"But I didn't say Minnie was crazy..." (Re-Updated)

Sometimes the set-up is just too good to be true. Here's FOX News reporting that Hamas is using a rip-off of the world's most famous cartoon character as a propaganda tool on a weekly children's program.

Excerpts from episodes that aired last month show the squeaky voiced mouse egging on children with nationalistic fervor.

"We, tomorrow’s pioneers, will restore to this nation its glory, and we will liberate Al-Aqsa, with Allah’s will, and we will liberate Iraq, with Allah’s will, and we will liberate the Muslim countries, invaded by murderers,” Farfur says in one episode that aired in April.

The message seems to be working. Poems and songs submitted by young viewers contain violent imagery. "Rafah sings ‘Oh, oh,’" one caller says as Farfur mimes carrying a rifle. "Its answer is an AK-47."

So what's a blogger to do? Go with the obvious "This proves what a Mickey Mouse operation Hamas really is!" or the slightly more analytical "If these people think Israel or the U.S. are evil, oppressive powers, just wait until Disney gets through with them!"

I blog, you decide.

UPDATE: The AP (via Der Spiegel) reports, "On Wednesday, after this story went live, the Palestinian Information Minister Mustafa Barghouti announced that the Hamas-affiliated television station al-Aqsa TV had complied with a government request to pull the show 'Tomorrow's Pioneers' for 'review.' He said the use of a cartoon character to urge Palestinian children to fight Israel and work toward world Islamic domination was a 'mistaken approach.'"

See? I told you those Disney lawyers are enough to scare even the Palestinians! Maybe Hamas should look up those out-of-work puppets from Team America as possible replacements. They struck me as mercenaries under the veneer, anyway.

(Hat tip to memeorandum.)

UPDATE REDUX: And now the Hamas television station is refusing to cancel the show in which the "Mickey Mouse look-alike named Farfur and a little girl [not only] urge resistance against Israel and the United States [but also stress] the importance of daily prayers and drinking milk."

My money's still on Disney parachuting in combat hardened airborne lawyers to kick a little Farfur butt; but who knows, maybe a flanking action by Big Dairy is in the works, too.