Beautiful Things

Last week, I visited Tel Aviv to speak at GameIS, an independent games event run by a group of indies and volunteers from the Israeli games industry. It was a phenomenal event, filled with inspiring, aspiring and creative individuals. The event felt vibrant, and was full of interesting projects.

Given my political views in favor of a Palestinian state, and my heritage as an Egyptian Arab, I was not surprised to spend 6 or 7 hours of my two-day visit to Israel in security at Ben Gurion Airport. While I’m used to spending time in security, this was the first time I ever spent more than a quarter of a visit in a ‘suspect booth’.

Since my visit to Israel, I’ve had a few disappointed people from around the world reach out to me regarding the visit. People have pointed out that I should’ve taken note of the BDS Movement, an international movement to boycott, divest and sanction Israeli businesses and end international support for Israel’s oppression of Palestinians and to pressure Israel to comply with International Law.

Global politics are inherently intricate and complicated, and while I am against Israel’s economical and frequently violent oppression of the Palestinian people and state, I am not against Israel or the Israelis per se. I am against the politics of Israel, just as I am against many of the global politics of the United States, but also those of many other countries.

So to those questioning my visit to Tel Aviv, I just want to emphasize that in a pursuit to make the world more just and fair, I refuse to dismiss or limit my support to creative individuals with no or little say in these matters. In my visit to Tel Aviv, I found many of the developers to be progressive and open-minded, and frustrated by the political situation.

I was born a third culture kid, too Dutch to be Egyptian, and too Egyptian to be Dutch, and the games industry is the first ‘country’ I’ve felt I belong to. I believe in the power of creativity and games to bring people together, and just like no one can help being born in Palestine, nobody can help being born in Israel.

If anything, I hope to visit Palestine and the independent creators making beautiful games there sometime soon. I hope to continue supporting game development in all forms in the Middle East, and the rest of the Arab world, the Muslim world, and everywhere else. In the meanwhile, I will continue to voice my discontent with the political situation of Israel regarding Palestine, but I will not stop supporting the Israeli individuals and studios dedicating their lives to making beautiful games.

Was this helpful?

Consider subscribing to Levelling The Playing Field! Every article will always be free-to-read, but subscribing helps me gauge interest in the effort & ensure that I'm using my limited time to help the most developers possible. After subscribing, you'll get every new post of game development advice delivered to your inbox as soon as it goes live. If you can afford it & want to support LTPF, please consider supporting the newsletter with a fully-optional Paid membership to help make useful industry knowledge available for free.