This is the description I lifted from steam: "Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is a Third Person Action Game on which you play as Ahmad al-Falastini, a young Palestinian Student who was unjustly tortured and jailed by Israeli Soldiers for 5 years, had all his family killed by an Israeli Airstrike and now, after getting out from the prison, seeks revenge against those who wronged him, killed his family and stolen his homeland, by joining a new Palestinian Resistance Movement called Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.
This game is greatly inspired by Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Insurgency Sandstorm, Max Payne and Goldeneye 007."
> "I do not blame Valve nor Steam, the blame is on the UK government and authorities that are pissed off by a video game," Nijm said. "On their flawed logic, the most recent Call of Duty Black Ops 6 should be banned as well. As you play as an American soldier and go to Iraq to kill Iraqi people. What I can say is that we see clearly the double standards."
Love him or hate him, he does make a principled point.
Also, call of duty had and has ties with the army that sees is as a potential recruitment tool. [1]
Furthermore, in one call of duty a real event was narrated - although if in a fictional scenario - as if it was made by Russians [2], while in real life it was a us led attack on civilians, prisoners, and non fighting combatants. Google highway of death
Another article that has a broader view on the history of how defense and entertainment sector have ties [3]
> while in real life it was a us led attack on civilians, prisoners, and non fighting combatants. Google highway of death
What COD did to this scene was reprehensible, but it's also important to understand the context for the real attack. The Highway of Death that happened in real life was a targeted strike on Saddam Hussein's retreating forces, most of whom were legitimate targets of war. At the time, Iraq sponsored the 4th largest military in the world, was being bombed in Baghdad, and most of their allies were starting to turn on them over outstanding debts. This pressure pushed Saddam to invade Kuwait, and Saddam's actions pushed the US to destroy as much Iraqi materiel as they could possibly damage.
The attack did happen on a civilian road, but only after the locals became aware that the highway was being used by Saddam's forces. The controversy mostly stems from attacks on a retreating force and the scale of the destruction, both of which are still up for debate on their effectiveness.
Sure, if you admit that the information and the entertainment available in one's country should align with that country "interests", then there is no doubt about it. However the West markets itself exactly as the place where such thing doesn't happen, so that's where the problem lies.
The marketing and the reality are somewhat different. Ignoring the fact that “the west” isn’t one political regime, it is about balance. While the US prides itself in allowing people to run around cosplaying as nazis under the guise of freedom, other countries consider that to be offensive and would legislate against it.
It’s a wide spectrum. Any extreme of censorship and a complete lack of censorship and control will quickly lead to the decline of society. Nuance is where everything is. No absolutes.
Not the West, just the US. Free speech outside of the US isn’t really a thing. The UK in particular has been very aggressive in censoring speech recently.
As I understand it, he was making a pro-Hamas speech (not pro-Palestine). Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK.
The UK had a particular problem with preacher Anjem Choudary [1] indoctrinating followers to be militant islamists. He is reckoned to the be linked to up to 40% of terrorist incidents in the UK (including the 7/7 attacks in London).
Following this period the anti-terror laws were made stronger and "inviting support for a proscribed organisation" became illegal. Presumably that means recruiting either directly or indirectly through speeches.
So, I can understand how this happened. But your summary really only belies your bias I'm afraid, this: "arrested a jewish son of holocaust survivors for hate speech after he denounced Israel as behaving in a genocidal manner" isn't true. Even the article you link states that he was arrested for inviting support for a proscribed organisation. He wasn't arrested for denouncing Israel as behaving in a genocidal manner.
The issue is very emotive and charged. I am not taking sides. But it's often the case that whenever anyone falls foul of laws, that have been designed to protect the people of the UK, either directly from abuse because of who they are, or indirectly via terror, then those affected complain about a lack of freedom of expression.
It seems they didn't charge him, so maybe the police overreached in this instance. I haven't seen the speech, so I can't comment, and certainly I wouldn't defend the UK police as they could certainly do with some reform. But, it's also possible that this was quite a difficult tightrope for the police to walk in terms of the law.
Some of these laws may seem draconian, but the people of this country who are not racially abusing people, or targeting people because of their sexual orientation, or gender, or inviting support for a proscribed terrorist organisation (which is 99.999% of us), will never fall foul of this legislation.
How does that follow? The main problem with freedom of expression in Iraq isn’t the censorship of video games that include actions against Iraq. If that was the only censorship in Iraq, the UK and Iraq would be on the same level.
