Linda Sarsour Indoctrinates Small Children to Hate Israel (@Kweansmom)

This is a guest post from @Kweansmom. 

In a Youtube video uploaded by Noor Kids, Linda Sarsour and host Amin Aaser deliver a lesson in hatred to Muslim children ages 5-12. 

Entitled, "David + Goliath: Learning About Palestine", the two promote lies about the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, teaching children that the Jewish people have no history in the Israel and that Israel is a "bad, violent bully" who kills small children. The Noor Kids youtube channel has over 23K subscribers from all over the world.  They promote themselves as "Harvard-sponsored" but it seems that the Aaser brothers who created it once received a grant for their business plan from Harvard Business School and there is no ongoing financial relationship between them and Harvard. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVRb3u84H-M

The video starts off with Aaser, one of the two founders of Noor kids, retelling the story of David and Goliath, only in this version, Prophet Daoud is a Muslim, as are the Bani Isra'il, which is the Arabic term for Jews in the Quran. In other words, the Muslims are the true Jews. The story is not only historically inaccurate (King David lived around 1000 BCE, 1500 years before Mohammed was born) but deeply offensive to Jews.  This erases our very identity.  

After finishing the story, Aaser explains to his audience that they may have heard relatives talking about Palestine, and that he will now explain how they can stand up to bullies like Goliath.  He goes on to connect the dots: "If you've been watching the news, the Palestinians have been getting bullied for 100 years" and shows the children the erroneous, debunked "Map That Lies" that MSNBC had to apologize for. 

Enter Linda Sarsour.  With a bright smile, she feeds the young audience a series of falsehoods, such as the myth that before 1948 everyone got along peacefully in Palestine until suddenly foreigners came and decided to kick people out of their homes.  She tells them that in Palestine there are so many young beautiful boys and girls just like them who sometimes can't go to school because there are military in their neighborhood who scare them with big guns and throw weapons at them. She claims that Israel doesn't let kids in Gaza go to the beach. She urges them to think about how they would feel if this happened to them.  Aaser suggests that it's as if someone came into their homes and declared, "All your toys are mine now". He compares the UN to the adult in the room, and explains that even the UN agrees that Israel is a big bully. Sarsour solemnly explains to the children that Palestinian kids are surrounded by barbed wire because their neighbors don't want to go to the same schools and stores as them.  "Palestinians have a right to defend themselves from bullies" she explains, helping the children understand that terrorism is justified.  Finally, she drives the point home: "The State of Israel is the bully. They have killed little children. Just in the last ten days, little boys and girls were killed...so this is a really big bad violent bully".

What can the children in audience do to help the poor victimized Palestinians?

 -- Keep talking about Palestine to your friends and neighbors

 -- Tell your parents to find good organizations and send them money so Palestinian children can have food, clean water and toys (never mind that all money that goes to Gaza passes through Hamas' hands)

 -- Tell your parents to call their members of congress to stop giving Israel money to do bad things to Palestine.

All of this rhetoric is familiar to those who have been following Linda Sarsour's career. She is a very vocal and popular propagandist for those who wish to see Israel destroyed, and she's been active in promoting the political careers of those who follow her anti-Israel agenda.  What's new here is her attempt to brainwash small children to hate Israel by erasing Jewish history, whitewashing terrorism, and demonizing the Jewish state as baby killers.  This is classic antisemitism, disguised as "criticism of the Israeli government".  It's especially disturbing that she's using such hateful words to indoctrinate small children.

Sarsour loves to promote her "Jewish friends" at IfNotNow and Jewish Voice for Peace who question the one-sided narratives they were raised with about Israel. But she has no problem promoting a false narrative to Muslim children which erases Jewish history.  Where is the IfNotNow for Muslim children, who will later say, "You never told me"? How do the "100 Jewish leaders" who declared in 2017 that they "stand with Linda" feel now? Does Linda stand with them?    https://forward.com/fast-forward/373499/prominent-jewish-leaders-issue-letter-in-solidarity-with-linda-sarsour/

 

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