It's All About Tom and Jerry, Amr Khaled and Iqra, Not Hamas's Mickey Mouse: Palestinian Children's Cultural Practices Ar

MEJCC Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 brill.nl/mjcc

It’s All about Tom And Jerry , Amr Khaled and Iqra, Not Hamas’s Mickey Mouse: Palestinian Children’s Cultural Practices around the Television Set

Yael Warshel* Research Fellow, Center for Middle East Development, University of California at Los Angeles, 11361 Bunch Hall, Box 951487, LA, CA 90095-1487, USA Email: [email protected] ; website: http://yaelwarshel1.blogspot.com

Abstract Interest in the efffect of martyrdom television programming on Palestinian children’s culture culminated in 2007, after Hamas’s Al-Aqsa television station tried to promote its political platform with the aid of a Mickey Mouse look-alike character in The Pioneers of Tomorrow. Critics of this television program assumed that martyrdom programs must have a major impact on Palestinian children. Although this assertion may seem reasonable, it is not supported by my research exploring how Palestinian children use television amidst a cultural context pervaded by ongoing conflict. My analysis reveals, among other important fĳindings, that Palestinian children do not watch martyrdom programs. Thus, somewhat unexpectedly and contrary to concerns voiced about Palestinian martyrdom programming, Palestinian children have not been tuning in. Above all else, Palestinian children negotiate the available options by choosing to tune into global, rather than local Palestinian television content. The television program they consume the most is Tom and Jerry . Their parents, on the other hand, prefer that they watch religious programming, including that which airs on Iqra, and that which is hosted by modernist Muslim televangelist Amr Khaled. Nevertheless, family practices around the television set indicate, ultimately, that these children, not their parents, decide what to consume. My fĳindings are based on survey analysis of Palestinian children’s television consumption decisions, surveys of their parents’ opinions about these decisions, my viewing of related television programs, and ethnographic analysis of related family practices around the television set. I conducted my analysis during a period of two and a half years with over 400 Palestinians in the Palestinian Authority and Israel.

* An earlier version of this article received the Middle East Studies Association Top Student Paper Award for 2008. The author wishes to thank all the families that allowed her research assistants and her into their homes; her research assistants, Jasmine Mhagne, Rola Hilo, Hikmat Al-Nahal and Sonia Weksler, and colleague, Noman Qabaha, for their assistance; and Carol Padden for her methodological advice. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the authors. She is thankful for the assistance provided to her, including by those of varying viewpoints. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2012 DOI 10.1163/187398612X637351 Y. Warshel / 212 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245

Keywords children’s media , martyrdom programming , Al-Aqsa TV , Iqra , Hamas , Amr Khaled , Israeli- Palestinian conflict , Tom and Jerry, anti-Jewish programming, cultural diplomacy, religion

Interest in the efffect of martyrdom television programming on Palestinian children culminated in 2007. Martyrdom programs encourage the use of violent strategies such as suicide bombings to manage situations of violent conflict, and make claims to religion as a justifĳication for adopting such strategies. International interest in these television programs culminated after Hamas’s Al-Aqsa television station tried to promote its political platform with the aid of a Mickey Mouse look-alike character in the television program, The Pioneers of Tomorrow. This television program featured Farfour, the Mickey Mouse character, “borrowed” from the United States’ cadre of cultural diplomacy icons. Critics of the television program assumed that martyrdom programs were having a major impact on Palestinian children. Although this assertion might seem reasonable, it was not supported by my fĳield research on Palestinian children’s television consumption habits, their parents’ related opinions and family practices around the television set. Among other important conclusions, I found that Palestinian children were not watching martyrdom programs. Thus, somewhat unexpectedly and contrary to concerns voiced about Palestinian martyrdom programming, Palestinian children were not tuning in. These fĳindings were derived from my larger study about the role of media in ameliorating and fomenting political conflict. My study assessed the use and reception of media by Jewish-Israeli and Palestinian children. Among the latter, these included Palestinian children who are citizens of the Palestinian Authority, and separate from them, citizens of Israel, or Palestinian-Israelis. In this paper I emphasize those fĳindings that pertain to the use of media by the Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli samples. The results widen the discussion about the impact of martyrdom programs on Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli children that have until now been discussed without reference to empirical evidence.

The Controversy over Th e Pioneers of Tomorrow and Martyrdom Programming

The program, The Pioneers of Tomorrow, has been widely criticized, namely for advocating an Islamic umma in territorial terms, and separate from that, Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 213 the use of violence against Jews. The program was flagged by a wide array of news media outlets around the world and criticized by media monitoring organizations because of the harmful efffects its messages were assumed to be having on its child-targeted audience.1 The controversy it generated since spawned a wikipedia page2 devoted entirely to the television program and several YouTube clips.3 Thus, contrary to earlier effforts by media monitoring organizations to raise awareness about the existence in Arab and Islamic media of incitement programs such as martyrdom4 and anti-Jewish programming 5 —including those intended for or featuring children 6 — these organizations now managed to successfully create an international discourse around the subject of martyrdom programs.

The Contents of Th e Pioneers of Tomorrow

A Critique of the Contents

Much of the criticisms leveled against the contents of The Pioneers of Tomorrow and related approaches of martyrdom programs are appropriate. However, criticism of the interpretation and impact of martyrdom programs’ contents have not been justifĳied. With respect to criticism of the contents of the Pioneers of Tomorrow, fĳirst, its message campaign is problematic because in various episodes it has encouraged the establishment of

1 To name just a few of the media outlets that included information discussing the harmful efffects of the program, see Stahl (2007), Hadid (2007) , Schubert (2007), Agence France- Presse (2007), BBC (2007), Spiegel Online International (2007), CBS/AP (2007), Chicago Tribune (2007), Bazelon (2007), Hannity & Colmes (2007) . For the media monitors critical of it see MEMRI TV (2007) and Palestinian Media Watch ( Marcus and Crook 2007). 2 See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow%27s_Pioneers . 3 See as examples: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkNE__TiMZo&feature=related . www .youtube.com/watch?v=18KVOeJR33w&feature=related . www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcm HvczBGqg&feature=related . 4 See MEMRI TV’s martyrdom subjects section archive including, for example, a program featuring Sheik Ahmad al-Qattan on the Islamic religious channel Iqra that aired in 2004, promoting martyrdom as a child rearing practice to parents. Available at http://www .memritv.org/subject/en/215.htm. 5 Anti-Jewish programs encourage the adoption of negative intergroup attitudes, or prejudice, and discrimination against Jews on the basis of their religious identity. 6 See MEMRI TV’s anti-semitism documentation subjects section related archive, including, for example, an anti-Jewish incitement program featuring a child broadcast on Iqra, in 2002. Available at: http://www.memritv.org/subject/en/364.htm . Y. Warshel / 214 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 a territorial Islamic umma. That is, it has sought to establish an institutional unit that is coterminous with the transnational existence of Islam across the world system, and what, therefore, constitutes an empire, and one that is exclusivist. An empire, meanwhile, runs contrary to normative conven- tions concerning the sanctity of the inter-state system. 7 By comparison, a state is as an institutional unit 8 that is consistent with the existence of the inter-state system,9 or the system that currently characterizes our world system. Additional states, together with currently existing ones (be they Israel or any other), constitute part and parcel of the mutually reinforcing inter-state system.10 By instead advocating for the establishment of an empire and, specifĳically one that is to be represented by only one ethnopo- litical identity, the program seeks to foist the identity of one upon all. Doing so amounts to a claim that only one group of people, and no others across the vast inter-state system, have a right to self-autonomy. Second, its contents are problematic because it, like other anti-Jewish programs, advocates the adoption of prejudice against Jews on the basis of their religious identity. And third, like other martyrdom programs, it condones and advocates violent non-conciliation, in this case, as the appropriate strategy Palestinian children should pursue towards peace-making with Jewish-Israelis.

