A Gaming War Between Islam and the West? 321
The Washington Post has up an article looking at a burgeoning venue for political expression: gaming. Between 'The Quest for Bush', Counter-Strike mods, and more serious titles with a political slant, the political arena is quickly claiming gamers for their own. It's not just politics either; there are some excellent titles being released that attempt some truly insightful social commentary. From the article: "'UnderAsh,' released by Afkar Media in 2002, views the first intifada from the eyes of Ahmad, a Palestinian teenager resisting the Israeli occupation. Last year a sequel was released. A teaser to 'UnderSiege,' which tells the stories of five Palestinian families during the second intifada, shows a Palestinian teenager being shot on the street; an Israeli soldier appears to pound him with a concrete block seconds later. 'Our games are not propaganda,' Kasmiya says. 'Our games are a reflection of our history -- past or present. The fact is, most movies, most TV shows, most video games put Muslims in a bad light, so we have to try to tell our side of the story.'" Commentary from GamePolitics is also available.
Real accurate "history" (Score:4, Insightful)
This coming from the guys whose history includes the "fact" that the Holocaust did not happen.
Yes, but (Score:3, Interesting)
Recognizing the Palestinians' side of things is not the same as hating Israel.
I cheered for Israel when they went to get their kidnapped soldiers back, but I also feel Palestine should have their own territory, and be treated under the same rules of conduct as every other country.
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My policy to defeat them would be to send aid to their people when they need it, and avoid dealing with their Government.
But the fact that the Palestinian political parties preach hate doesn't nullify the fact that the West promotes hatred of them. Like I said, the approach is to be nice to their people and let their leaders rot in their hate; eventually the people will tell them to buzz off and if Israel participates, this "hate
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MOD PARENT DOWN for ridiculous bias (Score:5, Insightful)
Do you have sources for this? It's a rhetorical question, of course, because how could you have reliable sources for something you just made up? The fact is, Palestinians (regardless of their party) have always wanted back that which was taken from them. It's neither an unreasonable nor extreme request.
There is a saying that goes "to the victor go the spoils." And that is exactly what happened in Palestine after WWII. The Jews transformed American and British sympathy after the Holocaust into a greedy land grab. They didn't ask for part of the land that is holy to three different major religions. They didn't ask for sanctuary in a land that is holy to three different major religions. No, they took it all and displaced the native people who had been living there.
No matter how hard you try, you can't unmake history and injustice with rhetoric. In case the history of the last century escapes you, there once was a sovereign nation called Palestine. Then the U.N. passed a resolution, and Palestine was magically turned into Israel. And all the people who once lived there were herded up and sent to slums and refugee camps, where they have remained for three generations and counting--their land, their homes, and their property all stolen from them, their situation grim.
And you have the balls to label these people "extremists"?
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That's reductive (Score:2)
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Seriously, after WW2, Zionism won by default. Most of the European countries did not want "the Jews" and quite frankly, after what happened from our buddies the enlightened Germans, I'm not sure we'd have wanted to have to depend on the mercy of strangers again. Nation states didn't and still don't like minorities.
> This was done knowing full well that i
kinda sorta (Score:3, Interesting)
I like the way you argue. If you astutely noticed that I've omitted a few key details that would weaken my position and then also emphasized those details that would strengthen it, then, yeah...welcome to the world of rhetoric
To answer you more qualitatively, sure, most of the Middle East was a
Re:MOD PARENT DOWN for ridiculous bias (Score:4, Informative)
A brief history of the area now known as Israel...
The Cannanites were there first and were defeated by the Israelites
The Israelites were defeated by the Babylonian empire
The Persian empire under Cyrus the Great(which by the way was not Muslim) then defeated the Babylonians
Alexandet the Great and the Greek army then took the land from the Persians
The Greeks then gave Israel back to the Israelites
The Romans then conquered Israel
The Byzantines are given Israel when the Roman Empire is divided
The Arabs of Arabia drive out the Byzantines
The Turks then ruled on behalf of the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad
The European Crusaders then took the land from the Turks
The Ayyubi dynasty took the land from the Europeans
The Mamluks who by the way dont exist anymore had it until the Ottoman Turks took it
The British took it from the Turks and had Soverinty over it until the League of Nations established Israel.
So if you want to be specific there was never a sovereign Palestinian nation, and if the argument is based on some random usurper then the land that is currently Israel should belong to Turkey.
...Like the town bicycle... (Score:4, Informative)
These people organized themselves into a loose governmental structure long before the British got involved. They had names for their towns, for their roads. They thrived--please don't try to morally justify expelling them based on their lack of flag.
