You may have already seen the viral video: a palestinian boy in Gaza rapping in flawless English.
If not, here he is.
And when Al Jizz writes that he spreads peace, it seems he really does want peace…with Israel.
Which is why many of his fellow palestinian Arabs have fiercely criticized him.
When the 11-year-old schoolboy from Gaza posted a video of himself rapping the lyrics of one of his favorite artists, he never expected it would make him famous or get him in trouble.
It did both.
The video of Abdel Rahman al-Shantti rapping in front of his Gaza City school in confident English and flawless hip-hop attitude won him more than a million views and praise from famous rappers around the world.
The trouble came when he was asked about his message.
“I would like to spread love between us and Israel,” he told an interviewer from a Russian news outlet. “There’s no reason for fighting and wars. We need to let this relationship become better and better.”
The comment came under fierce criticism in Gaza, whose leadership, the militant group Hamas, advocates fighting Israel — to retake what they see as Palestinian land — not making peace with it.
Many Palestinians lashed out on social media at the budding rapper and his father, whom they accused of failing to properly teach his son about the Palestinian cause.
When a young boy “doesn’t study his homeland’s history enough, it’s very easy to plant these ideas in his head,” Saad Yaghi, 23, a resident of Gaza City, wrote in one typical comment on Facebook.
The Russian outlet, Russia Today, removed the video at the request of Abdel Rahman’s father, Saleh al-Shantti. Mr. al-Shantti also posted his own video contending that his son didn’t mean peace and love with Israel specifically but peace with the world.
“The boy is 11 years old and he misspoke,” Mr. al-Shantti said. “He was very tired. It can happen.”
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Abdel Rahman — who was wearing a baggy black T-shirt and a hat that said “NEVER MIND” in his interview with The Times — was enthusiastic and animated. But if his recent difficulties taught him anything, it was to be a bit more guarded when speaking to the media.
Asked if he was dismayed by the reaction to his comments, he weighed his words.
“Kind of,” he began.
Then, his father cut him off before he could complete the thought, saying that he preferred his son not discuss the topic any further.
Here is the video of his father explaining how his son misspoke.
I don’t understand Arabic but I can understand just how sad this is.
Instead of expressing his pride in his son for trying to promote peace, it seems to me he is humiliating him while teaching him all the wrong things; Like peace with Israel being an undesirable thing, and kowtowing to Hamas being the honorable thing.
This is depressingly sad, and is yet another indication as to just how far from peace with the palestinian Arabs we are.
