Last month, on the controversial Palestinian children’s program, The Pioneers of Tomorrow, a cartoon was aired (on the Hamas owned Al-Aqsa TV) ostensibly aimed at teaching kids Islamic values. The cartoon features a conversation between a Palestinian boy and a young Israeli Jewish settler. Through their dialogue and interaction, the Jewish settler learns to question everything negative he had been taught about Palestinians.

The problem is that while the cartoon is designed to empower Palestinian children, it does so through the use of anti-Semitic stereotypes. This is not all together uncharacteristic for the Hamas run TV program: Past episodes of the show, for example, have shown a cute and cuddly rabbit who desires to kill and eat Jews. Yet, unlike previous shows, the message of this cartoon is less than clear: Is Hamas (in its unique way) calling for dialogue with the enemy, or is the organization using dialogue to perpetuate fear and mistrust? Have a look and decide for yourself:

 

 

[Below are my comments, along with thoughts from Palestinian and Israeli peace activists Aziz Abu Sarah and Kobi Skolnick.]

Roi Ben-Yehuda: From an Israeli, Jewish and humanistic perspective, this is a disturbing cartoon. The faces of the Jews (who are all settlers) are evil looking: they have angular shapes, scowling eyebrows, and thin mouths. This is in contrast to the rounded facial features of the Palestinian boy, which make him look friendly and unthreatening. Moreover, the film uses some subliminal techniques to carry the anti-Semitic messages home. The opening close-up of the Jewish child, for example, appears (for a second) to have blood spilling from his mouth. While the older brother, with his red eyes and goatee, literally looks like Satan. The physical posture, vocal intonations and actions of the Jewish teacher and father clearly portray them as sinister and diabolical characters. All together, the cartoon depicts the Jews as fearful yet demonic figures who, on the one hand, believe it is necessary to fight against the evil Palestinians, and on the other hand, actually enjoy killing their neighbors. Ironically, this is exactly the type of negative misrepresentation the cartoon criticizes the Jews for originally engaging in vis-à-vis the Palestinians.

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Like everyone else in Florida, Mickey Mouse is now an octogenarian. The character famously first appeared in Steamboat Willie (released Nov. 18, 1928), although two earlier Mickey shorts, Plane Crazy and The Gallopin' Gaucho, were produced but not immediately released. The world's most famous mouse has appeared in various capacities over the decades, seeing time as a soldier, sailor, wizard, explorer, regular mouse, bachelor, bandleader, dogowner, regent, hobo, firefighter, beastiality-crazed sex fiend (thanks to the creative folks at DrawnSex.com), parade marshal, Santa Claus, ski bum, aviator, and most importantly, a corporate logo.

Unlike other hallmark cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse's enduring popularity derives almost exclusively from the peripheral characters that surround him. He's not cunning like Bugs Bunny, bratty and rebellious like Bart Simpson or political and blue like Papa Smurf. Mickey Mouse as a character offers little in the way of personality or humor. He plays a role similar to that of Jason Bateman in Arrested Development or the bar in Cheers, serving primarily as a bind between the rest of the Disney stable of characters - your Donalds, Goofys, Minnies and Plutos, not to mention lesser, more-hated characters like the interspecial union of Horace Horsecollar and Clarabelle Cow. A reasonable comparison for Mickey is Kermit the Frog, the de facto leader of The Muppets. Like Mickey, Kermit isn't as funny as the characters that surround him, but serves as a figurehead of the entire collective.

The enduring appeal of Mickey Mouse lies primarily in association. Over the past eighty years, Disney has repeatedly cornered the market on fantasy and children's entertainment, co-opting the identities of some of the most beloved characters in the history of literature, including Winnie the Pooh, Robin Hood, Aladdin, Pinocchio and The Little Mermaid. Generations of kids are familiar primarily with the Disney interpretation of these characters, and Mickey Mouse represents that all of that. His delightful mug graces the boxes of all of the company's products and his likeness from Fantasia is nearly omnipresent in American culture. Mickey Mouse has been proven so effective at piquing childrens' interests that the radical Islamic group, Hamas, employs their own version of the character, named Farfur, who urges children to "Resist the oppressive invading Zionist occupation," like a real-life Johnny Chimpo. Of course, Mickey himself is no stranger to anti-Semitism, as Walt Disney would occasionally align him with less-than-desirable company, including the inexplicable presence of a swastika-decorated cigarette lighter in Mickey's house in 1932's The Wayward Canary.

Happy Birthday, rodent!

Sam Harris sends us this cartoon. As I suggested in a faithhacker post, atheists around the web are joyously shouting from the desktops that Harris scalped Dennis Prager in their Jewcy debate. Prager is known for being deadly formidable in debate, so the atheists are extra giddy about this one. One of Harris's fans was so overjoyed that he drew this for Sam.

Take That, Prager: Atheists rejoice