The program as a Hamas Cultural Diplomacy Strategy

The program’s message campaign reflects Hamas’ political philosophy. The program, therefore, can be considered an efffort by Hamas to use media to

7 See Henryk Spruyt for a discussion about how the inter-state system “imposes struc- tural limits on the type of units that are possible and will be recognized by the other actors as legitimate forms of organization in international politics” (Spruyt 1994: 180). This discussion sheds light on the challenges a non-state institution, such as a territorial umma, poses to the system, and therefore, why, apart from the ethno-politically religious exclusivist identity it presupposes, its emergence is problematic for the existence of state units. 8 For a discussion that diffferentiates between types of political units within the world system, including by comparing and contrasting empires with states, see Spruyt (1994) . 9 I use the term “inter-state system” as an adaptation of a term used by Lars-Erik Cederman (1997) to describe the puzzle-like matrix that currently houses the world’s people. Cederman points out that terms like international relations, or as is appropriate for my current usage, international system, are really misnomers. In institutional terms, the world is currently divided into states, not nations. 10 See both Spruyt (1994) and Giddens (1985) for discussion about how states as units entrench and mutually reinforce other states’ existence. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 215 promote its political philosophy and related strategies. This is because fĳirst, Hamas, like the television program, has advocated the establishment of a territorial Islamic umma, as measured by the contents of its covenant (Hamas 1988). 11 Second, Hamas, like the television program, adopts preju- diced attitudes against Jews, again as measured by the contents of its covenant. And as well explained by Meir Litvak, “Unlike non-Islamist Palestinian groups, Hamas makes no distinction between Judaism and Zionism, and uses Zionists and Jews interchangeably. Judaism, according to Hamas, is a ‘religion that stipulates racism and hostility towards others’” (Litvak 2005), such that, Hamas holds prejudicial attitudes toward Jews on the basis of their religious identity. Third, Hamas’s political approach to peace-making, like The Pioneers of Tomorrow, condones and advocates the use of violent strategies like suicide bombings to manage the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In short, given the consistency in message, the television program The Pioneers of Tomorrow , therefore, parallels Hamas’s own ideological orienta- tion. The program can, therefore, be viewed as an example of cultural diplomacy. That is, Hamas made use of its television station, Al-Aqsa TV, to broadcast its own brand of soft-power public diplomacy. In its particular case, it “borrowed” a cultural icon from the United States—Mickey Mouse—to package its diplomatic message. In turn, it targeted that message—an exclusivist territorial umma and prejudice and violence—toward its child audience in an attempt to foster political change.

Strategies Modeled by the Contents of Martyrdom Programming

The themes of martyrdom programming constitute a harmful approach to child development. Thus, apart from martyrdom programs that advocate that violence be targeted against individuals on the basis of their group identity, whether Jewish or otherwise, and therefore seeking to influence their viewers to adopt specifĳically prejudicial, violent tactics (as is the case with The Pioneers of Tomorrow ); by design, martyrdom programs model

11 There are those who would argue that Hamas seeks to establish a state. I am not refut- ing such an argument if measures other than contents are used as a justifĳication. However, when specifĳically analyzing the contents of Hamas’s covenant, I would argue it is, in fact, advocating for an empire. Like all written political platforms, the covenant of course constitutes one measure for assessing an organization—in this case, those of its authors and organizational sponsors’ expressed goals. Here I employ their covenant precisely because it directly parallels the measure I am using in this passage to discuss The Pioneers of Tomorrow —contents. Y. Warshel / 216 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 strategies harmful for child development. That is, by trying to promote the use and development of violent skills, instead of nonviolence, and more specifĳically, conflict-resolution skills as mechanisms for children to deal with the reality of their conflict-ridden lives, martyrdom programs adopt methods that are known empirically to be harmful to development. For this reason, I also argue, martyrdom programs are problematic not just because they encourage violence but because they also model strategies or tactics that are harmful for children’s development. Parenthetically, contrary to critics of martyrdom programs, I am not arguing that these programs teach children about conflict, and are, therefore, problematic. Children who live in zones of conflict, including Palestinian children, are already aware of conflict, given that it is part and parcel of their daily lives. They readily experience it as both its victims 12 and participants . 13 Rather, I am arguing that the approach of such television programs to discussing and responding to the existence of conflict provides a harmful model for its audience. Nonviolent strategies, or specifĳically, conflict resolution skills, in contrast to violent strategies, have been found to foster the positive development of children. According to Van Slyck and colleagues, conflict resolution skills help adolescents learn how to deal more appropriately with interpersonal conflict and stress that can be generalized “to other settings over the course of a lifetime” (Van Slyck, Stern and Zak-Place 1996: 444). These skills enhance critical thinking and problem-solving techniques, and ways of negotiating and mediating interpersonal conflict. “The acquisition of such principles and skills can be viewed as fostering the development of protec- tive mechanisms underlying resiliency and thereby promoting greater competence in coping with life stressors in short term and better overall adolescent adjustment in the long term” (Van Slyck, Stern and Zak-Place 1996: 444). In addition, specifĳic conflict resolution training has been shown to be advantageous to other areas of development, including for example, the improvement of academic performance (Johnson and Johnson 1994, cited in Van Slyck, Stern and Zak-Place), and fostering leadership abilities (Van Slyck and Stern 1991). They offfer the opportunity for adolescents to improve abstract, future oriented and multidimensional thinking (Wagner 1996b), and build hope and self-confĳidence (Wagner 1996a).

12 See Nixon, Bing-Canar & Bing-Canar (1990), Nashef (1992), Quota, Punamaki and El Sarraj (1995), Garbarino and Kostelny (1996), Quota, Punamaki and El Sarraj (1997), Amnesty International (2001 and 2002) , Defense for Children International (2004a). 13 See Nashef (1992), Barber (1997) , D. Kuttab (1998), J. Kuttab (1998), Rouhana (1989) , Quota, Punamaki and El Sarraj (1995), Defense for Children International (2004b). Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 217

Therefore, I argue, using martyrdom programs to teach children how to approach their existing political conflict by using violence, rather than conflict resolution approaches that are known to benefĳit their emotional and cognitive development, is problematic and harmful. 14

Media Effects and Uses and Gratifications-Based Assumptions about Martyrdom Programming

While the contents of martyrdom programs and The Pioneers of Tomorrow , are specifĳically, for the reasons I outlined above, problematic in their own right, critics of such programs are making inaccurate assumptions. The assumed rationale embedded in the criticism and controversy sparked by The Pioneers of Tomorrow was that its messages were directly and powerfully impacting Palestinian children. The critics, who framed their argument as motivated by a concern for Palestinian children, argued that these children were becoming inspired or even trained in violent protest practices as a direct result of their tuning in. 15 Yet they made such an argument without any supporting empirical evidence. 16 The logic of their criticisms rested (whether consciously or not) on the media efffects communication research paradigm. Their concern was that

14 Parenthetically, the literature on conflict resolution strategies and children empha- sizes the relationship between individual level interpersonal conflicts and child development. From an area studies perspective, namely from the perspective of Palestinian political aspirations, one might, therefore, criticize my use of this literature as inappropriate for application to political conflicts. However, despite such a caveat, activists like Mubarak Awad have made cogent arguments, from a Palestinian studies perspective, that in fact claim these very same strategies are appropriate. Namely, strategies of nonviolence, and teaching of these, he argues, are the best strategies Palestinians can and should adopt for resolving political conflict. See Awad (1984) . 15 See as an example a quote from Israel-based Palestinian Media Watch Director Itamar Marcus, “‘The children—through this loveable image are receiving poisonous messages and they don’t even realize they’re being poisoned’”, in a news piece by Roth (2007). See also a quote from the Palestinian minister of information, Mustafa Barghouti, “‘I demanded that Hamas suspend the programme and they have withdrawn it, because it was wrong to use a programme directed at children to convey political messages’” in a piece by al-Mughrabi (2007). Implicit in both these statements—coming from very diffferent points along the political spectrum—was the assumption that these programs have a harmful direct efffect (or were already having a direct efffect) on Palestinian children. 16 In this vein, such critical responses were in-keeping with popular, and in part, scholarly assumptions that claim there exists a one-to-one relationship between contents, on the one hand, and their reception or efffects, on the other—irrespective of what contents are being debated. Y. Warshel / 218 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 the contents of the programming would directly and powerfully influence audience members’ social-psychologically, and, in turn, behaviorally. They argued that the audience (in this case, children) would, therefore, use these messages to develop prejudicial attitudes and beliefs and become inspired and trained in how to perform suicide bombings against Jewish-Israelis. These latter fears on the part of the critics, namely how the audience would use the messages, reflect assumptions consistent with the uses and gratifĳi- cations traditions ( Blumler and Katz 1974 ) subset of the media efffects paradigm. Making such claims, namely that mass mediated messages directly and powerfully influence individual behaviors, however, requires proof. First, it requires proof in the form of an analysis of what messages are contained in the contents of a program, or moreover, such an analysis coupled with a description of the intentions of those who produced and sponsored said contents (or their political goals in this case). Second, it also requires an analysis of how those contents are actually being interpreted by and ultimately influencing their recipients. In other words, in order to prove their claims about the influence this and other programs were exerting on Palestinian children, the critics must include Palestinian children in their analysis. They must provide proof in the form of 1) Palestinian children’s exposure rates to these programs, 2) evidence as to what meaning these children constructed from their contents (namely, that they paralleled the producers and sponsors violent and other expressed goals), and/or 3) evidence confĳirming that, at least, these children’s attitudes, beliefs and/or intended behavioral outcomes became altered as a direct result of having tuned into these programs. With respect to the fĳirst requirement, none of the critics pointed to survey data demonstrating that Palestinian children were actually watching martyrdom programs. Alternatively, as another indicator for potential reception, neither provided evidence suggesting that their parents were specifĳically encouraging them to do so. With respect to this latter measure, in the case of child audiences in particular, it is important to also consider general family television viewing and dynamics in the home, including parents expressed preferences for their children’s viewing choices. These dynamics and preferences may factor into what children ultimately watch and how they make sense of it. This is because, typically, parents make the decision about what subscription packages, if any, are available in the home (and/or whether television is made available), and, in turn, may try to exert influence over what, from among the resultant available options, their children will watch. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 219

