In 2004, after watching a PA ‘educational program’ for preschoolers, I wondered how a child watching these shows would turn out as an adult. I got my answer.
By: Linda Olmert
The 16-year-old scum that slaughtered Ari Fuld with a knife in the back on Sunday would have been two years old in 2004, and probably, like most preschoolers around the world, he was watching children’s TV programming.
As a resident of the Palestinian Authority (PA), he likely watched the official PA channel.
In 2004 I was working with Palestinian Media Watch, a watchdog organization that does groundbreaking work monitoring the official Palestinian media, exposing repeatedly the fact that the PA sends totally different messages in Arabic (which most in the West do not understand) to what it sends out in English.
I have never forgotten this film clip (below), broadcast on the official PA TV’s children’s channel. Clearly geared to preschoolers, the show’s character was a cute, fluffy yellow puppet named Tarabishu, the Talking Chick.
The entire clip was obviously scripted. The historical context was that Palestinian snipers were shooting into Israel, using trees for cover, so the IDF removed the trees.
This film includes no education for conflict resolution, such as trying to talk things out if another child does something you do not like or speaking to your mother who would then have a discussion with the other child’s mother. None at all.
Other universal goals of children’s programming, such as encouraging language skills and increasing vocabularly, are completely different in this clip from what is considered acceptable. In this “educational program for Palestinian children,” the preschoolers learn that calling people to demonstrate is acceptable, which it is, and then massacring them (“massacre” – a lovely new word?), which is not acceptable.
I clearly remember wondering back in 2004, after watching this clip again and again and again, what a two- or three-year-old growing up with this type of “entertainment” would be like as an adult. On Sunday, I got my answer.
Canadian-born Linda Olmert made Aliya and has lived in Israel for 43 years. She creates Jewish Identity programing and speaks on the subjects of Zionism, Jewish Identity and the Holocaust. Currently, she is also a ‘realtor with a difference’ in Raanana.