Neither follows. Of course the UK is nowhere near Iraq in terms of censorship. Yet, here the UK prescribes to their standards on grounds just as hollow.
Think about what makes this case different, why it was treated as such, and what the motivations were (Hint: Not related to counter-terrorism).
UK is turning into Oceania. Police are knocking on people's doors for tweets. And in a way in Iraq chances are you will have greater freedom of expression because the state capacity is low. UK can enforce shit.
If you’re referring to the faux outrage whipped up by Daily Telegraph ‘journalist’ Alison Pearson, then that too isn’t accurate [1]. A member of the public reported a crime (inciting racial hatred), the police followed up on that, as is their duty.
She lied to suit her own divisive narrative.
Free speech absolutionists are whipping up fervour with divisive rhetoric. It’s as simple as that. In the UK we have free speech rights but also responsibilities. That’s how it should be. Unfettered free speech without a thought to the public and social consequences is reckless imho.
For those that care for facts rather than the divisive rhetoric of twitter: this is a decent overview of the freedom of expression rights and responsibilities in the UK [2]
"In contrast, freedom of speech does not protect statements that discriminate against or harass, or incite hatred or violence against, other persons and groups, particularly by reference to their race, religious belief, gender or sexual orientation. In the UK, this includes laws specifically designed to protect people from suffering abuse on account of who they are."
No, I'm not. I don't read the Daily Mail. Are you trying to imply that was just one case and police don't spend time on them at all?
"My Lords, so-called non-crime hate incidents may have been introduced for perfectly good reasons after the Macpherson inquiry, but last year the police recorded more than 13,000, including some against schoolchildren and others for utterly absurd reasons—I myself was investigated for calling Hamas Islamists" [0]
No one has been specifically prosecuted for speech as far as I am aware of. The individuals locked up were quoted as being prosecuted for speech by less than accurate media and were persistent offenders and violated their release or suspended sentence terms.
Britain hasn't had a sovereign interest in the Levant for over a century. Their citizens deserve access to uncensored media to form their own opinions, even if the media is satire that would make Matt Stone and Trey Parker blush.
"I think we can probably make do without a game that glorifies the 7th of October massacre. Or any as a matter of fact."
The developer of the game is complaining about a double standard. Given the fact that we have shooter games glorifying some abhorrent us activities, and we are okay with that, we do have a double standard. We could discuss for ages whether it's wrong or right, but we can't hide behind "oh no it's a terrible thing" because we have been representing terrible things since decades, but this time apparently it's bad because it's not our faction doing the funny (it's not so funny anymore, isn't it?)
Double standards happen in international politics. Things are regional and promoting certain events are considered a security threat as it’s not exactly as if there isn’t a problem with terrorism from radicalised Islam in the UK.
Also worth noting that the content of this is considered distasteful among the Muslim community here as well. It makes them look bad too.
Stuff like this sows the seeds of division between the communities.
I came in prepared to defend the game and all, but then I read the subject matter, and just walked away thinking it’s a miracle it’s available anywhere.
Sure, he’s right that that’s double standards, but still.
I just went over a year worth of updates/release summaries and nothing suggest that Oct 7 attacks were added! If it's judging by this [1]:
> The game drew the attention of terror police because it included scenes of players paragliding into an Israeli army base and killing soldiers.
That's the only connection to the Oct 7 attacks.
Also when you look at the graphics and gameplay, the 'combatants' are all in military style uniforms. Nothing even remotely suggest there are civilians involved.
It doesn't have to represent anything. Just as CS 747 map (CounterStrike, 747 Hijack map [1]) represents nothing, even though "we have seen that before".
"I'm not sure what counter-terror objective blocking this game actually has."
This, plus, what authority does Counter Terrorism Command over commercial enterprise in the UK?
Can any police force in the UK just arbitrarily block things for sale?
The article provides the CT comment:
"The CTIRU works closely with a range of technology, social media and online service providers, but we do not comment on specific content or any communication we may have with specific platforms or providers."
But nowhere do they state an actual law being broken, or law under which CT command can block things for sale.
I'm not a lawyer, so maybe this one is obvious, but this looks like authoritarian overreach.
Pretty wild guess but maybe to prevent radicalization and recruitment? If you have a game like this and get the players onto your discord, you might move over some of them to do something in real life.