With respect to the second requirement, critics of martyrdom programs neither supported their view with audience reception data showing how, if the children were watching (and/or their parents were encouraging them to do so), they were, in turn, interpreting the messages. Third and fĳinally, neither were they citing media efffects research fĳindings showing how, if the children were tuning in, their behaviors were, as a result, being impacted by their assumed exposure. Meanwhile, ample evidence about media reception demonstrates that television programs are, rather, interpreted polysemically, including by children (e.g., Hodge and Tripp 1986 ; Messenger Davies 1997; Palmer 1986; Warshel 2007 ). In addition, as William McGuire demonstrated in an exhaus- tive meta-analysis, media do not have direct and powerful efffects on peoples’ behaviors ( McGuire 1986 )—whether those people are adults or children. 17 A child tuning in to a television program can interpret a program’s message in a manner opposite to what its producers and sponsors intended and, in turn, act upon it in a manner that is reverse from what they—whether media professionals employed by Hamas’s Al-Aqsa station and its fĳinancial and political backers—or any other producers and sponsors intend. Thus, the critics did not provide evidence for their assumptions, and in addition, went against the grain of established empirical evidence about the reception and impact of messages. Therefore, the agenda about martyrdom programming, as it has become confĳigured, lacks the voice of its intended audience—in this case, Palestinian children. As a result, the question of whether these programs have a harmful efffect on Palestinian children, has still not been addressed. So too, whether and what television programming they consume, and what role, if any, these play more broadly in their lives, has been overlooked.

Martyrdom Contents as a Share of Overall Palestinian Television Production

The production of martyrdom programs is an important consideration when making an assessment of television professionals’ intended aims. The existence of a martyrdom television genre is a problematic component of Palestinian media production, and of any other peoples’ media who

17 See, as related, the literature about parent’s mediation of their children’s television viewing in Nathanson (1999) . Y. Warshel / 220 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 produce such contents. In this respect, the agenda of Palestinian martyrdom television producers does not bode well, either for concerns about violence directed against Jewish-Israelis or the healthy development of Palestinian children who are sufffering from the ramifĳications of growing up in a zone of conflict in the fĳirst place. 18 Alongside this critique, however, it is important to point out that the critics did not offfer any concrete statistical count for the total number of martyrdom programs Palestinian media professionals actually produce. Therefore, it would be a mistake to assume that such programs are necessarily representative of Palestinian programming, including that which is specifĳically created for children. In short, the existence of the martyrdom genre is problematic, but that does not mean that it defĳines Palestinian programming. Therefore, when considering Palestinian children’s responses to the media sphere available to them, it is important to also keep in mind the question of how much of that sphere such programs actually represent. 19

The Existing Evidence about the Influence of Martyrdom Programs

In an efffort to address the controversy over the contents generated by the martyrdom program The Pioneers of Tomorrow, below I turn to a discussion of the research I conducted to provide what, to the best of my knowledge, constitutes the fĳirst empirical evidence about Palestinian children’s television viewing uses and practices, and moreover, those of any Arab children. By doing so I inject evidence into the debate about such programs—a debate that until now assumed that penetration, reception and efffects data had been collected and analyzed before conclusive statements were made about the reception, influence and role these programs were playing in Palestinian children’s lives.

18 See, for example, results from research carried out by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme about the high rates of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among Palestinian children discussed in Punamaki, Quota and El-Sarraj (2001), Quota, El-Sarraj and Punamaki (2001), and Quota and Odeh (2005). 19 I would hypothesize that martyrdom programs comprise a minority share of all Palestinian television programming as measured by my analysis of and understanding of television shows listed in Media— the guide to television programs available in the Palestinian Authority. However, such a claim needs to be empirically validated by a formal content analysis of the contents of all Palestinian television programs. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 221

Methodologies

I conducted the fĳieldwork for this project in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel for a period of two and a half years between 2004 and 2006. The fĳieldwork was comprised of (1) multi-sighted ethnographic analysis, (2) home-based surveys addressing children’s television and electronic game consumption habits, and (3) their parents’ preferences regarding those habits. In addition, (4) I also viewed and engaged with relevant television and electronic games. I carried out the multi-sited ethnographic research across several communities in order to obtain a more holistic view of children’s uses for media in the context of daily family life. In doing so, my assistants and/or I spent in-depth time with families during repeated visits to their homes. During these times, we observed family practices around the television set. In addition, as part of the wider ethnographic analyses I performed, I interacted with interviewees outside of their homes in the context of regular community life. Together with my assistants, I randomly administered surveys to more than 550 Palestinians, Palestinian-Israelis and Jewish-Israelis. This total comprised more than 320 children, and 230 corresponding parents. In this paper I focus on the responses from Palestinians residing in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, who together comprised 410 people in the sample. Among them, 242 are children and 168 are parents. Since we administered the surveys in each corresponding family home, apart from the in-depth ethnographic portions we conducted in the home, and which I also conducted outside of the home, we also had the opportunity to view how all the surveyed families arranged their media equipment. By using the home as a survey-site I was able to obtain more in-depth responses. As part of their answers, respondents were, for example, able to point to the location of television sets, computers, phones and so forth, while the children, in particular, were able to demonstrate how they used these. We administered these surveys in addition to performing the in-depth ethnographic home- based observations. As a result, the latter involved additional visits to the homes of 43 families (drawn from the 410 people). The stratifĳied-random sample through which I obtained the total population of 410 was comprised of fĳive- to eight-year-old children, including a roughly equal number of boys and girls. The vast majority of Palestinian and Palestinian-Israelis in the sample were Muslim, per the proportional community level stratifĳied sample I collected from across the Palestinian Authority and Israel. Finally, the vast majority of parents in my sample were Y. Warshel / 222 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 mothers. The emphasis I placed on mothers reflects dominant gender- biased parenting patterns, whereby mothers assume the vast majority share for caregiving. In addition, the primary work of the majority of women I sampled was homemaking. As a result, on top of their primary role as caregivers, they, rather than the fathers, were more typically in the home during the visit. Therefore, in short, it was the mother-parent that was most aware and involved with her children's media-use practices, and also, the parent I surveyed. The research assistants who assisted me in administering the surveys were Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli BA and MA students. The sampling procedures we employed varied by community norms. In some cases we randomly sampled by knocking door-to-door, and in others, by randomly selecting children via master school roster lists I obtained from school prin- cipals. Finally, we used SPSS to analyze the surveys. Assistants involved in the data-entry and analysis phases were American BA and MA students. In this article, I emphasize the data derived from the more than 410 survey responses I collected.

Children’s Global Consumption Patterns

The results of my fĳield research indicate that Palestinian children and Palestinian-Israeli children are not tuning in to martyrdom programs. Rather than seeking inspiration or training in violent protest practices, they “use” television for the purpose of enjoyment. The television program they watched the most, outranking all others at 60.1 percent, was Tom and Jerry.20 To this efffect, children like Najwa, who rated this American produced Hannah Barbera program as their favorite, explained to me why. She said, I love Tom and Jerry because “It’s nice”. I like it “when they chase each other”. And so, too, Rafah explained gleefully, “[Tom, the mouse] wants to catch him [Jerry, the cat] so he can eat him!” Thus, among the average of 3 hours I found that Palestinian children spend watching a combination of

20 Penetration rates were measured by asking the parent and/or child to provide the names of the programs the child watched during the last week. To ensure against the potential that holiday viewing or other events might alter reporting, I included the follow-up question, “Would you say what and how much they/you watched on TV this last week is typical of what they/you normally watch each week?” In turn, my assistants or I followed up with questions about what was diffferent to ensure that responses were indeed representative during the rare occasions when viewing was reported as atypical. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 223 television, videos and DVDs,21 on any given day, this program, by a plural- ity, occupied the greatest share of their leisure time in front of the television set. The other television programs which these children commonly consumed included, Conan , Sandy Bell, (the Japanese in origin) Pokeman , Captain Majid , Sindbad, Tarzan, Beyblade, Adnan and Lina , Captain Rabih, a host of Syrian fĳilms, Star Academy and the mini-series Palestinian Tragedy . Captain Majid and Captin Rabih, which are known in their original versions as Captain Tsubasa (Kyaputen Tsusaba in Japanese) and Fight on! Top Striker ( Moero Toppu Sutoraika! in Japanese), respectively, chronicle star soccer players. Sandy Bell , originally produced by Japan’s Toei Animation as Hello Sandybell (Haro-! Sandiberu in Japanese), was especially favored by the girls. This animated series follows a fĳictive Scottish girl as she pieced together clues from her past. And Palestinian Tragedy, meanwhile, chroni- cles Palestinian history as told from the mainstream hegemonic nationalistic narrative. Also popular among the children were Rotana Clip music video clips. It was on this station that the children excitedly reported watching the Lebanese singer Haifa. In short, more than anything else, these children reported that they consume global, not local Palestinian programs, including for that matter, martyrdom Palestinian programs. Table 1 summarizes the percentage breakdown for each of the shows the children most commonly reported tuning into.

