While the House version of the bill that funds the Commerce, State and Justice Departments does not contain a formal amendment to prohibit funding of the broadcasting company, the ban is supported in a report that accompanies the bill. Lawmakers hope that a conference committee of Senators and Congressmen who will meet to hammer out the differences between the two versions will include the ban in the final bill.
For many on Capitol Hill and in the Jewish community, the issue goes deeper than the controversy over U.S. aid to the Palestinians. If the Palestinian children are taught to hate Israelis and use violent means to express that hatred, peace between the two sides may never take hold, activists say. In addition, the Palestinian media is filled with statements of Holocaust denial and anti-Israel propaganda that, according to Israel and the United States, violate provisions of the Oslo Accords.
“You have these types of broadcasts with people play-acting suicide bombers and fulfilling violent missions in life. That’s not the message we should be teaching,” said Matt Brooks, executive director of the National Jewish Coalition, a Republican Jewish group, which led the lobbying effort against the network.
The controversy over aid to the broadcasting corporation began in March when an Israeli group, Peace For Generations, began distributing tapes of the “Children’s Club.”
Loosely based on “Sesame Street,” the program shows a group of children with an adult performing skits. On an episode aired July 2, young boys, with arms raised, chanted, “We are ready with our guns, we are ready with our guns. Revolution until victory, revolution until victory.”
While top officials in the Clinton administration have expressed their outrage at the pro-violence, anti-Israel programming, the administration has yet to adopt a formal stance on the issue.