The boardgame Defenders of the Wild includes an unusual mechanic for a cooperative game. When a faction completes their objective, the game ends for them.[1] Everyone else at the table must contend with the game one faction short. So there’s a collective incentive for all players to finish the game at the same moment.
In his video review, Tom Brewster compares the situation in the game to the current events:
Here’s a transcript of the relevant clip:
Intersectionality is a frequently and willfully misunderstood concept. Conservative pundits will obnoxiously malign protest groups like Queers for Palestine by deliberately avoiding or obscuring the point. Liberation for both groups represents a dismantling of the same institutional powers. Two groups fighting for different ends against a common oppressor removing bricks from the very same wall.
To flesh out the analogy, there has been considerable progress in the last few decades for homosexual rights. In game terms, that faction has more or less completed their objective. But in real life people are not constrained by the rules of the game and so there’s a purpose, even a moral obligation, to help groups that are currently oppressed. Thus Queers for Palestine.
But who is the common oppressor? According the queers.for.palestine Instagram account[2]:
Queers committed to the struggle for a just world, free of settler-colonialism, zionism, and capitalism
So, at least one common enemy is Zionism, which is to say the movement to establish a Jewish state. Now that such a state exists, it’s hard to interpret opposition to Zionism (especially in the context of opposing settler-colonialism) as anything but opposition to the existence of the Israeli state. And here is where I experience cognitive dissonance. Here’s the first paragraph of the Wikipedia page, “LGBT rights in Israel”:
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights in Israel are considered the most developed in the Middle East. Although same-sex sexual activity was legalized in 1988, the former law against sodomy had not been enforced since a court decision in 1963. Israel became the first country in Asia to recognize unregistered cohabitation between same-sex couples, making it the first country in Asia to recognize same-sex unions in any capacity. Although same-sex marriages are not performed in the country (as it does not have civil non-religious marriages), Israel recognizes same-sex marriages performed elsewhere. Discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation was prohibited in 1992. Same-sex couples are allowed to jointly adopt, following a landmark court decision in 2008. Previously, stepchild adoption, as well as limited co-guardianship rights for non-biological parents, were permitted. LGBTQ people are also allowed to serve openly in the military.
And here’s the " LGBT rights in the State of Palestine" equivalent:
Homosexuality in the Palestinian territories is considered a taboo subject; lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBTQ) people experience persecution and violence. There is a significant legal divide between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, with the former having more progressive laws and the latter having more conservative laws. Shortly after the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank in 1950, same-sex acts were decriminalized across the territory with the adoption of the Jordanian Penal Code of 1951. In the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and under Hamas’ rule, however, no such initiative was implemented.
According to the map in " LGBT rights by country or territory", Israel is the lone country in the region where same-sex marriage is recognized:
The most liberal states when it comes to homosexual relationships and expression (indicated by dark blue) are generally capitalist and strongly connected to Western European ideals. At the risk of being called a “conservative pundit”, I can’t help but wonder if anti-Israel protesters have presumed facts not in evidence. Perhaps they haven’t fully understood the situation on the ground.
Now I should say I’m disturbed by the violence being done to the people of Gaza. Israel shoulders some of the responsibility. But it’s hard to condemn the one liberal democracy in the region that has faced constant opposition from its authoritarian neighbors for generations. Hamas is a terrorist group intent on destroying Israel. It’s done very little to improve the lives of ordinary people in the territory it controls and deliberately provokes Israel though terrorist strikes on civilian targets. It murders hostages rather than allowing them to be rescued, which is a war crime according to the Geneva Conventions.
As the conflict expands to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the situation has become more complex. Hezbollah fought in Syria in support of Ba’ath government while Hamas opposed Assad. What seems to unite these groups is a hatred, not of Israel exactly, but of Jews. Both organizations receive funding from Iran, which is also intent on destroying Israel because of the religious beliefs of the majority of its citizens.[3] It doesn’t seem helpful to simplify the situation by comparing to a board game.
Obviously most people don’t apply a boardgame lens to the world, but people often make simplifying assumptions in order to arrive at understandable solutions to complicated problems. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb explains:
In real life you do not know the odds; you need to discover them, and the sources of uncertainty are not defined.—“The Ludic Fallacy” from The Black Swan,
Taleb used to be a trader on Wall Street, so he was specifically referring to platonic economic models in this chapter. But the desire to reduce uncertainty to certainty via simplistic models dominates popular discourse.[4] In this case, I don’t know if groups like Queers for Palestine truly understand the risk of achieving their goal. What does the world look like when it’s “free of settler-colonialism, zionism, and capitalism”? Will the world truly be more just when Israel is dismantled?
When a game ends, we gather up the cardboard and plastic to return them to the box so that we can play again. In the real world, every action creates irrevocable consequences. We can never live in the world in which Hamas decided not to massacre civilians at a music festival no matter how much we wish we could. History can’t be reset and doesn’t have a win condition.
Here’s how it’s phrased in the the rules: “When you build your
final camp, you have completed your faction’s objectives and
you exit the game. Leave your support tracker in the final
step of the support track and place your organizer in the cen-
ter of your faction circle. You may continue strategizing with
other players until the game ends. But you will no longer
participate in any additional rounds of gameplay.” ↩︎No idea if this is in any way official, but I expect it represents a common viewpoint. ↩︎
Presumably the 18% of Israelis who are Muslim will be forced to become citizens of some other nation in the event Israel is destroyed. Where the millions of Jews who were born in Israel would end up is clear if you have a grasp of history. ↩︎
See also: Beware of low-hanging fruit | Jon Quixote . ↩︎