August 14, 2007 | 11:55 am

Hamas youth ready for martyrdom

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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Remember Farfur, Hamas’ propagandist mouse that ranted against Israel and was then made a martyr by the Zionist government? What I found most troubling about that TV program was the pre-teen host of the show. McClatchy Newspapers today have an exclusive interview with young Saraa.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Saraa Barhoum picked at the buttons on her pink bellbottom jeans as she twisted on a chair inside the bustling new Hamas television headquarters. The afternoon light bounced off the sparkly outlines of butterflies on her frilly top, and a colorful hijab framed her 11-year-old face.

Saraa wants to be a doctor. If she can’t, the young star of Hamas television’s best-known children’s show said, she’d be proud to become a martyr. Saraa says little Jewish girls should be forced from their homes in Israel so that Palestinians can return to their land.

With the show’s producer helpfully offering written tips during an interview, Saraa didn’t get into how she hopes to die for her cause, be it suicide bombing, fighting the Israeli military or some other way. She carefully sidestepped any suggestion that she’s subtly calling for the destruction of Israel .

” Israel says that we are terrorists,” Saraa said minutes before an interview with her was interrupted by an errant Israeli airstrike that slammed into an apartment building on the adjacent block. “But they are the ones that must stop their attacks against us and our kids.”