I was skeptical about whole thing, but then getting Jewish pogroms in the middle of freaking Amsterdam in 2024 wasn’t on my bingo card. Some things are better be blocked for good.
And before I get “but Counter-Strike!” - it is set in imaginary universe with made up factions.
A pogrom with zero casualties. What’s next, a holocaust of taunting? When a government is committing genocide, you can expect people will have strong feelings about it.
Paul Barry - very much a veteran Australian news reporter and on again off again host of Media Watch for decades - an Australian weekly short that rips into print, tv, radio, and internet media reporting across the board and takes it to task for accuracy, dodgy deals, misrepresentation, etc.
The facial expressions are great .. the weekly shows are only 20 minutes or so and still soak up the time of 10 staff or so, including KC's (King's Counsel Lawyers (top ranked in Commonwealth countries)) that donate a fair bit of time gratis to double check statements and liabilities.
They do f*ck up on occassion but it's a solid show for ripping into the (media) pricks with substance and receipts.
That segment is from the very last of Barry's hosting sadly, he's retiring after a storied career that includes being fired (and later rehired) for asking tough questions.
My thoughts exactly. I was thinking it maybe genuinely unfair treatment, but then I read the developer's own description of the game.
Anyone who describes their own work as 'basest of all time' is clearly going for shock value, and not as a protest, but as a selling gimmick.
I don't necessarily agree it should be banned, I just... can't think of a downside.
COD famously did this for the airport scene. I see these Steam indie games like standup comedy, a lot of smaller/younger devs try hard to push boundaries to get attention in a sea of thousands of generic games coming out every month. It is sometimes where good ideas come from. Or maybe another analogy is porn where there's a million niche things for everybody's perverse interests.
The point of "No Russian" is that the mass shooting was unjustified. You're an American who has infiltrated a terrorist group, and you go on a mass shooting with them to maintain your cover. Then, at the end of the mission, it's revealed that the terrorists knew you were an American, so they kill you and leave your body behind so that Russia blames the United States for the attack.
It's subversive because you think it's the typical "sometimes you have to do bad things to stop worse things from happening" plot.
But nope, committing atrocities because that's the standard of the "bad guys" is what allows terrorists to justify their existence and propagate the cycle of violence. The entire plot of the game is that individuals in the US and Russian governments use terrorism to justify even worse actions.
The game mentioned in the OP, on the other hand, portrays Palestinian liberation as requiring violence in order to match the actions of the Israeli military. The killings are not only justified but are necessary. This follows Frantz Fanon, who said:
> At the level of individuals, violence is a cleansing force. It frees the native from his inferiority complex and from his despair and inaction; it makes him fearless and restores his self-respect.
In other words, getting revenge is inherently cathartic and the solution to a violent conflict is to ensure your side performs more violence and ultimately wins. It's a very different message to Call of Duty.
Whatever’s your stance on the conflict, if you include Oct 7 as a playable mission AND you continue to play as the same guy throughout the game - you’re the bad guy.
It’s one thing to create imaginary world of freedom fighter fighting against tyranny of oppressive world hegemony of certain state and it is completely different thing to include some sort of Sep 11 event and then paint it as resistance.
> The game wasn’t fully based on playing as bad guys.
Well yeah... COD is a giant mainstream game where that line has to be from a socially acceptable shortlist of bad guys. Yet it still included a transgressive scene that upset people with calls to remove it. I remember the news heavily covered it. Great for marketing.
This is some small Steam game where you can put together some low effort campaign in an old game engine, spin it with some controversial topic and get frontpage on social media without having to appease a wider audience.
I find this disclaimer on the steam page particularly interesting:
All the Characters, Art and Storylines depicted in this game are purely the work of fiction. Any similarity to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The plot of this game is a fictional history inspired by real facts. Even the political and military groups depicted on the game are fictional. In this game, the player does not shoot Israeli civilians, women, children, elderly, only soldiers. Also in this game there are NO images of sexual content, illicit drugs, religious desecration, hate of speech against any group, ethnicity or religion, anti-Semitic propaganda against Jews, Nazi propaganda or boasting of any terrorist groups and / or other unlawful acts. This game only contains the virtual representation of the Palestinian Resistance Movement against the Israeli Military Occupation, which is officially recognized by the United Nations (UN). This game was approved to release by Brazilian's Government Justice Department, Age Rating Sector.
