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A Gaming War Between Islam and the West?
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.
Just in case the article writer (and the media) hadn't noticed, there are plenty of Muslims in the west too. 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 sausage wrapped in bacon.
Think of the Children; Sleep with your Sister
Just because the facts seem to get ignored on both sides of this issue:
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.
Oh come now, arguing that it was "just a territory" is to argue semantics in lieu of the point.
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.
You might start with the Wikipedia history of anti-semitism.
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 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?
When information is power, privacy is freedom.