‘Sesame Street’ Goes to Palestine
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
The American administration is about to jump-start peace talks aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state in the framework of the two-state solution, but it seems that the “Sesame Street” star Grover is way ahead of the game — he’s already visited Palestine.
In a segment now on the “Sesame Street” website, Grover and an Egyptian friend find themselves “going on an adventure to visit our friends from around the world.” In the clip, Grover says, “We’re off to Palestine.” Following, a Palestinian girl is shown receiving a gift from her grandmother.
Predictably, the settler-run news site Israel National News let rip about the fact that “Sesame Street” has referred to what it deems “a nonexistent state whose formation was agreed to by Netanyahu, but that many Israelis feel cannot be established without putting Israel’s existence into danger.”
The Israel National News piece continued:
PA [Palestinian Authority] officials have threatened to declare a state whether there is a peace agreement or not, but Israel will not recognize it without one. However, it seems that someone on the writing staff never heard of Israel — or Jordan for that matter — two places where the story might , actually must, have been filmed. Perhaps whoever wrote those lines feels that if something is repeated often enough, such as the existence of a place called Palestine, it will be believed. Perhaps there is a PA activist on the writing staff.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
