THE YOM KIPPUR WAR - FOR KIDS!

The Yom Kippur War—for Kids! by Eric Trager (Contentions)
Video games loosely based on historic wars are nothing new. But the recently released “October War,” which invites children to “fight the Israeli Air Force starting from Swais [sic] til Barliv [sic] Line,” offers a new twist to the genre: it is available exclusively on the Anwar Sadat website’s “Kids Corner,” thus making it the first war-themed video game to be released on the official website of a former head-of-state. Indeed, dedicated gamers will be disappointed to find that the Harry S. Truman Library’s kids page lacks similarly inappropriate atomic bomb video games, while other typically dry former head-of-state websites won’t even arouse their curiosity.

Compared to far bloodier video games, “October War” might seem harmless. In the two-dimensional game, players command a tank across various swaths of the Sinai Desert, shooting at an assortment of Israeli bombers, helicopters, trucks, and warships. The game seems deliberately unrealistic: the Egyptian tank is able to arm itself with nuclear weapons and laser beams, while a Star-of-David-clad, King Kong-like gorilla confronts players at the end of the fifth level. (On the other hand, just like in 1973, the Egyptian tank is severely overpowered and destined to lose.) Were it not for the Israeli insignias prominently displayed on every enemy vehicle, “October War” would seem like a more colorful version of Space Invaders.

But as “October War” represents an attempt to introduce children to the legacy of Anwar Sadat, it is a deeply pernicious game. By using the video game to emphasize Sadat’s surprise attack on Israel over his subsequent Nobel Prize-winning peace overture, the site’s webmasters are imbuing Egyptian children with disturbing nostalgia for Arab-Israeli war. Of course, “October War” merely reinforces the sentimentality for wars with Israel that Egyptian children would have been taught long before they got hooked on “October War.” Such sentiment can be found in textbooks and commemorative war murals plastered along Egyptian highways. Egyptian students enjoy October 6 holiday weekends and participate in school trips to the North Korean-funded October War Panorama (where visitors are told that Egypt defeated Israel).

This vitriol for Israel—even in a country enjoying nearly thirty years of peace with the Jewish State—is, pathetically, par for the course in the Arab world. One hopes, however, that young “October War” players will see the game—and persistent hatred for Israel more generally—for what it is: a distraction from their homework and, ultimately, a gross waste of time.