A recent episode of Hamas children’s television program, Tomorrow’s Pioneers, featured sounds of explosions “to encourage and excite our audience, our children friends.”

Palestinian Media Watch reported this week that the most recent episode of the Hamas-produced children’s program included a guest mimic.  Just as the show was ending, the young host asked her guest to imitate the sound of a rocket launch.  When the guest hesitated, she goaded him on, saying it would “encourage and excite…our children friends.”

The guest complied, and another young boy identified the rocket sound as the M-75.  The adult guest acknowledged that it was, indeed, the sound of the long-range rocket fired by Hamas towards Jerusalem and Tel Aviv during the November 2012 Operation Pillar of Defense, as it takes off from Palestinian territory towards Israel.

When the boy asked the guest for the sound of the rocket reaching its target, he demurred, saying he has never heard that sound.  The show’s costumed co-host, however, a “bee” named Nahul, accommodates, saying he heard the sound as he flew “in the clouds.”

What sound does a rocket make?

The episode aired June 20 on Al-Aqsa TV, but it is only one example of many incidents of incitement on Palestinian children’s television in general and Tomorrow’s Pioneers in particular.  In November, the child host, Lin, explained to Nahul the difference between negotiation and resistance.  She urged him to support the resistance.

Child host: “Negotiation, Nahul, means that we and the Zionists will become friends. It means we’ll forgive them for the blood of all the Martyrs who died.”

Nahul the bee: “Impossible.”

Child host: “It means that Jerusalem, half will be for us and half for them. And of course this is only if they agree.”

Nahul the bee: “You mean, Lin, that a Jew will come and pray next to me and I’ll pray with him? No. That’s impossible.”

Child host: “Negotiation means that we stop the Jihad fighters, torture them and kill them. It means that 90% of Palestine, which is our land, will be the Jews’ and not ours.”

Nahul the bee: “No. I don’t agree. Impossible.”

Child host: “Are you with them or with the resistance?”

Nahul the bee: “Am I with the negotiation or with the resistance?”

Child host: “Yes.”

Nahul the bee: “Lin, I’m with the bang bang (indicates a gun with his hands). But don’t tell anyone.”

[Al-Aqsa TV (Hamas), Nov. 29, 2013]

Hamas to children: Shoot All Jews

The recent episode came in the same week Hamas Political Bureau member Khalil Al-Hayya vowed in Palestinian Authority official daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida that “Hamas and its [Izz A-Din Al-Qassam] Brigades (Hamas’ military wing), will continue to dig tunnels, build rockets and cross seas until it defeats the enemy… We will continue on the path of Jihad and Martyrdom (Shahada). O, children of the resistance, O, Al-Qassam [Brigades], this is the only way; march forward, [until] either victory or Martyrdom.”