Iranian children watched this very disturbing cartoon (hattip: The Free West) on Iranian TV last week. Is this considered a normal, acceptable TV show that doesn’t raise eyebrows in that society?
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If you don’t want cartoons about the evils of killing innocent people, don’t kill innocent people. Duh.
Posted by Anonymous
Anonymous, I think you are missing the point. This cartoon is teaching children to turn themselves into suicide bombers. Also, the accuracy of the depiction of the Israeli soldiers is open for debate (it has the air of propaganda rather than a portrayal of what is really happening).
Posted by john fowles
I could play the clip since it was Windows only. But I’m not sure its surprising to see stuff like this from the Iranian point of view. Are all the films from the 80’s and 90’s with Arab terrorists like True Lies really that much better?
One can of course argue with the desire to have people be suicide bombers. But a lot of war films glamorize fighting in war and (often) dying a glamorous death.
One should expect this. The lines are becoming more and more drawn in the overall conflict between the two cultures.
Posted by clark
rzlcThanks Clark. To be fair, this cartoon depicts a boy strapping grenades around his waist and then jumping into a convoy of Israeli soldiers. So it is, I suppose, a step up from depicting what is really happening in Palestine/Israel: young men blowing themselves up on civilian buses and in civilian restaurants and markets with civilian, not military, casualties. Without a free media, however, I truly wonder what exactly the average Iranian citizen thinks is happening in Palestine (and what that citizen thinks the Palestinian terrorists are really doing).
Posted by john fowles