{"id":120150,"date":"2025-03-08T14:15:19","date_gmt":"2025-03-08T14:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/a-christian-palestinian-journalist-worked-on-arab-sesame-street-he-has-things-to-say-about-trumps-cuts-to-usaid-funding\/"},"modified":"2025-03-08T14:15:19","modified_gmt":"2025-03-08T14:15:19","slug":"a-christian-palestinian-journalist-worked-on-arab-sesame-street-he-has-things-to-say-about-trumps-cuts-to-usaid-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=120150","title":{"rendered":"A Christian Palestinian journalist worked on “Arab Sesame Street.” He has things to say about Trump’s cuts to USAID funding"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Daoud Kuttab<\/a> is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and a graduate of Messiah University, the school where I teach American history. Some of you may remember his Current<\/em> piece<\/a> on the one year anniversary of the Gaza War. Here is a taste of his piece <\/a>at The New Republic<\/em>:<\/p>\n

When I was approached in 1994 by Lewis Bernstein of the Children\u2019s Television Workshop to participate in a joint Israeli-Palestinian production of\u00a0<\/em>Sesame Street,\u00a0I was reluctant. I argued then, as I have argued since, that Palestinians under years of occupation prefer an amicable divorce from the Israelis rather than an equal marriage without equal rights.<\/em><\/p>\n

With funding from the Ford Foundation and other philanthropy, we agreed on training Palestinians and producing a separate Palestinian show (<\/em>Shara\u2019a Simsim) while also producing some crossover segments. Before we began, a radical right-wing Israeli assassinated Yitzhak Rabin, with the brave Israeli leader\u2019s blood spilling during a song that was part of a rally for peace in Tel Aviv.<\/em><\/p>\n

For me, the concept of mutual respect was translated into children\u2019s episodes by concentrating first on internal mutual respect, between male and female, between abled and disabled, between urban and rural people, as well as between people of different faiths and nationalities.<\/em><\/p>\n

The project was not without challenges. At the time we had no studio big enough for such a huge production, so we used the studios of Israeli Educational Television. Of course, we had lots of trouble getting our set from Ramallah to Tel Aviv and allowing our actors, including our star puppeteer, to pass the local security guards at the Israeli public service studio. It was also challenging to get the New York team to approve of some of our episodes that included pride in our culture, for fear it would anger and touch some nerves, including those of the funders.<\/em><\/p>\n

But we fought our way through all that, and on my 40th birthday, we broadcast the first season of\u00a0<\/em>Shara\u2019a Simsim\u00a0from the tiny studios of Al Quds Educational Television in Ramallah. The first season was produced working with Palestinian teachers and child psychologists, as well as artists and puppets, to craft 26 episodes around themes of tolerance, sharing, and friendship.<\/em><\/p>\n

The second season included some funding from USAID and the participation of the Palestinian Ministry of Education, which used the program as part of its early childhood education. A studio in Ramallah was able to host the filming.<\/em><\/p>\n

USAID again funded the third season. This time it was expanded to include Jordanian production. The three-way separate but equal production was a success. We won a BAFTA nomination in England and the Japanese Emperor\u2019s Award.<\/em><\/p>\n

In addition, learning from the world\u2019s best children\u2019s programming teams, we acquired the practical translation of life concepts into a fun children\u2019s program. Palestinian and Jordanian children loved the program, and Jordan\u2019s Queen Rania spread the curriculum of mutual understanding to all schoolchildren in Jordan.<\/em><\/p>\n

But in 2012, after USAID had signed a $2.5 million grant that was scheduled to cover the program\u2019s costs until 2014, Congress canceled the funding due to the decision by the Palestinian leadership to seek a vote at the U.N. for the state of Palestine. The star of this unfair stoppage was Florida Republican chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ileana Ross-Lehtinen of Florida.<\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/em>Shara\u2019a Simsim\u00a0cancellation raised the question of whether a U.S. bias toward Israel is reflected not only in the political arena but in the humanitarian realm as well. Congress froze the funds for Palestinians, but the State Department is still investing $750,000 in the Israeli version of\u00a0<\/em>Sesame Street.<\/p>\n

When Donald Trump denounced spending American dollars on \u201cthe Arab\u00a0<\/em>Sesame Street\u201d in his address to Congress Tuesday night, he cited a figure of $20 million. I am not sure where that $20 million figure came from, but for an American export that encouraged peace and goodwill, the amount is nothing compared with what is spent on war, death, and suffering.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read the entire piece here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Daoud Kuttab is an award-winning Palestinian journalist and a graduate of Messiah University, the school where I teach American history. Some of you may remember his Current piece on the one year anniversary of the Gaza War. Here is a taste of his piece at The New Republic: When I was approached in 1994 by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[53081,1871,11339,53078,12795,15075,53079,49077,31492,24719,53080,2156,11678,38769,4339],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-120150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-american-history","tag-arab","tag-christian","tag-cuts","tag-daoud-kuttab","tag-donald-trump","tag-funding","tag-israeli-palestine-conflict","tag-journalist","tag-palestinian","tag-sesame","tag-sesame-street","tag-street","tag-trumps","tag-usaid","tag-worked"],"yoast_head":"\nA Christian Palestinian journalist worked on "Arab Sesame Street." 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