A new Lebanese computer game, designed by those fun-loving folks at Hizbollah, hit the market this past spring. The game simulates guerilla military operations against Israel's army. This is a sample of their promotional material an excerpt from Reuters' reportage on the release (click on "news"):
BEIRUT (Reuters) - In a dimly lit, camouflaged room draped with flags of the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah, a group of men calmly fire rounds at the head of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
But no one shoots back.
The room is in an Internet cafe adapted for marketing a computer game made by Hizbollah to reflect battles between the Israeli army and the group, which withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000 after a 22-year occupation.
Cafe owner Emad said he placed plastic rifles on the walls and stacked sandbags at the entrance to transform the room into a mock bunker to generate interest in the game.
"We wanted to create a military atmosphere to complement the game. Guys like stuff like this," he told Reuters. Eight-year-old Hussein Osman said he liked the game because it featured real fighters and "because it kills Israelis."
The game's creator explains that he was fulfilling the need for a game that would:
match with reality and illustrate battles executed by young men who never played an imaginary game; rather they fought real battles that humiliated the Zionist enemy, giving it a lesson in combat to tell him:
This is how a battle should be.
(This, by the way, is the eternal lesson that is always learned, without fail, from each and every Israeli concession and withdrawal: "We have humiliated the Zionist enemy!")
But why buy this game when there are so many others out there? Parents, take heed:
However, the problem behind these electronic games, especially those designed for computers, is that most of them are foreign make, especially American.
Therefore, they bear enormous false understandings and habituate teenagers to violence, hatred and grudges.
American games are dangerous because they "habituate teenagers to violence, hatred and grudges. Uh, huh. Unlike this game. But, more importantly (the meat of the matter):
In addition, some enfolds humiliation to many of our Islamic and Arab countries, where battles are running in these Arab countries, the dead are Arab soldiers, whereas the hero who kills them is – the player himself – an American!
Don't worry. There's no danger of such "humiliation" occurring in this game. It's safe and wholesome as 72 virgins. Now how to put this delightful toy into the eager hands of your little urchin?
To obtain the game, which includes all that an anxious persons dreams of in order to participate in facing the Zionist enemy
Call the accredited distributors at your country
Special Force game will render you a partner of the resistance.
Charles Johnson had the scoop on this back in May, but it got a little lost in the Goggle News/Indymedia thing. I thought it could use a little more attention. (Refresher course thanks to Middle East Quarterly, Summer 2003, print edition, p. 14)
