NGOs post online games to show Palestinian plight
Two short, interactive games claim to give visitors a sense of the Palestinian travails in the face of Israeli bureaucracy.
By Oded YaronHuman rights organizations are hoping to rouse Israelis out of what they see as apathy toward the Palestinian plight by posting interactive Flash computer games on their Websites.
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Palestinians at the Gaza border fence, June 2, 2010 |
| Photo by: AP |
Two short, interactive games - one offered jointly by Bimkom, an NGO that focuses on building and planning rights, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel; and the other by Gisha, an organization that champions Palestinian freedom of movement - claim to give visitors a sense of the Palestinian travails in the face of Israeli bureaucracy.
The game on the Gisha site, which is called "Safe Passage," focuses on what it describes as Israel's policy of severing the West Bank from the Gaza Strip. It includes a Flash presentation that details the hassles ordinary Palestinians face in selling their wares or traveling between the West Bank and Gaza.
Users can choose between three characters - a female Gazan who wishes to study at a West Bank university, a Gaza-based ice cream manufacturer who cannot sell in the West Bank, and a Palestinian who relocated to Qalqilyah only to be arrested by Israeli authorities and sent back to Gaza.
The other game, posted by Bimkom and ACRI, allows the player to help residents of a Palestinian village construct new homes in order to keep up with the natural population growth. While settler construction is given automatic approval, the Palestinians are repeatedly denied in their attempts to obtain the necessary permits.
Bimkom and ACRI aim to use the game as an avenue to promote their "Action a Day" initiative, which is aimed to ensure Palestinian rights in the territories.
"The residents of the village of A-Tawana are trying to gain access to running water and they are trying to exercise their right to build homes on privately owned land," the ACRI Website said. "But there is no running water, and there is no chance of building homes without obtaining a permit."
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The Palestinian economy on the West Bank is booming, and would boom in Gaza too if they weren't more interested in terrorism than the economy. And as for the difficulties in passing from Gaza to the West Bank, excuse me, but there is a sovereign country called Israel in the middle. There is this notion that Palestinians can go and do whatever they please wherever they please and no one has any rights to stand in their way. They try to block neighborhoods from being built between their homes and their fields, as if they own all the intervening land too. At least the High Court nixed that howler. Gisha can play its games--the reality is far different. Even in Gaza the food stores are stocked full and they even have Viagra. Some plight!
Build a train or underground causeway between Gaza and the WestBank. Or Cross into Egypt, take a plane to Jordan and enter the West Bank through Jordan.
It's not allowed to cross from Gaza to the West Bank or from Jordan to the West Bank! You cause suffering to us and then come with naive solution!
If Gazan democratically elected party would stop shooting skads to south Israel (or take control of those who do inspite) and recognise Israel as a legitimate country, there would be no blockade!
None of those characters in the video game have a suicide belt, a gun, or are involved in terrorism? Oh it's a game! Maybe make Hamas/Fatah to play the building game and they may build something other than another villa for themselves.
Come on even Israeli's suffer from Israeli Bureacracy. It certainly is not better in Ramallah
Jack, come on man. think about it. come and visit the homes of my Palestinian neighbors where married children and grandchildren sleep in one room of the head of the families "house" because they haven't had permits to build since 1967. (Where a road they paved at their expense was ripped up- is this stupid bureaucracy or bureaucracy at the service of evil?)
when it prevents a Husband and Wife living together if one is Jewish and the other is a Muslim. I would suggests bureaucracy is stuppid when it allows Basil into Gaza but not Coriander, Potatoes but not Pasta. Just a thought.
I can never understand how an organisation like this thinks and operates. The game they should make is one showing how Hamas systematically supress contorl and uses the palistinians as Ammunition in their self declared war against Israel. By continuing to focus on Israel, they are attacking and undermining the greatest hope for peace and the greatest hope for stability in the middle east.
It is madness.
The great hope for peace and stability in the ME has a rather disgusting record of violating basic human rights. That tag I'm happy to say is there to stay.
Could they add a game or two about the bureaucracy the average Israeli copes with, too? Just to put things into proportion.
Our motor vehicle offices are worse than check points any day of the week.
Clearly you've never seen, visited or even slightly "experienced" a Palestinian checkpoint...
to talkbacks that so belittle the problems facing Palestinians. Blame can be divided many ways..but this cheapening of the others suffering is a sign that we are losing our Tzelem Elokim.
Are Jews and Muslims equal under Israel laws? the question is easy and everyone agrees. Jews have the right to return to Israel which Muslims or Christians do not. Zoning rules favor Jewish building or factories and right to lease Gov. lands which was owned by Muslims/Christians before taken as abandon land.
Separated us this article saying that the ottoman empire was the only jus solution the middle east? Or British mandated Palestine? The option for their unity was offered twice who refused in the moment that mattered. In poker splitting the pot with someone who made a bad bet and lost is fairly noble not evil
sordid apathy like this will not be fazed by computer games.
... you have to defend civilians against rocket launchers, but every time you do so you get attacked by little NGOs that pop up and throw crap at you.
Fair journalism would identify these groups as radical left-wing activists with a political agenda, rather than dressing them up as Human Rights organizations. As these groups push forward with their campaign of delegitimizing Israel, journalistic integrity requires that these groups be described accurately.
I wouldn't say all the NGO's are radicals, but yes I have to agree a lot of the organizations are political whether or not they admit it, or at least politically backed. A lot of the bad press is also fairly objective - Israel has put itself in a few bad spots recently (botched assassination, botched blockade, poverty stricken areas due to siege, and multiple international inquiries and reports). Unfortunately it seems Israel is as good at delegitimizing itself too, which in turn has helped disguise some radicals as moderates. Either way the rest of the west is still backing Israel, just wish they would go about things in a different way.