation to master the task unlike anyone previous. This one incident alone (and don't think that Farfour's replacement host - a bumblebee - will not succumb to the same fate within a few short months as well!) has single-handedly guaranteed a region of conflict for the next generation.