יום שישי, 22 ביולי 2011

The protest "game"

There is an online game I play a lot called Ministry of War.
In this game, you are building an army, recruit troops of all kinds (peltasts, cavalier, bowmen) and you assign them to battle enemies. You can enter the battle interface, operate your forces and view the battle's progress, in real time. You will see frequent alerts about your status: if you are using a special skill, if a unit have been destroyed, etc.

Now, for a second I close my eyes and I can simulate an ordinary course of a weekly demonstration in the west bank. "our troops" would be few- to- a dozen, shabab- what MoW would call " elite oriental infantry" ( in real life their ages may vary, starting from very young kids to young men in their early 20's).
They are equipped with a skill of stone hurling.
They have some other attributes, such as speed- how fast they can run, dodge, hide.
They get some bonus for being familiar with the location and
therefor  they get around easily.
 Your forces also include villagers. They provide solidarity and moral.
  They will usualy chant  anti occupation slogans and carry Palestinian flags, or posters.
Another unit is the international activists. They are armed with cameras and enthusiasm. Occasionally they can have themselves arrested rather lose a villager. Their documentation increase the protest's affect -which is an ingredient to make the protest successful.  Any unit may rarely succeed using a negotiation skill to release those who were arrested.
On the enemy's side, aka IOF you will fully equipped, armed and trained soldiers. Their motivation and moral may  not be as high as yours, (you better hope so) because it's friday and they're probably eager to be somewhere else.
BUT they get compensation that comes in many forms. They are armed wit h tear gas canister- resulting asphyxia and dis-orientation affect as well as panic and intimidation. They have stun grenades, although they have limited affect. They have rubber coated bullets able to cause lethal damage and injuries. They also have live ammunition. They can arrest protesters, what will decrease the number of your troops, they can beat protesters with batons , they also have intelligence skill- mistara'avim, troops that can disguise themselves as protesters and launch an attack by surprise or gather information about high profile participants that might be targeted. They can call for re-enforcement, and  so long.
 Their major flaw is the amount of resources they consume, and the bad branding affect that results from publishing their actions.
Can I calculate what the duration of the protest will be, based on those variables?
Can I measure the success or failure of either side?
Not accurately, of-course. But I think each time the villagers go out to protest they win their pride, they are standing up for their rights, and each time the army loses prestige. Each time, children that attend the protests sustain mental damage and also risk themselves with traumatic i , that might include torture. Each time, all the Israelis suffer loss of valuable resources. Each time the soldiers lose some of their humanity.
 Every arrest  might decrease the ability of the people to provide for themselves - a crucial ability for people that have children.
Least I can say is that any interception/ intervention  between civil population is a bad idea, drawing more and more people into the course of bloody violence. The more ppeople drawn to that circle, we lose hope and a chance to change the wrongs and make things better

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