Peres Peace Center Computer Game Shows Olmert Strategy

From, of all places, The Electronic Intifada:

I have succeeded in making peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. In an interview preceding the Annapolis Conference, Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erakat claimed that peace could be delivered in half an hour. The basis, everyone already knows, is the Clinton draft: two states with border adjustments and division of Jerusalem. In my case, peace took two hours — or, well, two years. I delivered it in 2009. I watched the express train glide through the Safe Passage from Gaza to the West Bank. I brought together Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian farmers; we are planning a tri-state organic cooperative. Jerusalem is the capital for all. Euphoria!

How did I pull this off? As a subscriber to the Israeli daily Haaretz, I received, in advance of Annapolis, a computer game from the workshop of the Peres Peace Center. It begins with a survey of the conflict from 1922 until the end of 2007. I was offered the choice of being either the Israeli or the Palestinian leader. I chose the former. The game set me the goal of lowering the level of violence, providing Israelis with a feeling of security, and improving the economy. In addition, I was supposed to make life easier in the occupied territories and advance toward a peace agreement. I was provided with a range of tools, including the “stick” of selective assassinations, air strikes, curfews, etc. and the “carrot” of opening roadblocks, granting permits to work in Israel, and economic cooperation (as a reward to the PA for combating terrorism). I could also expand or dismantle the settlements and initiate projects to improve the Israeli economy, such as tax breaks or aid to the elderly.

On the international scene, I worked with the US (which always cooperated), the UN (most of whose members were skeptical about my intentions) and the European Union (which was not especially helpful).

The game is complex. If your disapproval rating climbs beyond 70 percent, it’s all over and you go home to feather your nest. It was no coincidence that peacemaking took me two years. It was very hard to supply security to the Israelis and prosperity to the Palestinians while sticking to the rules and conditions, which reflected actual events.

Every time I rewarded the Palestinians, my disapproval rating in Israel soared, but do you think the Palestinians were satisfied? Not at all. They just wanted more. Because of them I almost lost my coalition.

Right at the start, on the day I took office, there was a major suicide bombing: 18 dead and 40 wounded. I turned to the PA president and demanded he take action against the militants (my disapproval rating in Israel jumped to 20 percent). He said I had a lot of nerve to demand such a thing after destroying his security apparatus. I offered to help and build it anew — but got clobbered by him and my own right wing. My Israeli disapproval rating climbed to 30 percent. I added roadblocks and performed a few selective assassinations. Israeli disapproval dropped accordingly to 10 percent, but Palestinian disapproval now rose to 20 percent. In order to stabilize the situation, I gave a speech for peace in English (the pundits were underwhelmed). I turned to the US president for help in restarting negotiations, and I let in 5,000 Palestinian workers. The settlers raised a ruckus, but I managed to calm them. I initiated a tax cut to spur the economy. My approval rating rose by five percentage points on both sides, Israeli and Palestinian.

Then I spent half a year learning how to make a stable government. Conclusion: fight terrorism as if there are no peace negotiations, and negotiate peace as if there is no terrorism!

For two years I went back and forth between selective assassinations and dismantling illegal settler outposts, between getting American aid and stabilizing the PA president by restoring his economy. I handed out a lot of work permits.

By the 18-month mark I was getting approval from more than 50 percent of Israelis and Palestinians. I could afford to absorb a suicide attack here and there, because the economy was stable on both sides of the Green Line and the Palestinians had something to lose. The PA president grew stronger and began to suppress the militants. When at last we ran the train between Gaza and the West Bank, Hamas caved in. I understood that we had passed the point of no return. I then started dismantling settlements. The settlers again raised a ruckus, but I clobbered them. A few cabinet ministers jumped ship, but the Zionist Left gave me backing to continue. I added joint patrols in order to raise the feeling of security, and I reached the 80 percent approval mark. I got word that in Nablus people had started to smile. I was euphoric. I agreed to allow 100,000 Palestinian refugees into Israel, and I released prisoners with blood on their hands. To my great surprise, this didn’t seem to bother the Israeli public. I came to the end of the game. I didn’t have to trouble myself about dividing Jerusalem. I received an announcement on the screen that it was already divided, accompanied by a notice thanking me for bringing peace. Now the game suggested that I play the part of the Palestinian leader.

