‘The Lion King’ Meets Hamas
Earlier this summer, a Mickey Mouse look-alike was martyred in a children’s cartoon on Hamas-run Al Aqsa TV, and now it appears that the station’s animators have been inspired by Disney once again. A new video, titled “A Message to the Criminal Gangs in the Occupied West Bank,” features a character that bears a striking resemblance to Simba from the 1994 film “The Lion King.”
The calm yet powerful lion represents Hamas in a five-minute cartoon portraying the Islamic group crushing their opponents in Fatah. Members of Fatah are portrayed as rats with machine guns and bags of American dollars. In one frame, the lion licks his lips as a bone marked with the Star of David sits at his feet. The video was released last week but then taken off the air for revisions, the Associated Press reported. A new, slightly less inflammatory version is said to be in the works.
You are surely a friend of the Forward if you’re reading this. And so it’s with excitement and awe — of all that the Forward is, was, and will be — that I introduce myself to you as the Forward’s newest editor-in-chief.
And what a time to step into the leadership of this storied Jewish institution! For 129 years, the Forward has shaped and told the American Jewish story. I’m stepping in at an intense time for Jews the world over. We urgently need the Forward’s courageous, unflinching journalism — not only as a source of reliable information, but to provide inspiration, healing and hope.
, editor-in-chief