The 1973 Arab-Israeli war briefly changed the dynamics of Israel’s hegemony over the Arab World, and pushed Israel to address its intransigence and refusal to recognize Arab rights. But it didn’t take long for Israel to compromise Egypt’s President Anwar Sadat with false promises of negotiating a comprehensive peace that would include a Palestine State. Israel has refused to recognize a Palestine state. But this app allows players to recreate the battles in this important war zone, practice for the coming war there
By Ray Hanania
The Middle East has produced a lot of pro-Israel propaganda but also a slew of board games, and computer games and now apps that allow users to engage in military battles using the region and historic battle themes as a basis.
Tying game play to historic events makes the playing of battle games more fascinating, and can even allow the user to better understand the geographic and political dynamics that impacted historical battle results.
Recently, a Paris company, Battle Factory, has introduced a new game that allows players to recreate or even change the 1973 Arab-Israeli War. Maybe the Arabs don’t just win a stalemate with Israel but actually win.
In October 1973, Sadat surprised Israel, seven years and recaptured a large section of the Sinai Peninsula that Israel took after Israel surprised the Arab World in June 1967.
I know how Arabs think, though, being Arab myself. With so much pro-Israel propaganda embedded into Western society, it’s hard to believe that Arabs will be given a fair chance or equal shot at winning or exposing Israel’s government war crimes and oppression.
But games like this do change how people view challenges, and allows users to better understand hurdles that impeded the advance of the Egyptian Army against Israel’s occupying forces. Understanding those challenges could make it easier to win in the next war, which I believe is a certainty given Israel’s refusal to recognize a Palestine state or recognize the civil rights of Christian and Muslim civilians.
Sadat made a dramatic gesture after the war saying he would travel to occupied Jerusalem to speak with Israelis about peace and Menachem Begin, the former Israeli terrorist and Israeli prime minister at the time, accepted and invited Sadat to come to the occupied city to address Israel.
Begin cleverly misled Sadat into believing he would negotiate a comprehensive peace including one addressing the cause of the Middle East conflict, Israel’s oppression of non-Jewish civilians and civilian rights during its creation in 1948, but Begin outsmarted Sadat who was lured by the cheap accolades and applause he received from the United States, which for Sadat, turned out to be a better suitor than the Soviet Union, which was in decline and had never given Egypt the arms and money it wanted.
Sadat was later assassinated for his treason and stupidity, but Begin was never prosecuted for his killings of Christian and Muslim civilians at Deir Yassin in April 1947 or in the years that followed.
The Battle Factory war game is called “Wars and Battles series: October War 1973,” and is available on both iOS and Android tablets, and here is what Battle Factory released on the new war game:
The October War is also called the “Yom Kippur War” and sometimes the “Ramadan War” because it was triggered the day of the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur as the Arab countries were celebrating the sacred month of Ramadan.
- It is during the October war that the Arab oil-producing countries have unilaterally decided to regulate their production and increase oil prices, which caused the first oil shock.
- The fighting in Sinai between the Egyptian and Israeli armies marked the spirits and led to the Camp David Accords in 1978 and the first peace treaty signed in 1979 between Israel and an Arab country, namelyEgypt.
- On October 25, 1973, the US decided to extend their level of nuclear alert to DEFCON 3, while the tension with the Soviet Union was at its height. This exceptional situation, placing the US armed forces on a war footing, was then reproduced once after the 9/11 events.
The game was designed by Pierre Razoux, Director of the French Institute for Strategic Research and a 30-year experienced wargamer. His PhD in Military History was devoted to The Ramadan War of October 1973.
The game is an historical strategy game that simulates entire battles. October War is not the first game in the series: Battle Factory has already released Normandy 1944 that takes one to the French coastline in the iconic Normandy landings of WWII.
Wars and Battles lets players recreate the outcomes of history’s most epic battles. It delivers the complexity and depth of tabletop war games to tablet devices, offering an intuitive and user-friendly interface suited for strategy game newcomers and veteran armchair generals alike. Featuring rich graphics and challenging turn-based gameplay in either 2D or 3D modes.
Wars and Battles is now available through Apple and Google Stores for $6.99.
I haven’t played the game but like most games the outcomes are the result of player involvement and focus.
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Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.
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