Tomorrow's Pioneers

Tomorrow's Pioneers (Arabic: رواد الغد, romanized: Ruwād al-Ghad), also known as The Pioneers of Tomorrow, is a Palestinian children's television show that was broadcast by the Hamas-affiliated television station Al-Aqsa TV from 13 April 2007 to 16 October 2009, hosted by a young Saraa Barhoum and her co-host, a large costumed character, performing skits (or "scenes") and discussing life in Palestine in a talk show fashion with call-ins from children (typically aged 9–13 with some as young as 3). The show is considered to be the successor to an earlier Hamas-broadcast children's radio programme titled Ovan and Branches (Arabic: أفنان وأغصان), which was also moderated by Hazim Al-Sha'arawi.
Presented in a children's educational format similar to other preschool shows like Sesame Street or Barney & Friends, Tomorrow's Pioneers is highly controversial as it contains antisemitic, Islamist, anti-American, and other anti-Western themes. Israeli sources have characterised it as among the "most serious" of martyrdom operations. The show also gained attention from Disney, who ordered that the first co-host, Farfour, be written out of the show due to his strong resemblance to Mickey Mouse.
Saraa Barhoum (Arabic: سرّاء برهوم), who hosted Tomorrow's Pioneers, was around 10–11 years old when the show started. She was invited to host the show after entering a singing competition. The show's director, Hazim Al-Sha'arawi, has stated that Saraa was the ideal choice to present the show because of the incursions, among other things, she had witnessed. In an interview, Saraa revealed that Israelis had struck near her house with a bombshell, injuring her feet and wounding her little brother Youssef's legs. Despite the messages in Tomorrow's Pioneers, Saraa has pointed out that "we are normal people, but we are defending our homeland" from the Israelis.
During gaps between shooting Tomorrow's Pioneers, Saraa took the opportunity to develop her singing career. She has performed several concerts in support of her music, recorded several songs with Palestinian children's songwriter Fekry Namous, and has starred in at least one music video, which was hosted for a time at the Palestinian PALN internet network. In the video, Saraa sings about the Hamas youth movement, its presence in the schools, and of the division between Israel and Palestine. The video was criticised for promoting the message "that death, not life, is the prime value". In 2009, recording studio Al-Molatham shot a high-quality music video of the song "Deprived you of Attiari" (Arabic: يا من يحرم أطياري) from her first album. The video features Saraa singing a plaintive song about being a mother in Palestine while walking through rubble. Images of gravely injured infants are displayed in the background.
Saraa has seven siblings, her father is a university professor and her uncle, Fawzi Barhoum [ar], is a Hamas spokesman. In an August 2007 interview, Saraa said she wanted to be a doctor, and if not that, then a martyr.
Hazim Al-Sha'arawi, the show's creator and moderator, has appeared in several episodes. The uncle of Farfour (Saraa's first co-host, a mouse), Uncle Hazim (also rendered as Uncle Hazem) often plays the role of the disciplinarian when Farfour is bad. In episode 101, he chides Farfour for speaking in English, and in episode 104, he holds Farfour initially responsible for cheating on his exam. Uncle Hazim's biological and familial relations to Farfour's cousins, Nahoul the bee and Assoud the rabbit, are unclear.
Farfour (Arabic: فرفور; also rendered as Farfur), a Mickey Mouse-like mouse, is a costumed character with a high-pitched voice who co-hosted Tomorrow's Pioneers with Saraa. His name comes from a diminutive of fa'r which means "mouse" in Arabic.
On the show, Farfour has expressed controversial views, stating that "You and I are laying the foundation for a world led by Islamists" and "We will return the Islamic community to its former greatness, and liberate Jerusalem, God willing, liberate Iraq, God willing, and liberate all the countries of the Muslims invaded by the murderers." In episode 103, he simulates shooting an AK-47 and throwing grenades.