Parent Preferences for Islamic Programming Contents and Related Media Institutions

Further, I found, parents did not specifĳically encourage their children to tune in to martyrdom programming. When asked what they felt was miss- ing or they wanted to see more of on television, time and again, they answered, “Islamic religious programs”. Meaning, since the vast majority of the Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli families in the sample were Muslim, when advocating for more religious programming to be scheduled on television for their children, they prefaced Islam as the religion.

21 Consumption amounts were measured by asking the parent and/or child, “On average, how many hours of television, videos and DVDs combined does your child/you watch on any given day?” Y. Warshel / 224 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245

Table 1 : Television Shows Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli Children Commonly Reported Watching Television Series Percent of children who reported watching Tom and Jerry 60.1 Conan 16.5 Captain Majid 9.1 Sandy Bell 7.4 Sindbad 6.6 Adnan and Lina 6.2 Pokeman 4.5 Tarzan 3.7 Captain Rabih 3.3 Beyblade 2.9 Star Academy 1.2 Palestinian Tragedy 1.2

In addition, 25.3 percent specifĳically wanted their children to watch religious programming. First among the television programs were those hosted by what Lindsay Wise has referred to as a “modernist” Muslim televangelist, Amr Khaled. In particular, they advocated on behalf of his program, the LifeMakers. According to Wise, Egyptian-born UK-based Khaled takes a modernist approach to religion. In an efffort to make Islam more meaning- ful to his audience, in particular to disafffected women and younger genera- tions, he attempts to fĳit Islam to today’s secular societal practices (rather than the reverse). Khaled’s goal in this respect is to encourage Muslims to maintain their Islamic faith and pursue public service on its behalf. Additionally, Wise argues, he himself portrays a more “modern” Islamic face. His youthful appearance provides a stark contrast to other televangelist available options—aging Muslim clerics (Wise 2004). Finally, programs that teach passages from the Qur’an and tell stories about the Prophet Muhammad were among the other religious programs the parents encouraged their children to view. Parents also argued on behalf of more educational programming, with 67 percent encouraging their children to tune into these types of programs. These included programs that taught general education skills like science or math, educational games, IQ and skill-building, letter and word acquisition and related grammar development, self-confĳidence building, national and political education, and language, including foreign language Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 225 acquisition. These also included programs that topically discussed issues of health, child development, animals and nature. The relevant educational show these parents most commonly referenced by name, was the quiz show Who Wants to Win the Million —the Arabic version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire . Among those parents who encouraged their children to watch educational programs, as many as 12 percent specifĳically mentioned those that topically dealt with animals and nature as illustrative of what they encouraged them to view. Another 12 percent also mentioned nationalistic and political educational shows, which included geographic, political, histori- cal, social and cultural shows, news and topics related to Arab nationalism. Representative comments from those parents preferring nationalistic or political educational programs were statements such as, ‘I prefer my child to watch programs that discuss Islam, Arabic language and culture, Qur’anic stories, and the life of Muhammad and his Companions—programs that strengthen the contact between my child and his Arabic nation, as opposed to foreign programs’. Five percent of parents mentioned linguistic educational programs, including shows that taught Arabic, Hebrew, English or some combination thereof. Finally, while I categorized religious programs separately from educational programs as based on parents’ own categorizations of these and, therefore, did not include the former in my measure for the latter, in fact, many examples the parents used to demonstrate what they named as educational, were religious in nature or coupled non-religious education with religious education. These programs drew on Islamic educational principles as the basis for their teaching. Representative comments from such parents, with respect to the range of educational programs they encouraged their children to view included, ‘Religious programs such as the Stories of the Soothsayer , from which they can learn about their religion, and educational programs; useful educational programs, religious stories, prophets’; ‘children’s programs, documentaries, educational programs and religious programs; ‘Iqra channel, Amr Khaled— the host of the LifeMakers ’. In addition, they explained, ‘programs that provide children with traditional values, and teach them how to respect others—in short, Islamic education’; ‘programs about psychological problems, especially children’s problems, and religious programs’; ‘programs that teach the Qur’an, and educational and cultural programs’; and ‘educational programs, religious programs, programs that develop social skills and provide self confĳidence’. In short, Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli parents alike placed a great emphasis on religious Y. Warshel / 226 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 programming, whether they characterized them as such or as educational instead. While it is not the emphasis of this article, I include here the responses of the Jewish-Israeli parents from my study because their contrasting responses shed light on the major role Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli parents would like religious programming to play in their children’s lives. In the case of the Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli parents, they argued that it was the duty of television, or moreover, mass media as an institution, to offfer religious programming. To this efffect, their interest in religious programming stood out in marked contrast to the Jewish respondents in my study. Specifĳically, Muslim-Palestinian and Muslim-Palestinian-Israeli parents (who, per the religious makeup of Palestinian society, constitute the vast majority of Palestinian and Palestinian-Israelis) advocated for more Islamic programming to be scheduled on television. By contrast, no Jewish parent advocated for more religious programming on television. Similarly, no Christian parents (in this case, Christian-Palestinian-Israelis), advocated for more religious programming either.

Religiosity Levels and a Lack of Variance

Second and interestingly, the Muslim parents in my sample expressed these same concerns, regardless of their varying ranges in levels of religiosity. 22 That is, not only did religious Muslims consider it important for television networks to provide religious programs, in contrast to their Jewish and Christian religious counterparts, but even those who considered themselves less religious, also did. 23

Political-Economic Considerations and a Lack of Variance

Thirdly, Muslim parents also advocated for the scheduling of more religious programs on their own civic, or local stations, and regardless of

22 Thus, regardless of whether the Muslim parent responded to the question “how would you defĳine your adherence to your religion?” with an answer that they were Muslims who were “very religious”, “religious”, or “not so religious”, they believed television should offfer more religious programming. The only exceptions were those who responded that they were “not religious at all”. 23 Thus, regardless of where along the spectrum Muslim respondents placed themselves, the majority responded that television should play a role in fostering religion, while no Jews or Christians did. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 227 which stations these represented civically. Meaning, not only did Muslim- Palestinian-Israelis argue that Israeli television stations should offfer them more religious programs, but Muslim-Palestinian respondents, likewise, argued that Palestinian television stations should schedule more too. By contrast, like these religious and less religious Muslim-Palestinian and Muslim-Palestinian-Israeli parents, religious Jewish-Israeli parents argued that there was not enough religious programming on Israeli TV—in their case, religious Jewish programming. However, in marked contrast to their Muslim counterparts, these Jewish parents did not argue that their local television stations should provide them with more religious programs. The religious Jewish parents were, therefore, not asking media institutions to work more actively to cater to religious audiences. Instead, they argued, they, as parents, were the ones who had to work more actively to shelter their children from what they characterized as Israeli television’s secular and immoral programming. By making it their duty to provide religious content for their children, these parents explained, they could substitute those messages with more appropriate educational ones. Meanwhile, Christian parents did not advocate on behalf of more religious television programming either—in their case, for Christian programming on Israeli television stations. Thus, such encouragement among Muslim-Palestinian and Muslim- Palestinian-Israeli parents, given that Muslims constitute the vast majority of Palestinian and Palestinian-Israelis, suggests that, in general, Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli parents would like their children to learn about Islam and that they see the mass media as an institution that should address these concerns and assume responsibility for this role. Overall, the responses suggest that Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli parents (1) emphasize the role of Islam in their child rearing practices and (2) choose to make their religion public. In other words, rather than viewing religion as a private good, by seeing in the mass media an obligation to “spread the word,” it appears that these parents view it as a public good. In short, they want their children to tune into religious programs on television and believe that one of the responsibilities of mass media as an institution is to spread religion. On the other hand, and as relates specifĳically to the controversy over martyrdom programs, these parents do not encourage their children to tune into television programs flagged as being part of the martyrdom genre for their endorsement of political religious extremism, or the use of violence in achieving devout religious ends. Thus, for example, these parents did not encourage their children to tune into any of the martyrdom Y. Warshel / 228 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 programs the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) TV Monitor project has catalogued ( www.memritv.org ), whether Palestinian or of other origins. Rather, they (Muslim parents in particular) encourage their children to tune into educational (and) non-politically fundamentalist religious programs like those Amr Khaled hosts. Notably, those among these parents who expressed explicit preferences that their children watch religious-educational programs that develop social skills and self- confĳidence demonstrate the contrasting child development approach they sought to foster for their own children in the context of their life in a conflict zone. By contrast, martyrdom programs, as I argued earlier, do not model such strategies.

