April 11, 2006: What's new on the Hamas Kids website?

By Laura Mansfield

If you’re a child in the Palestinian territories and have internet access, chances are you visit the website of the Hamas online monthly magazine for children at http://www.al-fateh.net

Several weeks ago this website, founded in 2002, rocketed into the international arena when it was rediscovered by counter terrorism analysts.

And although the content is updated at least monthly with fresh content intended to stoke the fires of hatred against Jews in the hearts of the young Palestinians, equally concerning is the influence that this website has.

A review of the website statistics at www.alexa.com shows the following:

The graph shows that the site has grown steadily in reach over the past 2 years. The regular peaks coincide with the dates when new content is placed on the website. (The extreme peak in March 2006 is almost certainly the result of media attention about the website.) It appears that the readers of the website know when new content is to be published and check back on a regular and consistent basis.

The website is much more popular that most other Arabic-language children’s websites. Al-fateh.org has a traffic rank of 14,502 for today, up 9,534 over the last three months. In contrast, another popular Arabic-language kids website with less political content, www.new-boy.com, had a rank of 44.239.

So what are visitors to Al-fateh.net reading about this month?

The lead article is brings the children up to date on the Palestinian view of news in the region.

The feature article, illustrated with the following image, is entitled “Lessons in History”

A translation follows:

When we received our school grades, we were surprised to see that our younger brother Ashraf was failing in his history class.

My father angrily asked him “Why, oh Ashraf?”

He saw the tears in his brother’s two eyes and he asked “Why do we study things in the past, and men who have already died, oh Father?”

My father silently smiled at him and then he said “I was thinking you were brave, my son.”

Ashraf opened his eyes and answered quickly “I am brave always, oh, my father.”

The father quietly asked “How do you learn of courage if you can’t do it by reading the books that discuss the bravest men?”

Ashraf asked eagerly “What book, oh Father?”

His father responded, giving him a pointed look. “History books.”

As for us, we were smiling to ourselves about the history.

But do you know what happened after that?

The history books became Ashraf’s most precious belongings. He read them with love and admiration. And in the evening when we met for dinner, my father asked Ashraf what he read about during the day. Ashraf told us about the battles and victories of our grandfathers, and of the special bravery that they had.

Then in the next grading periond, when Ashraf was tested, his grades were excellent in history. When we asked him if loved it enough to make it his profession in the future, he answered proudly “I will become a brave resistance fighter, fighting against the occupiers, for the liberation of my beloved homeland, Palestine.”