Thursday 16 December 2004

Sesame Street, Palestinian Style

From the New Yorker :
On the Palestinian side, there has been a decrease in "the extreme incitement to genocide, to kill all the Jews," said Itamar Marcus, the head of Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli monitoring group.

But he said the problem was far from solved, adding that "incitement to hatred" continued in many forms as part of an effort to "delegitimize" the existence of Israel.

Mr. Marcus said some of the most egregious Palestinian material had been directed at children.

Two months ago, a show for children featured a talking yellow bird that responded to questions from youngsters in the audience.

A little girl asked what the bird would do if someone cut down the olive trees in front of her house.

The bird replied: "I'll call the whole world and make a riot. I'll bring AK-47's and the whole world and commit a massacre in front of the house."

Shortly afterward, Mr. Abu Ayyash, the broadcasting chief, acknowledged that it was inappropriate and removed the show.
Do we despair that such a thing could have happened, or have hope that at least it was removed? Personally, there's a bit of both.

And wonder that even in such a funny old world as this, a self-parody like this could occur.

Hat Tip : NRO Corner


1 comment:

Garpet said...

And that's not all . . . a Palestinian comic recently asked the question: "Why do Palestinian boys like to live on the West Bank?" The answer? "They like to live within a stone's throw of Israel."

Your readers might like to know that when the humour was darkest in the USSR it was not too long before its demise. Perhaps black humour is needed before a change that makes it unnecessary?