In episode 105 (aired 22 June 2007), Farfour is beaten to death during an interrogation by an Israeli who is trying to acquire the key and title to "Tel al-Rabi", a fictional Palestinian settlement which was occupied by Israelis and renamed to Tel Aviv. Farfour is replaced as co-host in episode 202 by Nahoul, his bumblebee cousin. The idea for the story arc involving Farfour's death came from Al-Sha'arawi. It was initially claimed that the death of Farfour was intended to usher in a new direction for the show.
Other Hamas children's programs, such as a 1998 episode of The Children's Club, have used the Mickey Mouse image to incite terror activities.
The Disney corporation initially had no public statement on the use of Mickey Mouse's image in the Farfour character; Disney CEO Robert Iger later said, "We were appalled by the use of our character to disseminate that kind of message." He explained the initial quiet by saying, "I just didn't think it would have any effect... I think it should have been obvious how the company felt about the subject." Walt Disney's daughter, Diane Disney Miller, commented to the press that "What we're dealing with here is pure evil and you can't ignore that." She further commented that "It's not just [about] Mickey, it's [about] indoctrinating children like this, teaching them to be evil."
In a response letter, Tomorrow's Pioneers director, Fathi Hammad, said: "Before ... [anyone] object[s] to our [program], we are trying to install in our children's memories the interest in [the] lift[ing of] the siege on our people and [the end of] support for the usurper entity of our land and killing our children. ... [T]he Palestinian people continue to struggle not indifferent to such [as] are left with the executioner and victim." Nevertheless, the show's creators arranged the production of an episode shortly after in which Farfour was martyred off to be replaced by his bumblebee brother, Nahoul. This arranged martyrdom came in direct response to actions by the Disney family.
Several months later, Hamas television again made use of Disney characters, this time in a five-minute cartoon attacking Fatah. The clip depicted the competing movement and its former local leader Mohammed Dahlan as corrupt and anti-Islamic rats, while portraying Hamas as a confident lion based on the Simba character from the 1994 film The Lion King. While Hamas TV executive Hazam Sharawi said the clip was pulled for revising, including removal of the Dahlan depiction, he said there were no plans to remove reference to The Lion King.
In September 2008, Fatah also began broadcasting a competing children's show on the Official Palestinian Satellite Channel (PA TV) network. This programme also featured use of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.
Nahoul (Arabic: نحول; also rendered as Nahul or Nahool) is a costumed bumblebee character with a high-pitched voice who co-hosted Tomorrow's Pioneers with Saraa following Farfour's martyrdom during an Israeli interrogation. When introduced on Friday, 13 July 2007, he promised "revenge upon the enemies of God, the murderers of the prophets", explaining "I want to continue in the path of Farfour – the path of Islam, of heroism, of martyrdom, of the mujahideen."
On the show, Nahoul has expressed terrorist views. He has stated such things as: "We will liberate Al-Aqsa from the filth of the criminal Jews", and "We will go on Jihad when we grow up." In episode 204, Nahoul visits the zoo, where streaks of cruelty further become apparent. After noticing some sleeping cats, Nahoul proceeds to swing them by their tails and throw them around their cage. He later throws stones into a cage of lions, taunting them with his stinger. After the incident, Saraa chastises him against doing it again, citing a story in the Hadith in which a woman went to hell for starving her cat.
In February 2008, it was revealed that Nahoul was very sick and in need of an operation. Although Nahoul and his parents travelled to Al-Arish, they were denied from leaving Gaza to go to Egypt for medical treatment by Israeli authorities. He dies, what the show calls "a martyr's death", in the arms of his parents. His brother was notably absent. Nahoul is replaced as co-host by Assoud, his rabbit brother.
