Settlers launch anti-withdrawal computer game

Political ad in form of mini game meant to underscore danger of future withdrawal from W. Bank by showing how missile attacks could increase.

By TOVAH LAZAROFF
West Bank security fence barrier wall settlement 311 (R) (photo credit: Reuters)
West Bank security fence barrier wall settlement 311 (R)
(photo credit: Reuters)
You can help two masked terrorists launch a virtual missile against the city of Kfar Saba, located in the center of the country, with the click of a computer mouse.
Or if that feels like too tame a target, you can set your sights on Ben-Gurion Airport.
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Welcome to a new kind of political advertisement in the form of a mini-computer game, “Evacuation, Explosion,” which the Samaria Citizens Committee posted on its website in advance the Home Front Command’s missile drill on Wednesday.
According to the committee the political game is designed to underscore the danger of any territorial withdrawal from the West Bank by showing how it would increase the danger of a missile attacks against central Israel.
The game first asks you to pick a Samaria settlement.
In the next frame it shows a photograph of the settlement with the words, “If the nightmarish dream of the radical left is fulfilled, this settlement won’t exist. Then what would happen?” The next frame shows two terrorists with a missile aimed at Israeli cities from that settlement. The user can chose whether they want a Grad or a Kassam missile, then press a red button and send the missile flying.
A message then appears on the screen: “If there are Jews in Samaria, there won’t be missiles in Kfar Saba.”
“Evacuation, Explosion” is one of a series of computer games with an educational and/or political message that the Virtual 3D company has designed for the Samaria Citizens Committee.
The other three games posted on its website involve: Ammunition Hill during the battle for Jerusalem in 1967, a game from the time of Judah Maccabee and a game that takes place 3,000 years ago in the biblical city of Samaria/Shomron, which was the capital of the Kingdom of Israel in the 8th and 9th centuries BCE.
Company director Yehuda Vinograd said that he combined his training in educational software and 3D technology to create the games and the political ad.
Already, he said, around Pessah he and the Citizens Committee thought that the technology would be an effective tool to help the public understand the danger of withdrawing from Samaria. Together they created the game, but they released it only now, because it felt like the appropriate time.
More such political ads were under development, Vinograd said.