Farfur, a Palestinian Islamic television character resembling Mickey Mouse, was beaten to death on the final episode of his Hamas-affiliated program, Tomorrow’s Pioneers. The episode depicts the mouse arguing in a high-pitched voice with a supposed Israeli official who beats him for refusing to sell his land as the program’s child presenter looks on.

The weekly hour-long show combines information on subjects such as a healthy diet with Islamic supremacist rhetoric calling for children to “martyr” themselves. Child viewers may call in to sing songs about martyrdom and express their feelings about Jews, Christians and Americans. Saraa, the program’s smiling child presenter, sits in a brightly colored pastel set and teaches her young viewers about killing and dying for Islamic supremacy. She appears to be 12 years old.

In what the Hamas-run Al-Aqsa channel said was Farfur’s final episode, the mouse is entrusted with land in Tel Aviv, which must be liberated from “the filth of criminal, plundering Jews who killed my grandpa and everybody.”

When Farfur refuses to sell the land to a character posing as an Israeli government official, the official beats him, apparently to death. The camera cuts away from the scene to the child presenter who confirms to the “dear children” that they have lost their “dearest friend” who was “martyred at the hand of the criminals, the killers, the killers of innocent children.”

Station officials have declared that they will use other famous characters in future programming. The station pulled the program in May in response to international outcry, but put it back on the air unchanged before airing the final episode in late June. “Farfur was a story alive, and he has turned into another story as a martyr,” production director Mohammad Saeed said.

The average American, as well as the American administration, views the average Palestinian Muslim as essentially the same as himself. Although our most common perception is fanatic young males thrusting their fists into the air, we know—or we think we know—that deep down, the average Muslim wants the same things the average American does: a good job, a nice home, nice things to put inside, a car or two, and most importantly a good life for his family. Reports of sadistic rhetoric from Muslim leaders and scenes of horrific Gazan violence cannot dissuade us that if they just had some nicer living conditions and good opportunities for their children, they would stop supporting people who fire rockets at apartments and murder bus riders in explosions of fire, nails and ball-bearings.

Tomorrow’s Pioneers should shatter those illusions.

Past episodes of the program, which is directed specifically at pre-school and elementary children, have featured a steady stream of Hamas Islamic indoctrination.

In one segment, the mouse is caught cheating at school. When asked by an adult male character why he cheated, a crying Farfur responds, “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.”

In another shrill soliloquy on Islamic supremacy, the character exclaims, “We will win, Bush! We will win, Sharon! Ah, Sharon is dead. We will win, Mofaz! Mofaz left. We will win, Olmert! We will win! We will win, Condoleezza!”

A different segment cuts from the child-pleasing studio environs of soft-colored blocks with numbers on them and pictures of animals to first-hand footage of a family just killed in an explosion with only a screaming teenage daughter survivor.

In the show’s viewer call-in segment, one 11-year-old sings for Saraa and Farfur: “The people firmly stand, singing this to you, Rafah sings, ‘oh-oh,’ its answer is an AK-47.” The camera cuts to a close-up of the mouse, which has been dancing and now lobs imaginary grenades and shoots with an imaginary machine gun. “We who do not know fear, we are the predators of the forest,” the child sings.

Another 12-year-old enthusiastically sings a simple melody, even while Saraa tries to interject: “Oh Jersualem, we are coming, Oh Jerusalem it is the time of death …. It is the time of death, we will fight a war.”

Tomorrow’s Pioneers emphasizes emotional content but also key elements of what can only be described as Islamic supremacy propaganda. “Dear youngsters” are told time after time to never speak English. They are also educated about key Hamas objectives, such as controlling the al-Aqsa Mosque, kicking coalition forces out of Iraq, and ensuring that a Palestine state includes the entirety of “Palestine.”

“We remind you that we, the great ones, started this program to lead the world,” the child presenter says, emphasizing that pan-Islamic rule will start from a “nucleus” in “Palestine.” The mouse excitedly interjects, asking if she means “Gaza, Jerusalem, Ramallah, or from all of Palestine,” to which she says, “Yes, from all of Palestine.”

“Uncle Hazem” appears on the show repeatedly, at one point smiling warmly and telling children viewers to ask history, the Jews and the Christians if they ever lived in a time period better than under Islam. “We are setting with you the cornerstone for world leadership under Islamic leadership,” Farfur says in his screechy voice. “We, tomorrow’s pioneers, will restore to this nation its glory, we will liberate al-Aqsa with Allah’s will, we will liberate Iraq, with Allah’s will, and we will liberate the Muslim countries invaded by murderers.”

Another child call-in comes from a Sanabel, who speaks hesitantly, apparently from shyness or possibly because she is very young.

“Sanabel,” Saraa asks, “what will you do for the sake of the al-Aqsa Mosque? How will you sacrifice your soul for the sake of al-Aqsa? What will you do?”

After a pause, the child answers slowly, “I will shoot.”

“Sanabel, what should we do if we want to liberate …” Farfur interjects.

“We want to fight ….”

“We got that, what else?” the mouse asks.

“We want to—we will annihilate the Jews.”

“We are defending al-Aqsa with our souls and our blood, aren’t we Sanabel?”

The child answers, “I will commit martyrdom.”

Although not every Palestinian supports this Mickey Muhammad’s brand of Muslim megalomania, many do. With another generation growing up fed with such hateful poison, that number is growing.

Farfur the terror mouse is not only a cause of hatred and violence, it is an effect. Extreme ideology and old hatreds run deep in the Palestinian territories. With perpetual symptoms such as violent rhetoric, murderous and even torturous infighting and the actual murder of Jews, it is time to recognize Islamic extremism—in all its forms—for what it is. This is not mere misunderstanding; some people really are not peace-loving.

Unfortunately, it will get worse, not better. Left unchecked, human nature naturally grows more violent and more hateful, not more peaceful. Whereas yesterday’s most extreme extremist would hesitate to blow up his child, the hatred that produced Tomorrow’s Pioneers is brazen enough to advertise itself explicitly. You can expect to see more people growing more hateful in the Palestinian territories, especially those young and precious children who are already cutting their teeth on it.

Today’s norm was yesterday’s extremism. Expect today’s extremism to become tomorrow’s norm.

Thank the true God—with real tears of gratitude—that although it will get worse before it gets better, it will indeed get much better. World violence is a sign that Jesus Christ is about to return and establish His law, which forbids murder and the hatred behind it. He is about to outlaw hatred for good.

Today’s children will be the last ones who learn how to die before they’ve begun to learn how to live.

To read more on the deep-seated problem of Islamic hatred for the West and where it will lead, read our booklet The King of the South.