This is amazing – a blueprint of roughly what Kadima is very possibly planning to do in the guise of a computer game, together with absurdly optimistic results from these “wise” decisions (not to mention the wishful thinking of an 80% approval mark.) Starry-eyed dreams abounds even as it pretends to tackle reality. It even includes Olmert’s decision to push off talking about Jerusalem until he can pretend that it is going to solve itself.

One of the commenters on my cross-posted version of this article adds:

I played the “game” too. Whenever the Palestinians made a terror attack, I clobbered them. In a few short moves, another “intifada” started, I was declared the loser & the game was over.

The so-called game is bogus piece of propaganda.

5 thoughts on “Peres Peace Center Computer Game Shows Olmert Strategy”

  1. I am interpreting the author to say that he won the game of peace by giving Palestinians everything, ethnic cleansing their areas of jews, and allowing a few bombings. I also don’t understand the premise that while giving them a state, I’m supposed to worry about my approval rating in said other state.
    When I played the demo, no goodwill gesture was accepted. No aid was accepted. And every goodwill gesture was meant with protests. The UN wouldn’t listen, etc. I managed to actually get to 8 turns once by ignoring all suicide bombings, ignoring Israel, and giving numerous programs and $$ to the PA.
    Being the Palestinian leader was much easier. The EU actually funded my road projects and I didn’t have to do much but claims to send police around.

    As a Westerner, my view of treating life as sacred, and wanting to be left alone(close the border) didn’t appear to be an option. The graphics wasn’t bad, and it can be engaging, but from my point of view, something is fundamentally wrong. If I’m supposed to provide for another state, and worry about their approval rating, I don’t want to have to work through another sovereign government. You can have it both ways. But apparently, winning isn’t an option in this either.

  2. Knowing what we know about Olmert, why do you discount the possibility that he developed he foreign policy by actually *PLAYING* this game?

  3. For accuracy sake, two points from the developer:
    1) This game was not developed by the Peres Center or inspired by Kadima. It was developed by an independent team in the US, including Israelis, Palestinians and Americans. After the game was published by ImpactGames, the Peres Center decided to purchase it and distribute it in Israel and the West Bank.

    2) While I would not go into the political debate I would just say that the game unlike a book or a movie is not linear. For that reason, some of the claims like: “no goodwill gesture was accepted” or the opposite like: “Whenever the Palestinians made a terror attack, I clobbered them. In a few short moves, another “intifada” started” are simply based on a personal experience. In both cases the game did not respond well to an extreme line right from the beginning, whether it was all about concessions or all about suppression. You will be surprised that if you play again and commit a different set of actions you will get very different results. Security actions will be accepted and good will gestures will be accepted depending on the momentum or trust built with different groups. Judging a whole interactive simulation by 8 moves is simply too narrow.

  4. I have still been playing today. I notice that on the Palestinian side that Israel doesn’t matter and instead it’s my own and world opinion. And I can’t get world opinion to go against me as fast as I can get Palestinian opinion to go against me as Israeli President. Plus, the EU seems to love funding my construction projects.
    I’m not an Israeli nor a Palestinian Arab, but the criteria of the game I do find questionable. Including my original observations, and one more. Although I will admit that it’s probably not the game criteria, but the world criteria that I disagree with. True you won’t get far appeasing others if you start out on the extreme. But to have a moderate opinion and no action on murder is to do nothing.
    I don’t know about you guys, but that does not work. I’ve lived in some cities where the government and mayor ignored crime and let things go rampant. It’s not an option. I cannot condone the do-nothing mentality anywhere in the world.
    Back to the game, why is it unrealistic to go after those responsible and then make goodwill gestures for everyone else? I guess the game is accurate in this way.
    But it is an engaging game. I’ll probably continue to play from time to time.

    On a sidenote while talking about goodwill and reconstruction, the Jpost had an interesting opt-ed that compares Palestine with Kurdistan to some degree
    http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?apage=2&cid=1201523790910&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

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