August 17, 2007
Video games are increasingly popular as a means of political expression.In the latest example, the radical Islamic group Hezbollah, which battled Israel in last year's bloody Lebanese conflict, has published an anti-Israeli themed game.
As reported by Reuters, Hezbollah's Special Force 2 simulates battles during the 34-day war. The point of the game is to engage and destroy Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), capture soldiers, destroy tanks, and launch terror attacks using Katyusha rockets directed at Israeli towns.
Hezbollah media official Sheikh Ali Daher says that Special Force 2 promotes the idea of resistance against Israeli occupation:
Through this game the child can build an idea of some of... the most prominent battles and the idea that this enemy can be defeated. The features which are the secret of resistance's victory in the south have moved to this game so that the child can understand that fighting the enemy does not only require the gun.... It requires readiness, supplies, armament, attentiveness, tactics.
Israel, naturally, opposes the release of Special Force 2. Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev said the game is being used to depict terrorist actions as heroic:
It should come as a surprise to no one that Hezbollah teaches children that hatred and violence are positive attributes.
For his part Daher says the game forces players to manage scarce resources wisely, and was created by volunteers. It will retail in Lebanese stores for about $10 US, and Daher claims that hundreds of copies have already been pre-ordered.
The actual conflict began last year, following the kidnapping of two IDF soldiers by Hezbollah forces. Israel launched retaliatory attacks against Lebanon, where Hezbollah is based. The five-week conflict resulted in several hundred IDF casualties, over 1,200 civilian deaths and the evacuation of many towns on both sides of the border.
An earlier game, Special Force, (2003) dealt with "resisting" Israeli attacks on Lebanon. It reportedly sold over 8,000 copies in a week. Here is a video trailer from the original:
- Reporting from Canada, where he's glad that land claims are solved without the use of rocket launchers, GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes
Comments
Re: Hezbollah Game Celebrates 2006 Clash with Israel
hollywood made delta force, so what's the big deal?
Then again, anything can be used for propaganda. Besides, if America's Army can get away with it, then it should be no different for them.
Through this game the child can build an idea of some of ... the most prominent battles and the idea that this enemy can be defeated
It seems they are marketing this game specifically towards children.
Or is this a creative use of history.
First of all remember that this game wasn't created by Bungie or Epic. If they employ old technologies to make the game it's most likely due to lack of resources. And, while I'm no expert, I would assume that the PCs in Lebanon aren't exactly brand new. Trying to run brand new hardware on old computers isn't something I see as possible.
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@ John Kanders
This game is to be sold in Lebanon not the Palestinian refugee camps, we don't give that much aide to the Lebanese people it's a pretty well advanced country much like our own, just because they all look like a bunch of Arabs to you doesn't mean they are all the same people over there. We do give aide to the Lebanese government to resist Syrian and Iranian influences but that's largely because the U.S. doesn't like Syria or Iran.
Well that is a point up for debate, as they are listed as a terrorist organization by at least a half-dozen countries.
"For the record, Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization"
I think that more important than a group's origins is its current stance and actions. Not applying any labels either way, but just because they may have been formed to resist Syrian advances against their own country does not preclude the possibility that they are acting as a terrorist organization right now.
@videogamerjw
It's obvious that English isn't your primary language. There's certainly nothing wrong with that, but as a bit of advice, I would recommend becoming a little more familiar with the rules of punctuation, and the use of paragraphs, in English standards if you want to post on English-speaking forums. It makes your message much clearer and more likely to be read by everyone else. Just a bit of friendly advice!
Anywho...
"I am using my free speech right just like some of you guys acting like the game designers are bad guys teaching the children to be terrorist because you guys did use the word terrorist a few times."
Um...yeah, yeah they ARE "bad guys" by virtue of trying to use a game to teach children that violence and hatred toward another group of people. That's not limited to the Palestinians or any other one group; it's universal.
I remember reading about a board game in certain countries in the middle east where the objective was to "kick 10 Jewish kids out of your clubhouse". A BOARD GAME. With a clubhouse? Tell me that isn't wrong, that it serves NO purpose other than instilling hatred and intolerance in the next generation.
I don't know about you, but none of the games I play, as an American, have ever advocated the widespread hatred or extermination of another race or religion (I'll note that I've never played, nor do I support, Last Stand). Granted, most of the games I play are RPGs and fighters, but I've played my modest share of FPS and 3PS games, too.
