UK.gov moves to block Hamas kids site

[Swede]

The Home Office is considering blocking a childrens' website run by the Palestinian group Hamas following suggestions it incites hatred of Jews.
Liverpool MP Louise Ellman, chair of the Labour Jewish Movement, has called on ministers to block access to al-Fateh.net, a webzine launched by Hamas in 2002. Alongside baking recipes and exam advice, the fortnightly publication features tributes to suicide attackers and encourages "love of jihad".
Ellman told The Register: "It's nasty stuff. It incites hatred of Israel and Jews - the government should remove it."


http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/01/14/ellman_hamas/

[azurnoir]

1. wiki entry on al Fateh

it should be noted I am posting this as it is @ the time I post this entry has not been edited since last September I do not expect it stay that way for long

Al-Fateh (Arabic: الفاتح‎, "the conqueror") is the Hamas children's magazine. It is published biweekly in London, and is also posted online “www.al-fateh.net”. It began publication in September 2002, and its 108th issue was released in mid-September 2007. The magazine features stories, poems, riddles, and puzzles. The site states it is for "the young builders of the future" and it has a link to the Hamas official web site.<1>
Contents


* 1 Criticism
o 1.1 Glorification of Suicide Operations
o 1.2 Antisemitic Content
* 2 Response
* 3 Notes and references
* 4 See also

Criticism

Several Israeli reviews and news coverages of the site describe it as hate-mongering and accuse it of glorifying death and suicide for God. <2><3><4>
Glorification of Suicide Operations

According to MEMRI, the magazine includes incitement to jihad and martyrdom and glorification of terrorist operations and of their planners and perpetrators. as well as characterizations of Jews as "murderers of the prophets" and laudatory descriptions of parents who encourage their sons to kill Jews. In each issue, a regular feature titled "The Story of a Martyr" presents the "heroic deeds" of a mujahid from one of the organizations who died in a suicide operation (including operations against civilians) or who was killed by the IDF.

MEMRI also says that the magazine includes illustrations of figures (including child warriors) who embody the ancient Islamic ethos of jihad and martyrdom, presenting them as role models. These include the magazine's titular character, Al-Fateh ("The Conqueror") - a small boy on a horse brandishing a drawn - as well as children carrying guns, and photos of Hamas fighters launching Qassam rockets.<5>

According to the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) and others, "Issue number 38 of Al-Fateh, includes a photograph of the decapitated head of a female suicide bomber."<1><6><7>

According to the Anti-defamation League, an issue from March 1, 2006 (after Hamas won control of the Palestinian parliament) highlights Hamas suicide bomber, Nassim Jabari, who participated in an August 2004 attack that killed 16 people in Israel. The issue also shows a figure (below) of a girl throwing stones from a slingshot, and a poem next to the figure which in part reads: "The blood of the shahid has taught us/that martyrdom is like a new life…/and indeed martyrdom is an evident victory."<8>. An issue from May 1, 2007, includes a "games" section with a virtual "Chutes and Ladders" board game consisting of images of Israeli soldiers with snake bodies and tongues and caricatures of children throwing stones, titled "The Palestinian kid and the Israeli soldier".<9>

According to PMW, suicide terror for children is glorified on Hamas children's web site. On March 15, 2006 the website posted a short fictional story for children, glorifying a young girl's suicide terror attack. It describes how she calmly progresses, step by step, planning and executing her death in a suicide terror attack. The girl heroically leads "Zionist soldiers" to their death, all the while knowing she will be killed along with them. In death she is said to be "smiling, lying on the grass, because she died as a Shahida (Martyr for Allah) for Palestine." The story is entitled "A Palestinian Girl's Heroism."<10><11>
Antisemitic Content

According to the ADL the website also "advocates hatred of Jews".<12>

According to MEMRI, Issue No. 35 tells of a girl named Asra who accompanies her grandmother on a visit to Palestinian prisoners in an Israeli jail. She asks her grandmother about the peace "that everyone is talking about," and her grandmother replies: "Do not forget, Asra, that we are dealing with the Jews, whom the Koran describes very explicitly. All these descriptions are clearly confirmed by today's . The Koran gives a very accurate characterization . For example... they lie. In the past, they murdered the envoys of peace, prophets whom Allah had sent to justice and peace and to deliver people from the darkness into the light. killed them, and also tried to kill the Prophet Muhammad in Medina. Today, they kill the followers of God's messenger."<5>
Response

After PMW publicized that the Hamas children's website was encouraging children to seek martyrdom, the Russian server (CORBINA TELECOM Network Operations) immediately closed down the website on March 9, 2006. However, the site reopened a couple of days later and is now being hosted by a Malaysian webhoster. <10>

Hamas has denied involvement in the website. Farhat Abu-Assad, a Hamas official in Ramallah, told the Jerusalem Post that many Islamic sites sympathize with Hamas "but that does not make them Hamas Web sites. The are private individuals that might sympathize with Hamas, but Hamas does not recognize these Web sites."<13>.

However, according to Palestinian Media Watch, a man by the name of Nizar Hussein who sits in Lebanon runs the children's Hamas Web site, and works together with leading Hamas official in Lebanon, Osama Hamdan.<13>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Fateh

[LeftishBrit]

2. It certainly doesn't sound very suitable for children...

I should note that the site appears to be only in Arabic, and that not very many people in the UK speak Arabic as a first language. British Muslim kids (who are mostly of South Asian origin) are likely to be taught Arabic formally in order to read the Koran, but I doubt that most will be spending a lot of time on Arabic-language websites. Nonetheless, it is NOT a good idea for hate-sites to be readily accessible to children (whether Hamas or some other group is running this one).