Parental Preferences for the Television to Babysit

Parents, mothers in particular, also responded to my questions by pointing not just to the contents of the specifĳied programs they named but also to the place of these programs in forming part of the larger medium of television. Television, as they made it clear, is a tool that could help them by tak- ing on the role of a babysitter. As part of their engaging in the bulk of child caring responsibilities, mothers repeatedly referred to their need to take breaks throughout the day. Television, they explained, is a device they, therefore, use when they are “busy”, or to “keep the children away” so that they can “rest”. Through such answers, they pointed to the technological or artifact (Cole 1996) features of the medium of television. Their preference for it in this sense transcended the content specifĳic features of the television programs they discussed with me.

Functional Uses for the Medium, or Artifact-Features of Television

The important babysitting function television provided these mothers in these cases serves to point to an alternative guise through which to think about media use. Uses for media may difffer from those emphasized by the social-psychological uses and gratifĳications communication research tradi- tion I described earlier. Uses for media do not only involve emotional gravi- tation and manipulation of message contents, including, for example, their potential to inspire or train children in violent protest strategies. Such uses are part of the picture. However, uses can also be functional, as these fĳind- ings demonstrate. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 229

The concept of functional uses fĳits more closely with visual anthropo- logical approaches for media uses. These approaches focus more on how people literally use media for functions that have little to no specifĳic relation to the contents being channeled through them, and instead point to their media or artifact-like features. As artifacts then, media serve to provide the opportunity for a form of diversion, from one activity to another. Thus, in this case, TV provided mothers with a space to pursue a break from their children. In addition, it provided leisure opportunities for their children that could function to consume their day, irrespective of what contents and potential social-psychological needs they might fulfĳill.

Children’s Pan-Arab, Child-Targeted, Television Network Consumption Patterns

When asked on what channel the programs that the Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli children watched the previous week aired, children, alongside their parents, indicated that their most favored television channels included pan-Arab children’s channels. 24 First and foremost among those they reported was Spacetoons, with 67 percent of the children reporting they tuned in. Next, were the Saudi-owned channels, Arab Radio and TV Network Channel 3 (ARTeenz ) and Middle East Broadcasting Corporation ( MBC ) Channel 3. Thirty-one percent of the children reported tuning in to ARTeenz, and 21 percent into MBC 3. Networks most commonly viewed (and a selection of others I specifĳically asked about for the purposes of comparing relative interest) and their rates are summarized in Table 2 .

Limited Local Palestinian Programming Preferences

In contrast to the large percentage of viewers the three global pan-Arab networks raked in, only a small number of children reported tuning into

24 Penetration rates for channels where measured by asking the parent and/or child to indicate on what channel, video or DVD the program they named or were thinking of appeared the last week and/or what channel the child/they tuned into the past week. To ensure against the potential that holiday viewing or other events might alter reporting, I included the follow-up question, “Would you say what and how much they/you watched on TV this last week is typical of what they/you normally watch each week?” In turn, my assistants or I followed up with questions about what was diffferent to ensure that responses were indeed representative during the rare occasions when viewing was reported as atypical. Y. Warshel / 230 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245

Table 2 : Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli Children’s Combined Television Network Viewership Rates Network Percent of Children Who Reported Viewing Spacetoons 67 ARTeenz 31 MBC 3 21 Time Warner’s Cartoon Network 4.5 All Palestinian channels combined 3.7 JCC TV (Al Jazeera Children’s channel) 2.5 Rotana Cinema 1.2 All Kuwaiti channels combined Less than 1 All Jordanian channels combined Less than 1 All Syrian channels combined Less than 1

local Palestinian channels. These children amounted to 3.7 percent of the combined Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli sample.

Limited Local Israeli Programming Preferences

Finally, Palestinian-Israeli children who live in mixed cities 25 with Jewish- Israelis, together with many of the channels summarized above, also reported they watched local Israeli channels. Among this very specifĳic sub- sample, 4.1 percent reported tuning into the Israeli child targeted HOP! combined cable and satellite channel.

Parent Preferences for Islamic Networks

With regard to television channels, like programs, Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli parents also disagreed with their children. These parents most commonly advocated that their children tune into the Islamic religious channel Iqra. These parents amounted to 14.1 percent of the total, but constituted the majority who referred to a specifĳic channel by name, such

25 See Falah (1996) for a list of mixed-Israeli cities and critical discussion of the meaning of the term “mixed.” Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 231 that Iqra was mentioned far more than any other single channel. Among many other programs, according to the carefully and diligently catalogued transcripts of the MEMRI TV Monitor project, Iqra does in fact air martyrdom programs. These include those that advocate or praise Palestinians, including children, for using violence ( www.memritv.org ). 26 To the best of my knowledge, however, no one, including MEMRI, has performed a content analysis of the networks’ programming. Therefore, what percentage of Iqra’s total programming martyrdom programs constitute remains an open empirical question.

Positive Functional Uses for Television Within Zones of Conflict

Finally, I found that in medium and high conflict communities all parents, regardless of their ethno-political group—Palestinian, Palestinian-Israeli or Jewish-Israeli, argued on behalf of the positive features of television. By a medium or high conflict community, I refer to communities where conflict activities ranged from micro-level conflict in the form of high crime plagued cities impacted at medium levels, to macro-level conflict in the form of communities most directly involved in or impacted at medium or high levels by “the conflict” itself—the Israeli-Palestinian ethno-political conflict, framed by the wider Arab-Israeli inter-state conflict. In medium and high conflict communities some parents tried to use television in an efffort to stem violence—a practice that is in total opposi- tion to concerns about the impact of martyrdom programming on Palestinian children specifĳically, and so-called “popular” concern about the impact of television violence on children, more generally. According to both Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli parents living in the high crime troubled mixed Israeli city of Jafffa, which is also troubled by problems of inner Palestinian-Israeli clan conflict, television kept their children safe at home. As one Palestinian-Israeli mother, Reem, explained, in this community where police presence is visible, ‘I do feel more comfortable seeing her [at home, which is the case if she is watching TV]. We live on a busy street next to the police—who knows what can happen outside?!’ Another Jafffa- based mother, in this case, a Jewish-Israeli one, explained how she does not want her child playing alone outside. She said, ‘I would prefer she watch

26 See http://www.memritv.org/content/en/tv_channel_indiv.htm?id=55 for MEMRI TV’s catalogued listing of Iqra clips. Y. Warshel / 232 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 less television and instead play outside but I don’t get home from work until 5:00 PM. So I send her to day care instead’. Because of the situation outside, letting her child go out alone, was, therefore, not an option. And as a fĳinal example, another Jafffa-based mother, this one Palestinian-Israeli, explained her preference that her children remain inside watching television. Accord- ing to her, Mona, if they are outside, even in the yard attached to their apartment building, she doesn’t know who they are with, or if suddenly a fĳight might break out between them and other children. If instead her children are at home watching television, she at least knows they are safe. Parents of children living in the high conflict Gazan-based Palestinian refugee camp of Khan Younis also responded with concerns about the world outside their home. The Khan Younis camp bore some of the highest rates of deaths during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising (Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics [PCBS] 2003; PCBS 2008), 27 and is home to a bastion of political fundamentalist Islamic practices. According to parents living in the camp, television kept their children out of trouble and safe at home, where they were not concerned about the potential that their children would learn from the “bad examples” set for them in the camp. Thus, Nisreen, a mother in Khan Younis camp explained that she liked her children to watch television, ‘based on need’. Further elaborating, she said, ‘I prefer them to watch TV. I prefer that they don’t go out to the street because the environment is not nice—it’s not clean and the children learn to say bad things’. In answering the same question, one of the fathers, Mahmoud, explained, in reference to life in the camp, that television is useful because it allows them ‘To take a vacation because there’s no other option besides TV’.

Increased Programming Options in High Conflict Communities

Interestingly enough, it was in the Khan Younis refugee camp that the highest percentage of families accessed not just one, or even two, but as many

27 According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), through November 2003, Khan Younis, bore the fourth highest death rate, per district, just after Nablus, Jenin and Rafah, and through April 2008 totals, remained fourth, following North Gaza, Nablus and Rafah districts. Parenthetically, percentage of deaths, whether due to active or passive forms of involvement in the conflict are not given by PCBS. Irrespective of debates about whether those actively involved in the conflict should in fact be objectively counted in these totals—from the perspective of residents of Khan Younis—these statistics nevertheless indicate that vis-à-vis other Palestinian districts, residents of Khan Younis experienced some of the highest rates of loss during and since the second intifada crises stages of the conflict through the end of my fĳieldwork. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 233 as three cable and/or satellite packages combined. Among the entire sample, including the Jewish-Israeli families, 71.4 percent of those families with access to three were all based in Khan Younis camp. Such access may speak to the limited number of leisure opportunities that exist in the camp. And as related, it may also explain parents’ comments arguing that they pre- ferred their children to “play” in the home, such that, in turn, they may have chosen to purchase more packages to get them to stay there. Alternatively, it may also simply be the result of high-population camp density rates that make it easier for families to “share” satellite dish broadcasts with their many neighbors for free. In the end, however, as my analysis reveals, children in Khan Younis camp watch roughly the same amount of television as do all the other Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli children. I cross-tabulated the number of hours children viewed by how many packages to which they had access. The results indicate that children whose families had access to one package in fact watched the most, an average of 3.14 hours per day, while those with access to two, 2.57 hours, and those with three—the case for the majority in Khan Younis camp—was 2.89 hours. Thus, the children in Khan Younis camp with access to three packages—the majority of Khan Younis camp’s children, in fact watched the same amount of television, or even slightly less, than the average of other children in the sample. This suggests that while Khan Younis camp parents hoped to use television to entice their children to stay at home, they were not successful. Rather, their children simply ended up having a greater variety of programming options available to them.

