Can you solve the
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict?
Makers of new video game ‘Peacemaker’ visit Wisconsin

By Rachel Irwin
of The Chronicle staff

An Israeli tank explodes and 118 Palestinians are killed. You are the Palestinian president and must decide how to respond.

“I would make a speech about non-violent resistance,” said Andrea Florsheim, moving the mouse across the computer screen, which has turned into a colorful map of Israel and the Palestinian territories, complete with interactive video, pop-up explanations about different areas, and a helpful summary of their options.

Her group decides on the speech, but their approval rating in the Palestinian territories shoots down.

“I don’t know what to do!” exclaimed Florsheim. Her fellow group member, Rebecca Katz, seconds her frustration. “Talking didn’t help.”

Now what?

That was the question posed to players of the ground breaking new video game Peacemaker, the goal of which is to achieve what seems unachievable — a satisfactory two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Sixteen participants in the Weinstein Fellowship program, part of the Milwaukee Jewish Federation’s Young Leadership division, grappled with Peacemaker — with some groups playing as the Palestinian president, others as the Israeli president — during an event on Tuesday evening, April 17, in the Milwaukee Jewish Day School’s computer lab.

“Should we ask Israel to stop their aggression?” asked members of Florsheim’s group. “Or should we just wait for something else to happen?”

At that moment, the game’s creator Asi Burak —who was at the event, along with co-creator Eric Brown — happened to be walking by their computer.

“You’re leaders!” he scolded. “Don’t wait for something to happen. Take responsibility!”

Transforming a medium

Burak, who was born and raised in Tel Aviv, came up with the idea for Peacemaker while a graduate student in Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Melon University in Pittsburgh. He chose to create a game about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he explained to the group, because of his background and also because it’s such a “serious” issue in the world.

“It was a huge challenge,” he said.

The challenge was not only in the divisiveness of the subject matter, and trying to represent both sides fairly, but also in changing the perception of video games as violent and harmful to the large segment of young people who play them. After all, he added, 89 percent of video games contain violent content.

Brown, who was in the same graduate program as Burak, said that the team creating Peacemaker looked to Art Speigelman’s wildly successful and critically acclaimed graphic novel “Maus” as an example of how artists can “transform a medium.”

Their goal, therefore, was to create a game that not only was “meaningful, non-violent, and innovative” but that also appealed to a wide global audience, including Americans, Israelis and Palestinians.

In order to do that, the team consulted a variety of experts on both sides of the debate and also spoke with “regular” Israeli and Palestinians. It was a process that Burak found eye-opening.

“Israelis aren’t really meeting people from the other side…. When they talk it’s always between leaders,” he told The Chronicle. “Real people don’t have real ways to meet. I met many Palestinians and I understand how they feel. It’s no longer black and white, like we’re good and they’re evil.”

Who wins?

Indeed, understanding where both sides are coming from is an integral part of the game. Many of the Weinstein fellows who played from the Palestinian side were surprised to feel sympathy for the Palestinian’s lack of resources.

“You never hear [their] point of view,” said Jennifer Saber.
Mostly, though, the fellows expressed extreme frustration at the difficulty in achieving any progress.

“Peace is not possible in the near future,” said Marina Rickum. “The needs on both sides just can’t be met.”

This was a recurring theme in comments throughout the night — that playing the game revealed just how intractable and complex the situation actually is.

It may be complex, said Burak, but if those playing were feeling hopeless, it was probably because they hadn’t played enough, and they hadn’t played alone.

“You can win the game,” he continued. “Complexity and frustration are an important lesson. You pass that whole idea of sitting here in America and saying, ‘Why don’t they just do something?’”

The creators’ goal, Brown added, was not to promote a specific solution, but instead to “spark dialogue” and make people “more engaged.”

So far, the response to Peacemaker has been positive from all sides. But it is inevitable, Burak said, that some find fault with the game, mainly because in order to make the it accessible to a wide audience, they had to simplify some things and leave others out.

Still, he added, even those who criticize the game consider it a “step in the right direction.” And the Palestinians Burak talked to, who were at first suspicious of him and his American company, ended up being “surprised by the amount of effort made in showing their perspective.”

“At the end of the day,” Burak said, “The view that we can’t solve the conflict is bad for Israel. The status quo is just impossible…. There is no way it can go on forever.”

Peacemaker can be downloaded for $19.95 at peacemaker game.com.