Assoud (Arabic: أسّود, lit. 'lion'; also rendered as Assud), a Bugs Bunny or Roger Rabbit-like rabbit character, was introduced after his brother, the previous co-host, Nahoul, died of illness. In explaining why he is called Assoud, when Arnoub (Arabic: أرنب, lit. 'rabbit') would be more appropriate, Assoud explains that "A rabbit is a term for a bad person and coward. And I, Assoud, will finish off the Jews and eat them." Before Nahoul's death, Assoud lived in Lebanon; he returned to the homeland of Palestine in order to liberate it. On his deathbed, he instructs Palestinian children that they must fight and die to liberate Haifa, Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities. Assoud hinted in episode 302 that he would be replaced by a tiger when he was martyred.
In the episode aired on 2 January 2009, Assoud was seen dying in a Gaza hospital after being injured in an Israeli attack.
Nassur, a brown bear, is the final co-host of Tomorrow's Pioneers, who was introduced on 13 February 2009. He claims to have come to the Gaza Strip to become one of the mujahideen and to defend the children of Palestine (although he gives evidence that he may have come from Iran). As such, he has vowed in his debut episode to join the 'Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, in which his plans include wielding a gun and performing Jihad. He survives in the series finale.
Due to political instability and regional conflict between Hamas and Fatah parties, the show has not maintained uninterrupted broadcasting. In June 2007 during the Battle of Gaza, the Al-Aqsa TV station was taken over and shut down by Fatah gunmen. In September 2008, Fatah also began broadcasting a competing show targeting children on the Official PA TV network. Further complicating regular broadcast of Tomorrow's Pioneers were controversies surrounding the show itself. Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti successfully lobbied to have the show shut down for some time although this ban was later lifted. Factors such as these led to broadcast dates often being irregular.
The show, brought to Western attention by pro-Israel organizations such as Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI, supposedly deals with Islamic traditions and lifestyles, some as innocuous as the importance of drinking milk, and Muslim customs such as performing one's daily prayers, but also advocates messages of Islamism such as "Resistance Jihad", and the loathing of Israel, the capitalist economic system, the United States, and the Western world.
According to Palestinian Media Watch, two animal character co-hosts, the Mickey Mouse look-alike Farfour and Nahoul the bee, were used to "champion violence, promote hatred of Israel and preach about world Islamic supremacy." Later in the show's narrative, the characters were, as the show described it, "martyred", with the deaths either directly or implicitly blamed on the Jews, the people of Israel, or those perceived as Zionists.
Criticisms concerning the content and methods employed in the broadcast of Tomorrow's Pioneers have come from a variety of sources. Israeli officials and critics from the Anti-Defamation League have denounced the program as incendiary and outrageous in content. Watchdog groups, Palestinian Media Watch and MEMRI have described the show as "anti-Israeli," and PMW has commented on the show's "champion[ing of] violence, promot[ion of] hatred of Israel and preach[ing] about world Islamic supremacy." Within the Arabic community, critics have suggested that the show has potential to introduce bias in children at an age when they are unable to properly differentiate between political viewpoints. Harsher Arabic and Palestinian critics have suggested that the show is nothing short of an attempt at the indoctrination of children.
On the other hand, defenders of the show have suggested that the show's notoriety stands as yet more proof of the political motivations behind the anti-Arabist and Islamophobic subjection of Palestinians to the strictest scrutiny and subsequent generalizations of Arabs to support an improper negative stereotype. The argument has been advanced that "Israel is following all the Palestinians, large and small, and placing them under a microscope with a predefined concept of culture, media and religion. It only wants to catch up [Palestinians] and accuse them on themes of terrorism." Criticism of the show has been regarded as criticism of Islam as a religion.
Furthermore, proponents of the show claim that Saraa Barhoum is only an "innocent girl ... incapable of incitement." It has also been suggested by a variety of sources that, holding judgment aside, the show's content is simply reflective of the realities of life in the occupied territory. Relatedly, it is argued that Zionist critics in particular are disturbed by the fact that the show provides "Arab and Muslim children [with] the opportunity to participate in [a public forum context] to freely express their real feelings [regarding life in] Palestine." Defenders of the show have argued that the reason for the harsh criticism the show has received is that unlike many Arabic television stations Al-Aqsa TV reflects a view of Palestinian thought unfettered by Western social mores. The timing of certain critical publications has also been considered provocative.