Using Television to Survive

Based on the fĳindings regarding the preferences of all those parents who resided in medium or high-conflict communities, I draw a tentative conclusion that runs contrary to the typical popular, and in part, scholarly criticism leveled against television—namely, that it harms children. In zones of conflict, television does not necessarily harm children. Apparently, living in a situation of conflict positively impacted parent’s attitudes toward their children’s uses for television. Conflict promoted the use of television as a tool through which parents could work to keep their children secure at home, away from harm, away from contact with practices they did not want them to replicate and ensuing lack of leisure opportunities. Palestinian, Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli parents living in high conflict communities, alike, and regardless of whether the conflict pertained to mid- level crime- to high-level Israeli-Palestinian conflict-induced rates, viewed Y. Warshel / 234 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 television as a vital tool in this respect. For them, content fell in secondary importance to television’s basic use as medium. It is a medium, which if turned on, could, like a force fĳield, keep their children inside, away from the troubled world outside. Artifacts, leisure patterns and zones of conflict. I want to highlight this fĳinding because the conceptualization of television in this manner helps to shed light on the vital role television may play within zones of conflict, as contrasts with so-called “normal” peaceful scenarios. In environments of peace, as for example, with respect to a discussion by Annabelle Sreberny of anthropologist Lila Abu-Lughod’s fĳield research in Egypt, television has functionally altered people’s leisure patterns. As a direct consequence of watching television, Egyptians have come to spend more time inside the home. As a result, television use is relocating leisure inside the home ( Sreberny 2000 ). In this sense, Sreberny’s discussion clearly conceptualizes the more artifact, or medium-based approach to uses (versus message based approach), I wish to underscore here with my fĳindings. In zones of peace, television increases the attractiveness of the home as a place for leisure and has helped reshape the social organization of family life (see for example also Pasquier 2001 ). However, in the case of zones of conflict, as Palestinian, Palestinian-Israeli and Jewish-Israeli respondents in my study indicated, television’s role in reshaping leisure does not just represent a shift (from leisure in one location to another, or in family hier- archy), instead, it represents a tool for positive child development, if not also, survival. In relation to the context in which zone of conflict children live, television use may, in fact, therefore, foster children’s healthy development and even do something more basic—keep them alive.

The Resultant Negotiated Consumption Patterns of Palestinian Children

Ultimately, what the children in my study consumed was the result of their decisions being mediated, on the one hand, by 1) their parent’s initial decisions to subscribe to particular satellite and/or cable packages over others and/or which they chose to access for free from their neighbors, and 2) how much interest and, in turn, power, their parents were able to exert over what programs from among those packages, their children consumed. The results of these negotiation processes, as I discuss below, Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 235 suggest that a wide range of programming options were made available to the children and that the children proved the ultimate victors over which specifĳic selections from among those options, they would make. Thus, their decisions to tune out of Palestinian local programming, including any programs like The Pioneers of Tomorrow , were, on the one hand, a direct result of their having access to global programming options, and on the other, what they selected from those options.

Subscription Television Access

As much as ninety-four percent of all the Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli households in the sample reported access to at least one satellite or cable package offfering. These households, therefore, provided children with a far larger array of television opportunities than Palestinian and/or Israeli television alone offfer. In turn, the children clearly took advantage of those options, as evidenced by the three channels they reported as their favorites (and where and how they could watch Tom and Jerry in the fĳirst place). Spacetoons, ARTeenz and MBC 3 are only available via such subscription packages. Among those with access to subscription services, 74 percent of families had access to one package, while 22 percent had access to two, and 5 percent to three. Recall that 71 percent of those who accessed three were refugee camp residents from Khan Younis. Among those with access to one package, families most commonly accessed Arabsat, which achieved a 50 percent penetration rate. This was followed by Nilesat at 25 percent. Figure 1 summarizes the most popular packages among those families with access to one package. The most common combination reported by families who accessed two packages was Arabsat and Nilesat. 69.7 percent of this total indicated they accessed these specifĳic two packages. Figure 2 summarizes the most popular combined two packages. Finally, among those with access to three packages, 85.71 percent of the families reported they accessed the combination of Arabsat, Nilesat and Eutelsat. Figure 3 summarizes the most popular combination for three packages.

Power Over Content Selection

Overall, therefore, it seems that parents provided their children with a great deal of television options. However, despite their concerns about what Y. Warshel / 236 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245

Figure 1 : Breakdown of Households With Access to One Satellite or Cable Package

Figure 2 : Breakdown of Households With Access to Two Satellite or Cable Packages Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 237

Figure 3 : Breakdown of Households With Access to Three Satellite or Cable Packages their children actually watched from among all these available options, both parents’ survey responses and my multi-sited ethnographic research suggests that they did not have a great amount of control over their children’s resultant media-use. Thus, contrary to popular assumptions about parent’s power within the home sphere, including Palestinian homes, it is children, even as young as fĳive, who make the fĳinal decision. These children most typically watched television in the family room, where they made their viewing decisions. And to a secondary extent, they watched in a specially designated children’s room or family space—their own room or a sibling’s room. They watched alone, for example, when their mother’s needed a break or with others. Thus, the children sat and watched what they chose, seated on what ranged from miniature child-sized chairs and/ or as the lay splayed across sofas, mats or along their family’s tiled-floor, often with remote in hand. It is notable in this competition of sorts (that the children, more often than not, won out over) that only 33 percent of the families had a television Y. Warshel / 238 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 in one of their children’s rooms.28 Meaning, parents, along with siblings, potentially fought over the TV set—not just regarding what their children viewed, but for the right to view what they wanted to view. Meanwhile, on average, each household was comprised of 6 to 7 members (of which 4 to 5 were children), and owned one to two TV sets. In other words, 38 percent of families negotiated over 2 sets, such that 3 to 4 may have fought over each (or simply one television was designated as that which all the children had to negotiate over), while in 54 percent of the households, the full 6 or 7 potentially fought over the one set.

Children Control the Remote, Not Parents

The result of these children’s victory over the television set was reflected in their decision to choose Tom and Jerry and other programs of interest available via the favored three networks, over all the other available options. Notably, children and corresponding parents, therefore, rarely reported that their children actually tuned into their parents’ preferences for them— Amr Khaled and Iqra . Thus, for example, parents commonly indicated to me that, ‘I always know what my child watches’. However, when I began asking them about specifĳic programs, even just for their names, parents were unable to provide me with any details. Instead, I had to turn to their children for specifĳics. And these specifĳics indicated that only 0.8 and 2.5 percent of the children actually did watch Amr Khaled and Iqra, respectively. Further, only 0.4 percent reported that they watched anything religious (or educational-religious) in nature, including programs about the Prophet Muhammad and the Qur’an. Similarly, parents were typically surprised by their children’s extensive knowledge of all the various television program offferings and corresponding channels the children mentioned during the home-based survey, and which they also observed alongside me during the ethnographic process of my fĳield inquiries. Among the older children in my sample—seven- and eight-year-olds—parents were surprised that these children could both

28 Also notable, a breakdown of the limited number of families whose children had television sets in their rooms revealed that this number was especially reflective of Christian families. As much as 60 percent of the Christian families had a TV in one of their child’s rooms. By contrast, 69 percent of the Muslim families did not . Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 239 verbalize the numbers for these channels and were correct when identifying on which channel a given television program aired. With respect to the younger children—fĳive- and six-year-olds—parents were surprised by their ability to demonstrate on what button on the family’s television set, or accompanying remote, one pressed in order to surf channels, or as even further surprised them, when they managed to select the exact channel where their favorite programs aired. Thus, during my visits, children often got up out of their seats and ran over to the television set or remote to show me how smart they are, as it were. They demonstrated how they efffectively fĳigured out the answer to my questions and so proudly displayed their abilities in front of those home at the time. The most apt example of the discord between parent’s assumed knowledge of their children’s television viewing practices and their children’s actual practices around the television set, and thus who was clearly win- ning out in making these children’s viewing decisions, came from Rawan and her son, Teyseer, aged six. In response to my question to Rawan, asking her how many hours of television Teyseer watched per day, Teyseer answered nine. His mother, in turn, explained to me that that was simply impossible, and rather, he watched only two. The child then replied again to me, while feigning a large toothless smile, and to his mother’s total surprise, “mom, I come downstairs at night when you’re asleep and keep watching TV. I watch 9 hours!” In other words, Teyseer, like his fellow peers, ultimately decided what and how much television he would watch, despite what his mother thought. My fĳindings about these children’s control over their television consumption habits concur with well-established research on children and television conducted outside the Middle East. In practice, parental mediation of children’s television consumption paterns is, in fact, uncommon (Rideout and and Foehr 2003; Dorr, Kovaric and Doubleday 1989; St. Peters, Fitch, Huston, Wright and Eakins 1991).

