Anonymous, 9 Sep 2010
Research on Middle East, Islam and digital media
keyword: Israel
 
Fontana, Lorenza, Conflicting Information Strategies in the 2006 Lebanese War. Arab Media and Society, Issue 10, Spring 2010 abstract full text PDF
 
Hunt, Wayne, War, Theater and the Big Interview. Arab Media and Society, Issue 10, Spring 2010 abstract full text PDF

Safe Passage: New Interactive Game Against the Israeli Policy on Gaza

An interactive game launched by an Israeli not-for-profit organization Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement combines animation, documents, video clips and a blog in order to warn against the policy cutting off the Gaza Strip from the West Bank. The game "Safe Passage" allows the user to experience interactively the restrictions on movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. It includes an archive of legal documents that aim to "shed light on military legislation and legal rulings since the 1990s, when Israel began imposing increasing restrictions on movement between the two parts of the territory."

Palestine in Pixels: The Holy Land, Arab-Israeli Conflict, and Reality Construction in Video Games

This article explores the ways in which Palestine is envisioned, and its representation constructed, in contemporary video games. At the same time, capitalizing on Bogost’s notion of “procedurality”, this article discusses the potential and limitations of various game genres for modeling complex historical, social, and political realities. It focuses particularly on the ways in which the Arab-Israeli conflict is mediated and its perception and evaluation subsequently shaped by these games. By doing so, this article analyzes how the (re)constructions of reality as provided by the video games’ graphical, textual, and procedural logic, serve parallel – albeit contradictory – political and ideological interpretations of real-world events. On a more general level, this article aims to further develop the game genres’ critique by focusing on two contrasting, but equally signifi cant and simultaneous, aspects of video games – the persuasive power of procedurality and the inherent limitations thereof.

Making the Internet Kosher: Orthodox (Haredi) Jews and their approach to the World Wide Web

This article surveys the approach of Orthodox Judaism – especially the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) Judaism – to the Internet. In the introduction we compare the approach of the Abrahamic religions to the Internet. Then we focus on the Haredi community (especially in the contemporary State of Israel) and their specific approach to the Internet. This article argues that the use of the Internet, although officially banned by many Haredi Rabbis, is in fact tolerated on a pragmatic basis. We also survey which kind of “protection against secular threads” the Haredim use (filtering software, Holy Shabbat protection). In the last part of this article the role of the Internet in Israeli religious politics, and by its uses by fundamentalist and radical Jewish groups, is surveyed.
 
Kalb, Marvin; Saivetz, Carol, The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon in an Asymmetrical Conflict. The Harvard International Journal of Press and Politics, Vol. 12, No. 3, July 2007 abstract PDF

Raid Gaza! game comments on the "Operation Cast Lead"

My friend Shawn Clybor has tipped me off to a new game related to the current Middle-Eastern affairs. Raid Gaza! is a simple flash game submitted to user-contributed portal Newgrounds by an anonymous author on 30 December 2008, only three days after the Israeli Defense Forces launched airstrikes on Gaza as a part of "Operation Cast Lead." The game itself is clearly engaged and takes a critical stand against the justification of Israeli military actions. The player controls the Israelis and defends the town of Sderot against Palestinian Qassam rockets.
 
Tawil Souri, Helga, The Terrorists' Network: An Analysis of 'Pro-Arab' Video Games. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, TBA, San Francisco, CA, May 23, 2007 abstract full text
 
 
Ghattas, K., Syria launches Arab war game. BBC News, 2002, London. abstract full text
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