To be honest, the game looks ridiculous with its over the top scenes. It's like a reverse spec ops the line, except it's so exaggerated it's ridiculous rather than depressing
Video game NPC killed using a sword- the bad, horrible kind of killing, versus if he had used an assault rifle or other firearm- the ethical, humane way of killing.
You can play this "style" of game in Project Reality, albeit against US Marines in Fallujah.
It is a very fun map and led to other less COD like games such as Hell Let Loose and Squad etc.
There’s got to be more to it than just “playing as the bad guys”. There’s at least one Battlefield game where you can play as the Nazis. But I don’t think that includes committing atrocities. If the next Battlefield game included Nazi-mode where you get to re-enact El Alamein from Rommel’s perspective, then it could be viewed as an interesting exercise in alt-history. However, if it included Nazi-mode with the objective of righteously industrializing genocide, then I expect it would be viewed as beyond the pale.
So I wonder which route this game takes. Is it a straightforward combat simulator with one team that happens to be labelled Palestinian, or can you press F to rape?
It's comparable to most Call of Duty games at the minimum, many of which have maps in completely residential and commercial areas. Russian airport terminals, Ukranian apartment blocks, etc.
Also- considering the plotline of the game, in which the protagonist is fighting off an invading IDF military, is that flag you see Israel (Israel) or Israel (Occupied Palestinian territory)?
> Missions across real places in Palestine
Seems like the latter, with no evidence for the former.
Perhaps it's in bad taste to Westerners who've imbibed a steady stream of atrocity propaganda about October 7, which avoids acknowledging that many of those killed and captured were legitimate military targets. By all accounts these are the antagonists presented in that mission in the game.
I mean, the internet is not some auto-censoring regime that stops things from "being up" if they're offensive. You can go find some of the most reprehensible, bigoted and offensive media spanning hundreds of years on Internet Archive. Some of them are games too, and they may even espouse opinions you disagree with.
It will only drive you insane if you believe the internet has anything absolute about it. The internet is not dictated by hasbara, there's no impetus to stay in lockstep with the Israeli media's opinion.
Steam is not the Internet really though. It’s a community store run by a large corporation which profits from everything that is sold. The internet just happens to be the delivery channel.
This is like going to the supermarket and buying a product which is called “killing jews, the best of” and then when someone comes along and gets pissy telling them you’re anti censorship.
It’s just tasteless morally questionable shite. If it was the other way around then people would be defending it similarly. It would still just be tasteless morally questionable shite.
> If they produced a game that was IDF killing Palestinians [bla bla ... usual double standards crap]
From what I read, this is a game about Palestinian resistance killing IDF terrorists, not Israelis or Jews. Besides how many games are there where you kill "Ruskis" "Gooks" or "Arabs" and no one (well except an insignificant few) blinks an eye?
Show me a fun game you could make out of Holocaust and I'll be impressed. You can't look at a game purely from mechanics perspective. Nazi flag is just red, white and black in an intricate order but it produces an emotional response in people. You can deconstruct it at some level, but in the end you're just hopping over trip-wires.
Both a survival horror could be set in camp - survive for as long as possible/eventually escape.
And you can make a pretty decent simulation strategy of the V2 project and the stuff that was happening in Siemens, Krupp factories.
The youngest person that can claim to have first hand memories of the nazi flag is what 85? If you are under 60 and the nazi flag produces emotional response in you, it is a good question to ask why?
Hell the hammer and sickle were way worse than the swastika in every objective measure. It is only 30 years since they have been gone and people are starting to get indifferent to them
I didn’t check the game but killing people isn’t all equal, do you kill civilians in Black Ops 6, and do you kill civilians in the banned game? The better comparison would be COD MW2 (with the famous „no Russian“ mission), which was controversial for exactly this reason.
According to Israel's own figures 393 of the 1139 killed on October 7 were active duty military, so it's certainly possible to construct a game mission around it which does not involve actively hunting down civilians.
@fakedang I saw your comment here:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41373440
If you ever write up anything about this, would love to read it.
For my own interest and also trying to inform a 19 year old family friend about the realities of HR that she is studying at college right now. Want her to realize some of it will be automated away (or to do it herself)
Didn't see contact in your profile, so random comment here!
This game is greatly inspired by Hideo Kojima's Metal Gear Solid, Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Insurgency Sandstorm, Max Payne and Goldeneye 007."