There's an old maxim, often (but groundlessly) attributed to the Jesuits, that says, "Give me a child until he's 7, and I will give you the man." The idea is that what goes into a child's head from an early age sets the course for his life. If that's true, the disgusting kiddie TV project Hamas is undertaking threatens to postpone peace for another generation.

Farfour — Arabic for "butterfly" — is the name of a Mickey Mouse rip-off who stars in a children's television program broadcast by a Hamas-run station. Farfour instructs young viewers on their responsibility to undertake armed resistance against the Jews. A video clip seen around the world on the Internet depicts the malicious mouse feigning a machine gun attack. Farfour is raising a generation of Palestinian Mouseketeers to kill and die for the Islamist cause.

Every society educates its children in its own values. What's so revolting about this rodent is his extolling hate, not hope, and war, not peace — in other words, Hamas family values. The co-optation of Mickey Mouse, a worldwide icon of childhood's innocence, for the sake of the terrorist cause is a shocking new low in child abuse.

This week saw the marking of the anniversary of the Nakba, or "catastrophe," the Palestinian term for their exodus from Jewish-occupied land during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. After nearly six agonizing decades, many Palestinians remain refugees.

All persons of goodwill around the world want to see this sad, complicated situation resolved justly and peaceably. How tragic, and infuriating, that the vipers of Hamas are working to prolong the suffering. It will take a long time to draw their potent poison out of the Palestinian body politic.