After attracting international attention for its use of the Mickey Mouse-lookalike, Farfour, Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti stated the use of the character was a "mistaken approach" and the program was pulled from Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa TV and placed under review at his ministry's request.
Al-Aqsa TV board chairman Fathi Hamad replied that the station would neither pull the program, nor change the subject matter. He stated that "[t]his campaign of criticism is part of a plan orchestrated by the West and the occupying power to attack Islam on the one hand and the Palestinian cause on the other." An Al-Aqsa TV representative responded to Barghouti's statements, saying that the station will continue to air the show and that "Barghouti misunderstood the issue." In a later interview with Al-Aqsa TV, Hamad explained that "the vicious campaign that is being waged by the enemies, and especially the Zionist enemy and American imperialism, is not new. It comes from the framework of the vicious campaign against our Palestinian people as an addition to the siege placed on our people. Therefore, we are not surprised by this. They want the Palestinian people to renounce its Islamic religion and belief. In response, we say that whenever our Palestinian people resorted to its religion, Allah supported it. Therefore, we will not renounce our faith and our belief, and we will move forward for the sake of Allah. We are holding to this religion because it is the secret of our victory. They try, as much as they can... Not just by waging their attack on the religion in this context, in order to prevent the Islamic upbringing of Palestinian children, but they also want this people to renounce all its Islamic foundation. They are the ones who called to remove the Jihad verses that appear in the Palestinian school curricula. Therefore, we cannot accept this."
On 1 April 2008, Rep. Joseph Crowley submitted House Resolution No. 1069 in the United States House of Representatives, a resolution "[c]ondemning the use of television programming by Hamas to indoctrinate hatred, violence, and anti-Semitism toward Israel in young Palestinian children." The resolution discusses Tomorrow's Pioneers by name, specifically stating that:
Several commentators, such as CNN's Arabic department, have claimed that the transcript of the April 13 show (2007) provided by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) contains numerous translation errors and undue emphases. Brian Whitaker, the Middle East editor for British newspaper The Guardian, wrote in a blog for the newspaper that in the translation of the video, showing Farfour eliciting political comments from a young girl named Sanabel, the MEMRI transcript misrepresents the segment where he asks what she will do, by attributing a sentence said by Farfour, "I'll shoot", to the child while ignoring Sanabel's actual reply ("I'm going to draw a picture"). Whitaker further criticised MEMRI's translation. He and others commented that a statement uttered by the same child, "We're going to [or want to] resist", had been given an unduly aggressive interpretation by MEMRI as "We want to fight". Also, where MEMRI translated the girl as saying "We will annihilate the Jews", Whitaker and others, including Arabic speakers used by CNN, insist that based on careful listening to the low quality video clip, the girl is variously interpreted as saying, "The Jews [will] shoot us" or "The Jews are killing us." Other sources have also pointed out that MEMRI's translation "I will commit martyrdom" should more accurately have been "I'll become a martyr", a more passive statement.
Conservative television host Glenn Beck had planned to run MEMRI's translation on his radio programme but was stopped by his producer. Beck then invited Yigal Carmon, a former colonel of IDF Intelligence and founder and President of MEMRI, on to the programme where Carmon denounced CNN's Arabic translation. Carmon defended MEMRI's translation of the show, declaring "Yes, we stand by the translation by the very words, by the context, by the syntax, and every measure of the translation."
Flavorwire negatively reviewed the series as "an abomination of modern cinematic technology", stating that:
Phil Hall of Film Threat called the series "a non-stop assault on good taste and intelligence", criticising the cheap production values and anti-Semitic remarks from the characters, while The Jerusalem Post commented that the character Farfour was "far from lovable" as he was used to preach violence to children.
The series was featured in a segment on a 2007 episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.