Resultant Limited Local Palestinian Programming Consumption

The children’s interest in global pan-Arab networks, especially, the three favored—Spacetoons, ARTeens and MBC 3, over Palestinian television, was partly mediated by access, but, as noted above, also by taste. On the one hand, many families accessed these options through subscription services. However, the majority also accessed local Palestinian television. Among only the Palestinian sample, in which nearly every family (or 97.4 percent) Y. Warshel / 240 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 reported with certainty that they have access to at least one Palestinian TV channel, 29 ultimately there appeared to be relatively little interest among the children, nevertheless. Only 9.4 percent among this entire sample reportedly chose to tune in, as compared with the favored three. In other words, even the least favored among the three by this Palestinian sample alone—ARTeenz—achieved over 21 more percentage points. Similarly, among Palestinian-Israeli households where rates of access to Palestinian channels were lower (70 percent), in fact less than 1 percent (or 0.6 percent) reported their children watched, thus making these channels even more unpopular among the Palestinian-Israeli sub-sample with 4.2 percent who had access tuning in. (In comparison, 8.8 percent who tuned in among the Palestinian sample had access at home). Finally, these low resultant penetration rates, in this case, were also echoed by parents’ own comments about how they considered Palestinian programming to be of a lower quality. Thus, as a result, these children instead spent their time watching Tom and Jerry together with the other programs they favored, like Captain Rabih and Sandy Bell on one of their favored three networks.

Applying the Evidence to Questions about Martyrdom Programming Uses

Returning to the question of how Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli children were using their presumed consumption habits, I return fĳirst to the assumption that the contents of their viewing, specifĳically ofThe Pioneers of Tomorrow was somehow directly and powerfully harming and inciting them to violence. It appears that their television consumption habits were not afffecting them in such a way as to cause them to adopt violent strategies as a result of their uses of the contents of martyrdom programs. This is because they were not in the fĳirst place, tuning in. With regard to specifĳic concerns over Palestinian martyrdom programs, children were not tuning into much Palestinian programming of any sort. Second, even given that their parents specifĳically encouraged them to view the pan-Arab network Iqra, they were neither tuning into Arab martyrdom programs. Second and most interesting, there were parents who were, instead, attempting to use the features of television as a technological artifact to

29 In all cases this included access to at least the Palestinian Broadcasting Corporation (PBC). Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 241 keep their children away from violence. Its role in this respect transcended the limited conception of television the critics assumed in their assessment, specifĳically of The Pioneers of Tomorrow. Parents in my study encouraged their children to consume television, not, per se, to consume specifĳied contents of television programs, but to engage with them more ritualisti- cally. By participating in the ritual of television consumption, they hoped their children would engage with it, thereby providing themselves with a break and moving their children’s leisure activities into the home to ensure their personal safety.

Multiple Uses for Arab, American and Japanese Global Programming?

Content Uses for Messages

Content Efffects and Uses forTom and Jerry In conclusion, I, therefore recommend that the original question implicit in the assumptions voiced by critics of martyrdom programs be modifĳied and a second set of questions also be considered. Namely, the question, “How was The Pioneers of Tomorrow , or martyrdom programs more generally, influencing Palestinian children?” as I have argued, assumes a uses and gratifĳication approach to the topic. Maintaining that approach and in light of my consumption fĳindings, I conclude that people interested in this debate should instead ask, “what efffects are the contents of global programming, including pan-Arab, American and Japanese programming having on Palestinian children?” Thus, at least where fĳive- to eight-year-olds are concerned, I recommend that evidence be collected and assessed to determine how these children are interpreting and are being impacted specifĳically by the program they rated as number one, Tom and Jerry.

Indirect Content Efffects of Iqra and Amr Khaled? Second, I recommend that focus also be placed on how these children’s parents, especially their mothers, interpret and are personally influenced by Amr Khaled’s mediated preaching and a cross-section of Iqra programming. Third, attention should be given to how their interpretations of these television programs, in turn, influence their child rearing decision-making practices. Meaning, while Palestinian and Palestinian-Israeli children are not regularly watching Iqra or Amr Khaled, their mothers are. Therefore, their doing so may in fact be influencing their religious views and religiosity levels and, in turn, could alter their approach to child rearing. As part and Y. Warshel / 242 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 parcel of this, I therefore, fourth, recommend that a content analysis of Iqra programming be conducted so that it is more clear to which specifĳic pro- grammatic contents their mothers are being exposed. Fifth and fĳinally, I recommend that an analysis be performed of the interpretation and impact of the channel’s programs on them.

Functional Uses for the Medium of Television

Finally, I recommend that those interested in this debate also ask a second set of questions—ones that employ a functional uses approach to media. In turn, they should ask, “to what functional uses were these children put- ting their viewing?” “And how, as a result, were they restructuring their leisure time and patterns to more efffectively function within a zone of conflict?” Additionally, given parents attempts to use television as babysitter and guard (despite that they were not necessarily successful in making their children watch more television than they might have otherwise), I conclude with the following questions. “What can be learned from these parents’ effforts?” “And how do such effforts shape the lives of children—all of those who live within zones of conflict, and in particular, medium and high-conflict communities—insofar as their leisure and growth opportunities over time become implicated?”

References

Agence France-Presse (2007). Hamas TV Refuses to Axe Copycat Mickey Mouse. Gulf Times . Accessed January 8, 2012, http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu _no=2&item_no=148534&version=1&template_id=37&parent_id=17 11 May 2007. Amnesty International ( 2001 ). Broken Lives—A Year of Intifada: Israel/Occupied Territories/ Palestinian Authority . London : Amnesty International Publications . Amnesty International ( 2002 ). Israel and the Occupied Territories and the Palestinian Authority. Killing the Future: Children in the Line of Fire . London : Amnesty International Publications . Awad , Mubarak ( 1984 ). Non-violent Resistance: A Strategy for the Occupied Territories . Journal of Palestine Studies 13 ( 4 ): 22 – 36 . Barber , Brian K. ( 1997 ). Palestinian Children and Adolescents during and after the Intifada . Palestine-Israel Journal 4 ( 1 ): 23 – 33 . Bazelon , Emily ( 2007 ). Watching Holy Land Sesame Street . Slate Magazine . BBC News (2007). Hamas ‘Mickey Mouse’ Killed Offf. Accessed January 8 2012. http://news.bbc .co.uk/2/hi/6257594.stm BBC. 30 June 2007. Blumler , Jay & Elihu Katz (eds.) ( 1974 ). The Uses of Mass Communication: Current Perspectives on Gratifĳications Research . Beverly Hills : Sage . CBS/AP (2007). Hamas “Mickey Mouse” Back on the Air. CBS. Accessed 10 May 2012. www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/11/world/main2793041.shtml 11 May 2007. Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 243

