Islamic Rule Good for Christians, Jews, Hamas 'Mickey Mouse' Creator Says
By Julie Stahl
CNSNews.com Jerusalem Bureau Chief
May 16, 2007

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - Islamic worldwide domination is good for Christians and Jews even if they don't know it, and that's why Hamas television is going ahead with promoting the message of Islamic supremacy to Palestinian children with the aid of a Mickey Mouse-type character, according to the creator of the controversial program.

Hamas has refused to remove the program from its Al-Aqsa TV despite having reportedly promised a Palestinian Authority minister last week that it would revise it.

In an interview on the station Monday, one of the creators of the "Tomorrow's Pioneers" program said the show would continue to promote Islamic domination over other religions because it is good for adherents of those other faiths.

"What is being asked, so that the Americans and Zionists will be satisfied with you, is to follow their lead," said Hamzim Al-Sha'arawi, deputy director of Al-Aqsa TV.

"We [on this program] have a message, and we understood from the beginning that it is a difficult path ... But we were sure that we had to go this way because this [young] generation needs someone to direct it ... and this generation is the most worthy of the position of leadership," he said.

Sha'arawi went on to say that historically, Jews and Christians were "happy" living under Islamic rule.

"Therefore, when we talk [on the program] about the mission of the restoration of Islam to its natural [dominant] place, we're calling for justice, and for goodness, and for world love ... so that the Christians will live in peace, and that even the Jews will live in peace and security," he said.

As Cybercast News Service reported last week, Palestinian Media Watch, an independent Israeli research institute, provided translations of some of the content of the program, in which a Mickey Mouse-like character named Farfur promotes Islamic supremacy and speaks against the U.S. and Israel.

Farfur says the new generation "will liberate Al-Aqsa, with Allah's will, and we will liberate Iraq, with Allah's will, and we will liberate the Muslim countries, invaded by murderers." AL-Aqsa refers to the mosque -- the third most revered in Islam -- located on Jerusalem's Temple Mount.

PMW Director Itamar Marcus said that while many people are upset about the misuse of Mickey Mouse character, they are not grasping the threat facing Israel and the West.

"This is not just children's talk," he told Cybercast News Service. "The adults believe this ideology. Mickey Mouse is just a symptom of a much more significant problem."

"The Islamists see themselves as having a role in history subjugating the Christians and the Jews," Marcus said.

Farfur blames Jews

Hamas and the mainstream Palestinian faction of Mahmoud Abbas, Fatah, are collaborating in an uneasy "unity" government in the P.A. self-rule area, even as gunmen from the two factions continue to battle each other.

Despite last week's pledge from P.A. Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti that Hamas would revise the Mickey Mouse show, it was still on the air on Friday, when Farfur blamed Jews for his decision to cheat on a test at school.

Farfur cries when his teacher snatches a paper from him and accuses him of cheating. Later, his uncle asks him why he cheated.

"It was against my will, Uncle Hazem, because the Jews destroyed our home, and when the Jews destroyed our home, I couldn't find my notebooks," Farfur explains.

"By Allah's will, we will promote through Islam good, love and justice," Hazem answers in a gentle voice.

"Ask history, and ask the Jews, did they ever live in a time period better than the one they live under Islam?" Hazem asks. "And ask the Christians how their security was assured in the churches and monasteries ... Do you remember Andalus? This dear Andalus will return one day," he says.

Andalus was the name given to parts of Spain and Portugal ruled by Muslims for various periods between the eighth and 15th centuries.

Child co-host Saraa then tells the children that they will restore the "glory and civilization" of the Islamic nation.
br.'Dhimmis'

Islamic expert Dr. Mordechai Kedar of the BESA Center for Strategic Studies said that Jews living under Islam were "dhimmis" or second-class citizens. As long as they maintained that status, they were acceptable but not treated as equals.

In ninth-century Baghdad, he said, Jews were forced to wear a yellow badge and Christians an orange badge. The Nazis, who made European Jews wear a yellow Star of David to identify themselves, actually borrowed the practice from the Abbasids, a Sunni caliphate, he added.

In the Palestinian areas today, Jewish holy sites supposedly under P.A. care in terms of signed peace agreements have been vandalized. The tomb of Joseph in Nablus, which was used as a Jewish religious school, was sacked and turned into a mosque.

And with regard to the situation of Christians under Islam, one has only to look at the situation of Christian minorities in the Middle East today, Kedar told Cybercast News Service.

The Coptic Christians in Egypt are at the least discriminated against if not openly persecuted, while Christians in Iraq face harassment and violence. Maronite Christians were the dominant group in Lebanon when the country was created in 1920. No national census has been taken since 1932, but according to the CIA World Factbook, about 40 percent of the population is Christian.

In the P.A. area, several Christian religious establishments in the Gaza Strip and West Bank have been attacked during the past year. In Bethlehem, Muslims have reportedly seized Christians' property, with impunity.

Christians are leaving every country in the Middle East, Kedar said.

Hamas' claims about Islam's attitude toward Christians and Jews at this time are "nothing you can take seriously," he added.

A Hamas newspaper, Al-Risalah, wrote recently that suicide bombings were commanded by Allah because "the extermination of the Jews is good for the inhabitants of the world."