This really isn't the forum to be raising the Israel vs. Palestine debate, outside of the context of video games, I think, so I'm not going to address those aspects of your post. As far as the game goes, it's ok to have soldiers, armies, etc. in a shooting game, just be aware when you make it what you're allowing and encouraging your players to do (slaughter/torture innocents & civilians, etc.).
Did you know game publisher Destineer is funded by the CIA and is now started developing games? I think their game just released was called First In Line or something along those lines. It was a game about the Marines. The Army has their own game.
So this is just the Hezbollah version. Quality is very poor but what can you do. Hezbollah and Israel hate each other, and I honestly must say that Israel is probably more guilty than Hezbollah in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with this game, it doesn't promote terrorism whoever claims that is full of it.
John Kanders -
You know people in Lebanon do have computers and nice clothes and food to eat and everything. Its actually a pretty nice country... well used to be before Israel started blowing apartment buildings, homes and businesses.
@Terrible Tom -
As someone mentioned above, this isn't a political forum, but in all honest Israel has a right to defend themselves from near daily rocket attacks and kidnappings. I don't ever recall Israel going on daily bombing runs for no reason or having civilians walk into crowded areas and blowing themselves up.
Israel bombed Lebanon a few months or so back and the targets were apartment buildings and businesses. Not exactly military targets.
How often do you see Western games that are based on wars a year ago? Not very often. There are more games about WWII and even the Civil War than there are about either of the Gulf Wars. Even America's Army doesn't have any specific conflicts.
Terrorists are often playable in multiplayer games, actually. Counter-Strike and Splinter Cell come immediately to mind.
1) Hezbollah IS a terrorist group. I know, cause they shot at me while I was in the Golan hights in a civilian bus. THe thing that saved me was the fact that the bus was bulletproof and the base was nearby so the response to the attack was fast. They shooters were identified as Hezbollah agents.
2) Ya know, if Hezbollah gave a crap about Palestinians then I guess Israel would not be the biggest employer of Palestinians in the entire middle east. At this point in time there is only one reason for Hezbollah to exist... Kill Jews. How do I know this? Well, hearing one of the surviving attackers that day saying something along the lines to "death to the jews" is kinda a tip.
@ Terrible Tom
It is kinda hard to target a military target when the group you are trying to get is a terrorist group. They kinda don't use bases and the such. They like to use civilian buildings because it provides good camo from military action and it also is an instant bad PR for anyone who goes after them. It is not a coincidence. But then, you tell a pissed off nation that has been attacked one too many times to stop and think about how it is going to look.
@Everyone
I look at this and even if I take away all my personal views about my herritage and the conflict that is not getting any better... I still have one complaint about this game. Here is a situation where not only is the game violent, but they are specificaly targeting kids so that the kids can play the game and go and attack Israel. This is not a free speech issue. This is a warped presentation of a noble hobby. This is a -cringe- murder simulator. This game has the aim to make children into fighters for the cause of the distruction and fear mongering of a nation. This game is truely the dark side of gaming. This game is not meant for entertainment, but to indoctrinate children into killers.
I quote "Through this game the child can build an idea of some of… the most prominent battles and the idea that this enemy can be defeated. The features which are the secret of resistance’s victory in the south have moved to this game so that the child can understand that fighting the enemy does not only require the gun…. It requires readiness, supplies, armament, attentiveness, tactics."
Marketed to kids, to promote violence. THis is agaisnt everything we stand for here.
That and the fact that the tech curve leaved this game far behind and thus makes this game truely evil, in nothing but graphics alone.
Should we consider the Israeli's terrorists for first telling civilians in a city in Lebanon to leave along a certain road then bombing that very road because they realized that "terrorists" were using it as an escape route? Should we consider them terrorists for bull-dozing the houses of families of suicide bombers even though the families had nothing to do with the crime? Who are the real terrorist in that war when a majority of the civilian casualties were Lebanese.
Since this is a political website because it is called gamepolitics and this issue I am going over involves the situation with the Hezbollah game and the fact that a few people come on and start this terrorist issue.