Cederman , Lars-Erik ( 1997 ). Emergent Actors in World Politics. How States and Nations Develop and Dissolve . Princeton, NJ : Princeton University Press . Chicago Tribune. (2007). Hamas TV Yanks Militant Mouse. Accessed January 8, 2012. http:// articles.chicagotribune.com/2007-05-10/news/0705091392_1_hamas-tv-palestinian -information-minister-militant 10 May 2007 Cole , Michael ( 1996 ). Cultural Psychology: A Once and Future Discipline . Cambridge : Belknap Press . Defense for Children International/Palestine Section ( 2004 ). Use of Children in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Perspective on Child Soldiers. Jerusalem : Defense for Children International/Palestine Section. Defense for Children International/Palestine Section ( 2004 ). Status of Palestinian Children’s Rights: Israel’s Violations of the Right to Life and Security and the Rights of Children Deprived of their Liberty during the Second Intifada (20 September 2000–30 June 2004) . Jerusalem : Defense for Children International/Palestine Section. Dorr , Aimée , Peter Kovaric and Catherine Doubleday ( 1990 ). Age and Content Influences on Children’s Perceptions of the Realism of Television Families. Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 34 ( 4 ): 377 – 397 . Falah , Ghazi ( 1996 ). Living Together Apart: Residential Segregation in Mixed Arab-Jewish Cities in Israel . Urban Studies 33 ( 6 ): 823 – 857 . Garbarino , James and Kathleen Kostelny ( 1996 ). The Efffects of Political Violence on Palestinian Children’s Behavior Problems: A Risk Accumulation Model . Child Development 67 : 33 – 45 . Giddens , Anthony ( 1985 ). The Nation-State and Violence . Berkeley : University of California Press . Hadid , Diaa ( 2007 ). Hamas ‘Mickey Mouse’ Wants Islam Takeover . Associated Press . Yahoo! News. 8 May 2007. Hamas Covenant (1988). The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Accessed 17 June 2008, http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/mideast/hamas.htm . 18 August 1988. Hannity, Sean and Alan Colmes (2007). Shocking Video: Hamas Recruits Toddlers for Terror Campaign. Fox News. 15 October 2007. Hodge , Robert I. V. and David Tripp ( 1986 ). Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach . Stanford, CA : Stanford University Press . Katz , Elihu and Paul Lazarsfeld ( 1955 ). Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in Mass Communication . New York : Free Press . Kuttab , Daoud ( 1998a ). A Profĳile of the Stonethrowers [Electronic version]Journal . of Palestine Studies 17 ( 3 ): 14 – 23 . Kuttab , Jonathan ( 1998b ). The Children’s Revolt [Electronic version] . Journal of Palestine Studies 17 ( 4 ): 26 – 35 . Litvak , Meir ( 2005 ). The Anti-Semitism of Hamas . Palestine-Israel Journal 12 ( 2/3 ): 41 – 52 . Marcus, Itamar and Barbara Crook (2007). Hamas Mickey Mouse Creator: Islamic Rule will Benefĳit Christians and Jews. Palestinian Media Watch. Accessed 16 June 2008, http://www .pmw.org.il/bulletins_may2007.htm . 14 May 2007. McGuire , William ( 1986 ). The Myth of Massive Media Impact: Savagings and Salvagings . Public Communication and Behavior 1 : 173 – 257 . Messenger Davies , Maire ( 1997 ). Fake, Fact and Fantasy: Children's Interpretations of Television Reality . Mahway, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . Middle East Media Research Institute (2007). A Mickey Mouse Character on Hamas TV Teaches Children about Islamic Rule of the World. MEMRI TV Monitor Project transcript. 13 April 2007. al-Mughrabi, Nidal (2007). Palestinians Shelf Islamic ‘Mickey Mouse’ TV show. New Zealand Herald . Accessed 10 January 2012. www.nzherald.co.nz/gaza/news/article.cfm?l _id=500608&objectid=10438890 10 May 2007. Y. Warshel / 244 Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245

Nashef , Yousef ( 1992 ). The Psychological Impact of the Intifada on Palestinian Children Living in Refugee Camps in the West Bank as Reflected in their Dreams, Drawings and Behavior . Frankfurt am Main : Peter Lang . Nathanson , Amy I. ( 1999 ). Identifying and Explaining the Relationship between Parental Mediation and Children’s Aggression . Communication Research 26 : 124 – 143 . Nazzal , Nafez and Laila Nazzal ( 1996 ). The Politicization of Palestinian Children: An Analysis of Nursery Rhymes . Palestine-Israel Journal 3 ( 1 ): 26 – 36 . Nixon , Elizabeh Anne and Jennifer Bing-Canar ( 1990 ). Status of Palestinian Children during the Uprising in the Occupied Territories . Part I: (1 & 2) Child Death and Injury. Radda Barnen: Swedish Save the Children. Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (2003). Killed Palestinians (Martyrs) in Al-Aqsa Uprising (Intifada), by District of Residence and Age Group. 29 September 2000–28 November 2003. Accessed 30 Dec. 2003, www.pcbs.org/english/martyrs/table1_e.htm . Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (2008). Killed Palestinians (Martyrs) in Al-Aqsa Uprising (Intifada), by District of Residence, Age Group and Sex. 29 September 2000–30 April 2008. Accessed 16 June 2008, http://www.pcbs.gov.ps/Portals/_pcbs/intifada/60d72e7b-76e9 -4d6c-aa4e-61553c47592e.htm. Palmer , Patricia ( 1986 ). The Lively Audience . Sydney : Allen & Unwin . Pasquier , Dominique ( 2001 ). Media at Home: Domestic Interactions and Regulation . In Sonia Livingstone and Moira Bovill (eds.), Children and Their Changing Media Environments . London : Lawrence Erlbaum Associates . Punamaki , Raija-Leena , Samir Quota and Eyad El Sarraj ( 2001 ). Resiliency Factors Predicting Psychological Adjustment after Political Violence among Palestinian Children. International Journal of Behavioral Development 25 ( 3 ): 256 – 267 . Quota , Samir . Eyad El Saaraj and Raija-Leena Punamaki ( 2001 ). Mental Flexibility as Resiliency Factor among Children Exposed to Political Violence. International Journal of Psychology 36 ( 1 ): 1 – 7 . Quota , Samir and Jumana Odeh ( 2005 ). The Impact of Conflict on Children: The Palestinian Experience. Journal of Ambulatory Care Management 28 ( 1 ): 75 – 79 . Quota , Samir , Raija-Leena Punamaki and Eyad El Sarraj ( 1995 ). The Relations Between Traumatic Experiences, Activity, and Cognitive and Emotional Responses Among Palestinian Children. International Journal of Psychology 30 ( 3 ): 289 – 304 . Quota , Samir , Raija-Leena Punamaki and Eyad El Sarraj ( 1997 ). House Demolition and Mental Health: Victims and Witnesses . Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless 6 ( 3 ): 203 – 211 . Rideout , Donald F. and Ulla G. Foehr ( 2004 ). Kids and Media in America . New York : Cambridge University Press . Roth, Richard (2007). Militant Mickey Mouse. CBS News Video. Accessed, http://www.cbsnews .com/video/watch/?id=2793570n .11 May 2007. Rouhana , Kate ( 1989 ). Children and the Intifadah [Electronic version] . Journal of Palestine Studies 18 ( 4 ): 110 – 121 . Shubert, Atika (2007). Hamas Kids TV Show with Militant Mouse to Air Friday. CNN . Accessed 12 January 2012. http://articles.cnn.com/2007-05-10/world/mideast.mouse_1_barghouti-al -aqsa-television-hamas?_s=PM:WORLD 15 May 2007. Spiegel Online International (2007). The Islamist Mouseketeers: Hamas Mickey Mouse Teaches Jihad. Accessed 8 January 2012 http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,481940,00 .html Spiegel Online International . 9 May 2007. Spruyt , Hendrik ( 1994 ). The Sovereign State and Its Competitors . Princeton NJ : Princeton University Press . Y. Warshel / Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication 5 (2012) 211–245 245

Sreberny , Annabelle . ( 2000 ). Television, Gender, and Democratization in the Middle East . In James Curran and Myung-Jin Park (eds.), De-Westernizing Media Studies , pp. 63 – 78 . New York : Routledge . Stahl , Julie ( 2007 ). Hamas May Revise Jihad-Promoting ‘Mickey Mouse Program .’ Cybercast News Service . CNSNews.com. 9 May 2007 St. Peters Michelle , Marguerite Fitch , Aletha C. Huston , John C. Wright and Darwin. J. Eakins (1991 ). Television and Families: What Do Young Children Watch with their Parents. Child Development 62 : 1409 – 1423 . Totry , Mary . ( 2008 ). Changing realities: Changing identities: Case study of the divided village of Barta’a . In S. Hanafĳi (ed.),Crossing Borders, Shifting Boundaries: Palestinian Dilemmas , Vol. 29 , pp . 27 - 57 . Cairo : American University in Cairo Press . Van Slyck , Michael and Marilyn Stern ( 1991 ). Conflict Resolution in Educational Settings: Assessing the Impact of Peer Mediation Programs . In K. Dufffy , P. Olczak and J. Grosch (eds.), The Art and Science of Community Mediation: A Handbook for Practitioners and Researchers , pp. 257 – 274 . New York : Guilford . Van Slyck , Michael , Marilyn Stern and Jennifer Zak-Place ( 1996 ). Promoting Optimal Adolescent Development through Conflict Resolution Education, Training, and Practice: An Innovative Approach for Counseling Psychologists . Counseling Psychologist 24 ( 3 ): 433 – 461 . Wagner , William G. ( 1996 ). Facilitating Optimal Development in Adolescents and Introductory Remarks . Counseling Psychologist 24 : 357 – 359 . —— (1996 ). Optimal Development in Adolescence: What Is It and How Can We Facilitate It? Counseling Psychologist 24 : 360 – 399 . Warshel , Yael ( 2007 ). As Though There is Peace: Opinions of Jewish-Israeli Children About Watching Rechov Sumsum/Shara’a Simsim Amidst Armed Political Conflict . In D. Lemish and M. Gotz (eds.), Children and Media at Times of Conflict and War . Cresskill, NJ : Hampton Press . Wise , Lindsay ( 2004 ). Amr Khaled: Broadcasting the Nahda . Transnational Broadcasting Studies Spring, 13.