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Broadening the discourse about martyrdom television programming

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Conclusion

While, as the critics assumed, Palestinian martyrdom programs may be adversely influencing Palestinian children, such a contention must be supported using a scientific approach to data collection.  It is extremely tempting to assume that Palestinian children are watching these programs and being directly influenced by them.  Data supporting this contention would be a welcome addition to our intellectual understanding of this controversy.  Indeed, I hope more scholars broaden the discourse about martyrdom programs and incitement programs more generally by beginning to conduct media and conflict-based research with audiences.  However, at present, the only empirical evidence supplied about influence on Palestinian children points in the opposite direction.  Therefore, given this evidence, for now, we should be focusing our attention on understanding how Palestinian children interpret and are influenced by what we at least do know they are tuning into: Tom and Jerry.

 

Yael Warshel is an Assistant Professor in International Communication and Associate Faculty in International Peace and Conflict Resolution in the School of International Service at American University.

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[1] To name just a few of the news outlets that covered the television program see:

Stahl, J. (May 09, 2007).  “Hamas may revise jihad-promoting ‘Mickey Mouse Program.” Cybercast News Service.

Hadid, D. (May 8, 2007).  "Hamas 'Mickey Mouse' wants Islam takeover."  AP.

Shubert, A. (May 15, 2007). “Hamas kids TV show with militant mouse to air Friday.”  CNN. 

AFP.  (May 10, 2007). “Hamas TV refuses to Axe copycat Mickey Mouse.” News.sawf.org.

BBC News. (June 30, 2007) “Hamas 'Mickey Mouse' killed off: A Palestinian TV station has killed off a controversial Mickey Mouse look alike that critics said was spreading anti-US and anti-Israeli messages to children,” BBC.

Spiegel Online International. (May 9, 2007) “Hamas Mickey Mouse Teaches Jihad.”  Spiegel Online International.

Smith, Stephen. (May 11, 2007).”Hamas ‘Mickey Mouse’ Back On The Air. Children's TV: Character Teaching Anti-Israel Messages To Palestinian Kids Returns Despite Protests.” CBS.

AP.  (June 29, 2007). “Hamas TV show kills militant mouse character.” www.CNN.com.

Bazelon, Emily (2007)  “Watching Holy Land Sesame Street.” Slate Magazine. 

Hannity and Colmes. (October 15, 2007) “Shocking Video: Hamas Recruits Toddlers for Terror Campaign.”  Fox News.

See also as examples of the media monitoring organizations that flagged it as an example of incitement programming: Marcus, I. and Crook, B. (May 14, 2007).  “Hamas Mickey Mouse creator: Islamic rule will benefit Christians and Jews.” Palestinian Media Watch.

MEMRI TV Project. (April 13, 2007). “A Mickey Mouse Character on Hamas TV Teaches Children about Islamic Rule of the World.” MEMRI TV Monitor Project transcript.

[2] See MEMRI TV’s martyrdom subjects section archive including, for example a program featuring Sheik Ahmad al-Qattan on the Islamic religious channel Iqra in 2004, promoting martyrdom as a childrearing practice to parents.

[3] Anti-Jewish programs encourage the adoption of negative intergroup attitudes, or prejudice and discrimination against Jews on the basis of their religious identity.

[4] See MEMRI TV's antisemitism documentation subjects section related archive, including for example  an anti-Jewish incitement program featuring a child broadcast on Iqra in 2002.

[5] For a discussion that differentiates between types of political units within the world system, including by comparing and contrasting empires with states, see Spruyt, H. (1994) The Sovereign State and Its Competitors.  Princeton: Princeton University Press.

[6] I use the term “inter-state system” as an adaptation of a term used by Lars-Erik Cederman to describe the puzzle-like matrix that currently houses the world's people. Cederman points out that terms like international relations, or as is appropriate for my current usage, international system, are really misnomers. In institutional terms, the world is currently divided into states, not nations.  Cederman, L.-E.(1997). Emergent Actors in World Politics.  How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

[7] See Spruyt (p. 180) for an interesting discussion about how the inter state system "imposes structural limits on the type of units that are possible and will be recognized by the other actors as legitimate forms of organization in international politics."  This discussion sheds light on the challenges a non-state institution, such as a territorial umma, would pose to the system. It helps to explain why, apart from the ethnopolitically religious exclusivist identity an umma presupposes – in essence foisting upon all the identity of one - its emergence would be problematic for the existence of all states across the inter-state system.  Spruyt, H. (1994). Ibid note # 4.

[8] For a discussion about Hamas’s related political ideology, see Litvak, M. “The Anti-Semitism of Hamas.” Palestine-Israel Journal. 12 (2 & 3), 2005. 41-52.

[9] Nixon, E., Bing-Canar, A and Bing-Canar J. (1990)  “Status of Palestinian Children during the Uprising in the Occupied Territories.” Part I: (1 & 2) Child Death and Injury.

Nashef, Y. (1992). The Psychological Impact of the Intifada on Palestinian Children living in Refugee Camps in the West Bank as Reflected in their dreams, drawings and behavior. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.

Quota, S, Punamaki, R.-L. and El Sarraj, E. (1995). “The Relations Between Traumatic Experiences, Activity, and Cognitive and Emotional Responses Among Palestinian Children.” International Journal of Psychology. 30 (3) 289-304.

Garbarino, J and K. Kostelny. (1996) “The effects of political violence on Palestinian children’s behavior problems: A risk accumulation model.“ Child Development. 67. Pp. 33-45.

Quota, S, Punamaki, R.-L. and El Sarraj, E. (1997). “House demolition and mental health: Victims and witnesses.” Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless. 6 (3). 203-211.