You can point to how the area has been passed around like a hooker at the Republican National Convention, but that doesn't extinguish the right the Palestinians had to the land, and more importantly to their culture and way of life--both of which have been dramatically changed now that the last three generations of Palestinians have grown up in refugee camps in Israel, Lebanon, and other places. In the camps, they are afforded no political rights (can't become citizens, can't own land, etc.) and very few human rights. It's an untenable situation, and one that the U.N., the U.S., and Israel must answer for.
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but that doesn't extinguish the right the Palestinians had to the land, and more importantly to their culture and way of life--both of which have been dramatically changed now that the last three generations of Palestinians have grown up in refugee camps in Israel, Lebanon, and other places.
That's an unfortunate situation, I do agree. What happened to cause all this?
Oh yeah.. The attacking Arab nations asked the Arab residents to get out of the way so they could sweep in, destroy the "Zionist upris
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A shame (Score:2)
link [slashdot.org]
I fully expect to be modded down myself, what with my voicing a dissenting opinion and all. Plus, you'r
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No, but (Score:2)
Are you kidding? Your situation has nothing in common with that of a Palestinian refugee's. You have the freedom to have your own life in your own town. You have citizenship and political rights, as well as many human rights that refugees don't have either. Imagine if you weren't allowed to be a U.S. citizen because of your grandfather's affiliations. Imagine you were not allowed to own prop
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Get the facts straight (Score:2)
I hope you realize that Hezbollah operatives kidnapped those men hoping to trade them for several Lebanese citizens who had been kidnapped before them. That side of the story is ostensibly missing from most of the U.S. news coverage on the events that led up to Israel's attack against Lebanon. It was if the entire narrative of violence, attack, and counterattack in the Middle East had somehow started with the kidnapping of the Israeli
Re:Yes, but (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't favor Israel or Palestine; both sides are going over the top and while Israel is making necessary concessions, they have brutalized Palestinian civilians before. I don't feel the Muslims should be pissed on for making a mean ol' video game that's no worse than what we make about them.
There are Palestinians and Israelis working together; I wish they were running the show.
Re:Yes, but (Score:5, Funny)
Indeed, the UN is extremely antisemitic.
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A) A person can be anti-isreal (or dare I say, anti-zionist) without being anti-semitic (i happen to be anti-any-movement-that-claims-the-right-to-anythin g-based-on-some-dieties-word)
B) Even for a jew hater, anti-semetic is the wrong term as alot of jews arn't semitic anymore, and on top of that, arabs and armenians are indeed semitic (yes, I know this is a semantics argument)
C) Believing a different story of events does not equal hating a people. Reasonable people can disagree on detail and usual
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Not only that, but Israel is 1/3 smaller than Belgium (only the European countries of Slovenia, Liechtenstein and the Vatican are smaller) and only slightly larger in population than each of the 3 scandinavian countries.
Also, there are 332Mn people living in the Muslim Middle East + Egypt. That is 46x larger than the population of Israel.
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Israel wants to be racially and religiously pure.
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Liar. Israel is the largest employer of Palestinians in the middle east.
If some Israelis express a desire to ban all Palestinians from Israeli soil, it is probably because of the civilian-garbed suicide bombers. Remove the bombers from the picture, and Israelis will want their labor pool back.
Did you know that the reason why Palestinians hate the checkpoints is because they interfere with their going to and from their jobs in Israel?
Not quite (Score:2)
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Yeah, and niggers are good at basketball, Jews carry a bag of gold around their neck everywhere they go, and all Germans are Nazis.
The N word and Godwin in the same message! (Score:2)
Thanks, Dr. Godwin. The last one brings us back on topic, to a nation where a majority of the people insist as an important goal the extermination of another nation. By coincidence, the reason for the wanted extermination is because the targettted people happen to be Jewish.
Re:The N word and Godwin in the same message! (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course wanting to slaughter your enemies because they have been beating the ever living shit out of you for decades now has nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.
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Please provide a respectable citation for your claim that, "mostly one-way rabid hatred of Jewish people goes back to before Israel."
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Again, I ask you to please provide an actual, verifiable citation from a respectable source. Surely you have som
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Yes you should. The history books I studied in college claim otherwise. I see plenty of websites that claim otherwise too. When I search on "dhimmi" and "Grand Mufti Haj Amin" I find many websites of extremely dubious veractiy.
Someone who is willing to state something so emphatically must have good reason to believe it. All I ask is that they support their claims with respect
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I guess you haven't studied the history of Islam or the Arab world. You might start with the Wikipedia history of anti-semitism [wikipedia.org]. You might then check out the website of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and Africa [jimena.org]. Here is piece [alminbar.com] by a contemorary Muslim bigot that cites the Qur'an and the attitude of Mohammed himself.