The Israeli's have constantly been getting off on the bad stuff they do because they have alot of support from America by which they have all of this high powered weaponry and so on. People go on about how the Palestinians are bad because they blow themselves up in Israel and yet I dont see the American media keep on going on about the Israeli soldiers bulldozing innocent people's houses down, shooting children in the head that happen to be in a protest when it is reported that the children did not have a weapon, when tension is down and there is peace for a few weeks the Israeli's start missions were they are targeting suspected Hamas members, they invade other areas just like Lebanon and kill a mass majority of innocent people just like how they kill a great deal of innocent people in Palestine when they go after suspected Hamas members after there was peace for a while.
There is some of the true facts I just felt the need to type down since this issue is somewhat related to the game and the fact of what some of you was saying that caused me to let you know about the issue.
So often in games we assume the role of a white, militaristic, supra-class male who, more often than not, demands that we as a player fulfil the principles of the 'War on Terror'; albeit virtually. This is just as much propaganda as this game by Hizbollah, simply more subtle. We see this in other forms of 'communication media' such as television, often a national news service will, when covering a strike for example, attempt to present its support for the employer as being in the nations interests. Similarly, in video-games the support of imperialism and the 'War on Terror' is not always explicit, nor is it seen to be representing the ideology of a certain group.
Video-games are a product of the social, historical and political context and, therefore, should readily seek to address this context rather than resorting to the infantile oppositions of 'Heroes and Villans', 'Light and Dark' et cetera. As with any medium, the vast bulk of video-game output is controlled by corporations who wish to defend the interests of the ruling classes, with this in mind, I see this game by Hizbollah as a legitimate utilisation of a medium in order to resist the suffocating mantra of 'anti-terror' we are subject to daily.
The fact that for gamers this game provides an alternative experience and perspective is interesting in itself. How many times do you get to play as the so-called 'terrorist'? Rarely, that is for certain. It would be utterly hypocritical not to denounce, as others have mentioned, the hulking propaganda machine and recruitment drive of 'America's Army', which has mass funding and publicity, whilst attacking this miniscule response by Hizbollah.
I shall not delve into why Israel is in essence as fascist state, one founded upon ethnic cleansing before the word, other than to say more than half of Palestine's native population, around 800,000 people, were uprooted, 531 villages were destroyed and eleven urban neighbourhoods emptied of their inhabitants by 1948. I have many a grievance with Hizbollah but they are a legitimate, popular resistance movement who fought against an invasion of their nation... and won.
I am sorry I am a little late to the fray, still, I am thankful for stumbling upon this website.
Take any WWII shooter for example, there is much glorification of 'ordinary men' fighting the Nazis and Fascists, yet there is nothing to address the fact that for all the talk of 'democracy' it was still a war primarily based around imperialist ambitions. A war in which working-class people were slaughtered in their millions carrying out imperialist aims. I think my mentality is best demonstrated by the title of a Surrealist tract- 'Neither Your War Nor Your Peace!'.
I do not believe most video-games could get away with concretely using recent conflicts as their subject matter, instead they are very implicit, they condition with an apparently 'neutral' tone (neutral of course being the upholding of the current bourgeois system). Certainly with Iraq a game could not openly be based on it, firstly because it would cause uproar among both the anti-war movement and those connected to the armed forces, and secondly, because the occupying forces are being routed by the Iraqi resistance.
A final note, yes it is true that in some games you can play as the 'terrorist', however these are mere avatars devoid of any personality or human traits; they are just a medium for the player. It highlights a deficiency of the medium that most games fail to explore the emotions and morality of the protagonist let alone the supposed 'enemy', an enemy so often reduced to a mere 'target' or 'hostile' which the player must not kill or murder, but simply 'neutralise'.
Haruspex
The real Lebanese people are the Christians. The Muslims INVADED and forced the Christians out and with the Muslims came the trouble.
I support Israel in their war with the Hezbollah terrorists. Every Christian Lebanese person I know and meet says the same thing. We want them destroyed and out of what once was a beautiful country before it was invaded.
"I support Israel in their war with the Hezbollah terrorists."
realy you are a very sick pig
if hizbollah was a militia he woulda killed other lebanese ppl but he doesnt and wont even in the most extreme cases wat ppl dont know is that israel holds the shebaa farms a part of lebanon planted 10 000 mines on the border and kills tens of palestinians a day