Amnesty International (2002, October). “Israel and the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority. Killing the Future: Children in the Line of Fire.” London: Amnesty International Publications.

Defense for Children International/Palestine Section. (2004). “Status of Palestinian Children’s Rights: Israeli’s violations of the right to life and security and the rights of children deprived of their liberty during the second intifada” (20 September 2000-30 June 2004).

[10] Nashef, Y. (1992). Ibid note # 8.

Barber, B. K. (1997). “Palestinian children and adolescents during and after the intifada.”  Palestine-Israel Journal, 4 (1), 23–33.

Kuttab, D. (1998, Spring). “A profile of the stonethrowers” [Electronic version].  Journal of Palestine Studies, 17(3), 14–23.

Kuttab, J. (1998, Summer). “The children’s revolt” [Electronic version]. Journal of Palestine Studies, 17(4), 26–35.

Rouhana, K. (1989, Summer). “Children and the intifadah” [Electronic version].  Journal of Palestine Studies, 18(4), 110–121.

Quota, S, Punamaki, R.-L. and El Sarraj, E. (1995). “The Relations Between Traumatic Experiences, Activity, and Cognitive and Emotional Responses Among  Palestinian Children.” International Journal of Psychology. 30 (3) 289-304.

Defense for Children International/Palestine Section. (2004). Ibid note # 8.

[11] See Van Slyck, M.. Stern, M. and Zak-Place, J. (July 1996). “Promoting Optimal Adolescent Development Through Conflict Resolution Education, Training, and Practice: An Innovative Approach for Counseling Psychologists.”  The Counseling Psychologist.  24 (3) 433-461.

[12] Johnson and Johnson, 1994 cited in Van Slyck, Stern & Zak-Place, 1996.  Ibid note #10.

[13] Van Slyck, M.R. and Stern, M. (1991). “Conflict resolution in educational settings: Assessing the Impact of Peer Mediation Programs”. In K. Duffy, P. Olczak & J.  Grosch (Eds.). The Art and Science of Community Mediation: A Handbook for Practitioners and Researchers, pp. 257-274. NY: Guilford.

[14] Wagner, W. (1996). “Facilitating Optimal Development in Adolescents and Introductory Remarks.”  The Counseling Psychologist. 24, pp. 357-359.

[15] The empirical literature on conflict resolution strategies and children draws upon the relationship between individual level interpersonal conflicts and child development.  From an area studies perspective, one might, therefore, criticize the use of this literature in application to political conflicts.  However, despite such a caveat, activists like Mubarak Awad have made cogent arguments that in fact claim these very same strategies as appropriate.  The best strategies Palestinians can adopt for resolving political conflict, according to Awad, are strategies of non-violence, and the teaching of these values.  See Awad, M. (1984, Summer). “Non-violent resistance. A strategy for the occupied territories.” Journal of Palestine Studies.  13 (4) 22-36.

[16] I would hypothesize that martyrdom programs comprise a minority share of all Palestinian television programming as measured by my analysis of and understanding of television shows listed in Media - the guide to television programs available in the Palestinian Authority.  However, such a claim of course needs to be empirically validated by a formal content analysis of the contents of all Palestinian television programs.

[17] See as an example a quote from Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus, “The children - through this loveable image are receiving poisonous messages and they don’t even realize they’re being poisoned,” in a news piece by Roth.  Roth, R. (2007, May 11). ”Militant Mickey Mouse.” London: CBS News Video. http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=2793570n   

See also a quote from Palestinian Minister of Information Mustafa Barghouti, "I demanded that Hamas suspend the program and they have withdrawn it, because it was wrong to use a program directed at children to convey political messages” in a piece by al-Mughrabi. Al-Mughrabi, N. (2007, May 10, 9: 46AM). “Palestinians shelf Islamic ‘Mickey Mouse’ TV show.”  New Zealand Herald.

Implicit in both these statements - coming from very different points along the political spectrum - was the assumption that these programs have a harmful direct effect (or were already having a direct effect) on Palestinian children.

[18] In this vein, the critics’ response is in keeping with popular, and in part, scholarly assumptions that claim there exists a one to one relationship between contents, on the one hand, and their reception or effects, on the other – irrespective of what contents are being debated.

[19] See, for example, Hodge, R. & Tripp, D. (1986). “Children and television: A semiotic approach.” Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Davies, M. M. (1997).  Fake, Fact and Fantasy: Children's Interpretations of Television Reality. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.  

Palmer, P. (1986).  The lively audience. Sydney: Allen & Unwin.

Warshel, Y. (2007). “As Though There is Peace.” : Opinions of Jewish-Israeli Children About Watching Rechov Sumsum/Shara'a Simsim Amidst Armed Political Conflict.  In Lemish, D. and Gotz, M. (Eds.) Children and Media at Times of Conflict and War, Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

[20] McGuire, W. (1986) “The Myth of Massive Media Impact: Savagings and Salvagings.” Public Communication and Behavior. Vol. 1, 173-257.

[21] The mini-series Palestinian Tragedy chronicles Palestinian history as told from the mainstream hegemonic nationalistic narrative.

[22] Rideout, D. and Foehr, U. (2003) Kids and Media in America New York: Cambridge University Press. 

Dorr, A., Kovaric, P. and Doubleday, C. (1989) “Age and content influences on children’s perceptions of the realism of television families,” Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 34: 377-397. 

St. Peters, M., Fitch, M., Huston, A.C., Wright, J.C., & Eakins, D.J. (1991). “Television and families: What do young children watch with their parents.” Child Development, 62, 1409-1423.