Re:The N word and Godwin in the same message! (Score:4, Informative)
On that page I see three or four references to muslim rulers imposing special sanctions on jews. I see about 10x that number of references to christians persecuting jews and often in far worse ways. If you belive that is sufficient proof that muslim's have "rabid hatred of Jewish people goes back to before Israel" then you must see christain society as 10x worse. I do not see christain society as expectionally anti-semitic. The linked wikipedia article titled "Islam and Anti-semitism" is disputed and thus not even a respectable source even by wikipedia standards, so I didn't see the point in reading something biased enough to trip over even wikipedia's low standards.
You might then check out the website of Jews Indigenous to the Middle East and Africa.
On inspection this site seems to be an advocacy site and thus clearly not a respectable source.
Here is piece by a contemorary Muslim bigot that cites the Qur'an and the attitude of Mohammed himself.
I think you understand that a bigot's viewpoints on history are going to be self-serving and not particularly representative. That's the equivalent of citing Matthew Hale's [wikipedia.org] intrepretaion of the christain bible as proof that christains have a rabid hatred of jewish people.
Surely you must have some rational and unbiased sources for the facts about the muslim religion. Why are you trying to distract me with irrational and slanted sources?
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You're confused. The fact that Christians were violently anti-Semitic throughtout much of their history does not show that Muslims were not. The question here is not whether Christians or Muslims have a better record: both have long and sordid histories of intolerance of other religions. The question at hand is whether Muslims were anti-Semitic prior to 1948. Even the rather sparse list of examples in that Wikipedia article provides evidence that they were.
The Jimena site may be an advocacy site, but it
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I'm sorry but you are not citing useful resources.
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Sorry, I'd bite back, but I all I have left are gums, and I can't see you anyway.
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No, it leaves everyone with one eye and one less tooth.
Re:The N word and Godwin in the same message! (Score:4, Funny)
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Actually, Israel comprises only 20% of Palestine, so Israel didn't exactly wipe it off the map. Most Palestinians live where they have always lived, in Jordan, which, by the way, controlled the West Bank from 1948 to 1967. In any case, Palestine is simply the name used by the Romans for the administrative unit they set up when they conquered the region. (They chose the name, by the way, as a dig at the Jews, of whom the Philistines were great enemies. There has never been any such thing as a Palestinian na
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Re:Real accurate "history" (Score:4, Insightful)
Please provide a citation supporting your claim that Kasmiya or a representative of his company, Afkar Media, have denied that Holocaust occured.
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I'm sure you could find a Palestinian somewhere that believed the Holocaust didn't happen. The usual points of contention, though, are whether the Holocaust justified the creation of an ethnic homeland for Jewish people and whether that homeland should have been created where the Palestinians happened to be living.
With respect to the question of whether the Holocaust justified the creation of a Jewish homeland, a
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Yeah. Neither one has anything to do with this story.
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The one that is really, really "out of here" is the one about the people you mentioned who believe that life began 2,000 years ago. Can't imagine they'd be fundamentalist Christians who would believe that life on earth began some time when Christ was a teenager. I don't think you'll find many A.D. 6 creationists anywhere.
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It's also mainstream Palestinian belief.
"Don't you have the faintest suspicion that you are creating something of a Frankenstein monster by joining all unsavoury aspects of the muslim 'side' into one cherry picked beast?"
If the beast creates itself (through no help from me), I am not on error in pointing it out.
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"Our side of the story" (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone needs to explain to these people (and Fox News, while you're at it) that trying to cancel out a raving lunatic by adding a raving lunatic from the "other side" does not "balance out", you just have two raving lunatics.
Mod parent up (Score:2)
West vs Islam? (Score:4, Informative)
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I find the above post offensive.. (Score:2)
Re:I find the above post offensive.. (Score:5, Funny)
Do you ethnically cleanse the curds during the cooking process?
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<goodwin>And there were plenty jews in Hitler's Germany, your point?</goodwin> Just because they're marginally present in the same territory doesn't mean the culture clash isn't real, most of the muslims in Europe are "cultural immigrants", if that expression makes any sense.
Come to that most of the East is full of Chinese people, who on the whole are about as Muslim as a a beer flavour sa
Muslim armed commandos = "a good light"? (Score:5, Insightful)
Here is one example of how they do this: "Armed with a rifle, a shotgun or a grenade launcher, players navigate various missions that include "Jihad Growing Up," "Americans' Hell" and "Bush Hunted Like a Rat." In the final stage, you fight Bush.". So tell me, does this defy stereotypes at all? How is it a "good light" to make games in which Muslims are presented as violent commandos... the only difference being that they are the "first person" in the shooter and not the armed enemies for once? Or the other game in which "The goal is to kill"?
