In our hilariously stupid American culture wars elementary schools are the battlegrounds of tomorrow’s heroes. Liberals die on Drag Queen Story Hour hill, terrified the “NAZI CIS-FASCISTS!” will steal their stunning and brave unicorn genderwangs or outlaw their rainbow abortions.
Rightards, to form, can see Satan in every fancy gay dance outfit and a pedophile under every pizza. And bless them all.
I grew up before and away from all this, in Australia in the 1970s. We had kangaroo boxing, snake n’ shark attack drills and Fosters beer tasting as kids. Good times. Aussie times.
But in other regions, now and continuously since before the 1970s, they operate in a less fraught educational environment. Palestinian and education generally in the Islamosphere is much less conflicted. It is deeply rooted in various 1,300 year old certainties and modern obsessions.
With such moral certainty one can instill a terrifying determination only children can attain and when imprinted is almost impossible to argue out of later in life. Brainwashing at an early age is permanent, stable and almost irreversible as any child psychologist will attest.
The certainty comes from religion in general and Islam in particular. In this case direct from the wild, shameless anti-Semitism of the Koran and Hadith which is well documented in the book The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism.
And if you mix that with totally failed Third World Socialism – which, curiously, some still take seriously (Hello Nasser fans, Castro, Lumumba and many assorted Husseins! – I could list more…), and throw in an apocalyptic hard-on for murder Jihad you get the flex of modern Palestinian nationalism.
The evidence for this we can see on youtube collated from Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI.org), a translatory service which brings us the worst but also the average ideology of Islamic media. They report a subset of videos depicting school plays down to kindergarten level which exist on a surreal moral plain.
Let’s Explore, Kids!
Here… we see Gaza Kindergarten Ceremony. Includes hostage taking! (5 minutes)
Here’s another – kids with a nerdy mascots chatting about various insane conspiracies. (1 minute)
Techo-beat, weapons, Jew-kill, this video has it all. A must see for religious maniacs or Palestinian kids everywhere! (West Bank, 4 min.)
These are a small selection of what goes on every school year, particularly in Gaza/West Bank informed by the larger Arab world’s fundamental ideology.
Of course with technology now the teachers have help in the form of internet ditties like this Yemeni Houthi one to help the kiddies’ learning process.
But let’s leave this surreal horror show aside and zoom in on the main question of this article:
If you were a kindergarten teacher there what would be the challenges of putting on such a play?
You’ve got the fake swords and guns, easy to buy. The Jerusalem burning sets were built before you were born, though some in the videos are new and snazzy.
Military marching and maneuvers aren’t hard to teach kids – just put the more coordinated ones, the soccer stars probably, at the front. They can practice shouting their cute little genocidey, fundamentalist chants and slogans after class.
The problems of putting on the play isn’t the sets, nor the pre-written script but rather picking the players in this mini-kiddy-spectacular. A conundrum for any teacher.
How do you decide which kids play the head banded heroes and which kids play the enemy?
Perhaps the top students get the prestige roles: as liberators, as hero killers of the cursed (see Quran) Jews. They’ll surely grow up to be the most celebrated terrorist paragliders, subsidized by US/EU money via UNRWA and the Palestinian Authority. They’ll be the suicide bombers of tomorrow and will bring celebrity, towering social power and pay-for-slay pensions for their families and the school.
In the MEMRI.org videos they pan to the audience who are beaming: proud as parents at school plays everywhere. They’re familiar with the sturm und drang, the wild emotionalism of the plays, probably remembering the sets and the (maybe) fake Kalashnikovs because as children they were in the same plays! “My little guy, playing Yasser Arafat just like I did as a tyke.” It brings a proud tear to Dad’s eye. Mom, peeping out behind her chador, is surely ecstatic though we can’t see – nor should we of course as she is a woman.
There’s our Walid folks, see him grin as little Wally beheads the “Jew”…oh and Abdul is giving that gun all he’s worth too.
Pan to the grandparents! Grandkids are life’s little rewards for the trials of parenthood aren’t they? And grandad and grandma were in the same play in the 1960s – though the headbands possibly had a touch of paisley then. All this was in the same UNRWA schools, the same Islamic genocide factories and martyr academies western democracies paid for half a century ago and still do.
It is the beautiful circle of life, the wholesomeness of Jew slaughter and the holy promise of a perfect Caliphate built on Jew bones smack dab on the Dome of the Rock.
Here’s a really sticky question though: Who plays the cursed Jews in Palestinian kindergarten plays?
The slow kids? Troublemakers?
Imagine in class: teacher to little Tariq whose behavior and grades aren’t excellent: “TARIQ! – Damn it child – if you don’t lift your game you’ll be playing Shlomo’s decapitated corpse at the end of year play! Because half the kids in this class are gonna have to play Israeli usurpers and hostages and Tariq you’re headed -hehehe – be-headed! – right that way my little friend!”
“And YOU, Ahmed, if you don’t buck up you’ll play the Jew corpse that all the other kids spit on. Want that? Now sit down and memorize our holiest text: “Do not take the Jews and Christians as friends” (Quran, Sura 5.51) or from Sura 4.46: “Allah has cursed the Jews on account of their unbelief.”
While we in the US are fretting about genderwang and back in my country of birth the koala verses emu football matches are proceeding apace no doubt, other parts of the world are teaching tomorrow’s generation very different lessons.
Built on the Quran’s virulent, crazy antisemitism the above plays and the “in the air” ethno-chauvinism are probably why there is no “Palestinian Co-Exist” or peace movement at all and there will not be for our – and little Ahmeds and Tariqs’ – entire lifetimes.
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IMAGINARY POSTCRIPT: In 2035 Ahmed became the most famous suicide bomber from Khan Yunis. Dead Jew Count: 3 at a Tel Aviv taxi stand. Ahmed’s martyrdom pays $5,430 annually for life to his proud parents thanks to the American taxpayer.
Tariq lifted his game and reached great heights of Instagram fame by repurposing footage of Syrian atrocities as Zionist. His “Starving Babies” Pallywood tick-toc reel won him an Emmy from elite Hollywood in 2030. Susan Sarandon voted him “Most Inspiring.”
ADDENDUM: All claims about the Australian education system are parody. Sadly.
David Anderson is an Australian-American attorney in New York City with a B.A. (Hon.) in Middle East politics from the University of Melbourne and Georgetown University, extensive travel in the region and a luke-warm command of Arabic.
Above photo Fars Media Corporation, CC BY 4.0