These guys? Naw (Picture: REX/Shutterstock)

While experts have been working day and night to figure out what drives extremism, the answer has been right in front of our noses the whole time.

It’s Tom and Jerry.

Abusive puppy dealer jailed after stuffing spaniel’s lifeless body into bin bag

At least, that’s according to Salah Abdel Sadek – the chairman of the Egyptian State Information Service – who claims the show has so desensitised kids to violence that it has, at least partially, led to the rise of Isis.

Speaking at a conference at Cairo University, he said the children’s cartoon ‘portrays violence in a funny manner and sends the message that “yes, I can hit him… and I can blow him up with explosives”.




‘It becomes set in the mind that this is natural’.

And he’s not the only one who blames the 1940s cat and mouse duo for the region’s civil wars.

After Sadek’s speech, the country’s privately-owned Youm7 newspaper agreed – describing in detail how Tom and Jerry encourages terrorism.

Election 2016: Sadiq Khan ‘elected Mayor of London with landslide victory’

Apparently, children who grow up watching the show also become used to an unequal version of justice where the mouse is always right, and have ‘sinister plans’ planted into their heads.

Personally, we think Tom and Jerry is fine for kids – you have nothing to worry about.

Spongebob Squarepants however… Well, let’s just say he has a dark side.

H/T Foreign Policy