The game creators seem to think that it is a positive portrayal of Muslims to change them from being terrorists who are shot at to terrorists who are shooting.
Actually, the story is somewhat funnier (Score:2)
I think you missed the (unintentional) irony. The fact that doesn't seem to have been mentioned is that Night of Bush's Capturing is not an original game. It's a mod for an US game, 'Quest for Saddam', where players playing US marines (with oddly Bush-like skins) mow down muslim soldiers and bin-laden lookal
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"In the final stage, you fight Bush."
I think I played this one and it's really sort of anti-climactic. You fight your way through vast hordes of defenders to get to the final stage only to find that instead of fighting Bush you're facing an empty F-102 sitting on a tarmac in Texas.
*rimshot*
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Thanks, antisemitic AC (Score:2)
So we should accept a demand for genocide against an entire nation? I need to learn to not respond to antisemitic AC's.
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That's a great list of, to put very lightly, embarassments of US involvement in Iraq. What's it got to do with the current discussion? The point was that a p
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Are you saying that if we don't need any oil, Iran wont have a market? I guess this extends to removing Iran 'legitimate' reason for needing nuclear power, cos now they've got all this spare oil hanging around to run their power stations.
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people act as if bush matters long term, he will be a footnote president in 10 years at most.
Bull crap (Score:2, Insightful)
Right up there with the other great lies.
"I am not a crook!"
"I did not have sex with that woman."
"I'm from the government and I'm here to help."
If ya have to say "Our games are not propaganda" odds are it IS propaganda. From the description it certainly sounds like a recruiting tool for the terrorists.
Yes, ye unwashed hordes of pro PLO slashdot kids, the terrorists. Islamic terrorists. Doesn't make s damned bit of difference if they are 'Palestinian' Islamic terrorists from
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Captain obvious to the rescue...
Re:Bull crap (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with you, the terrorists should be hunted down and wiped out, but it needs to be a precise and targeted attack. Every bit of 'collateral damage' just ramps up support for the terrorists.
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Perhaps. But that is what a War on Terrorism would actually look like. War isn't politically correct, War isn't pretty. War is hell.
I can promise ya that in WWII anyone sporting a flag of any of the Axis powers would be a target. Describe the difference between that and flying the Hezbellah flag now? Of course now you can find that and more flying on any American university campus. But if we were seriously fighting a War on the terrorists anyo
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"I am tired and sick of war. Its glory is all moonshine. It is only those who have neither fired a shot nor heard the shrieks and groans of the wounded who cry aloud for blood, for vengeance, for desolation. War is hell."
The man also said:
"I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace."
You would be correct to observe that people in war often behave immorally, but rev
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Incidentally, if you believe everything in your post, then the odds are that you shouldn't answer that question.
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> Hezbollah were *elected* because they were seen as being able to protect their people and, hopefully,
> drive the ever-expanding country of Israel back behind its rightful borders.
This is why I'm wasting my time on you, this shows some hope for ya. At least you recognize Israel HAS rightful borders. Now I'm going to ask a seemingly simple question of you. Name one example where Israel expanded its borders in an unjust way?
Here is a hint. Lan
'The Quest for Bush'? (Score:4, Funny)
Really, is it just me, or does this sound like a Leisure Suit Larry title?
"Islam" and "The West"? (Score:3, Interesting)
"UnderSiege"? (Score:2)
(The best of a well-fought (early on), well-actioned (early on again), horribly-acted (all of them) bunch...)
Why do you all care so much? (Score:3, Interesting)
Besides, I'd rather them kill American soldiers and presidents in a video game than in real life.
Melissa
I, for one, look forward to the day... (Score:3, Funny)
Hypocracy (Score:3, Insightful)
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More to the videogame topic, I don't think these games where they choose to portray themselves specifically blowing us up are really going to help the portrayal problem.
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You never know they might stop being quite so pissed off at you...
Those are just actors? (Score:2)
Those are really just actors? I had one come up to me once and demand to know where they kept the "nuclear wessels". I got kind of scared.
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The blue crest makes a pretty good target, however it takes a LOT of bullets from the chain-gun to kill it shooting at the crest compared to aiming for the center of its breast.
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Astronomy
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That's what then Defense minister Ytzak Rabin publicly asked them to do to try to repell the 1st intifada.
It wasn't even a rogue soldier, it was a public call from the Defense minister.
IDSPISPOPD (Score:2)
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Yes, the Palestinians are com
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You should have added a link to the Middle East Media Research Institute [memritv.org] so people could watch the videos or read the transcripts of the fine material broadcast in various Middle Eastern countries, like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syri