Violent video game glorifying terrorism banned in UK, Germany, Australia but not in Israel
The United Kingdom is the most recent country to pull the violent video game “Fursan al-Aqsa” (“Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque”) off the shelves.
Joining Germany and Australia, the United Kingdom has determined that the game glorifies terrorism by simulating events from last year's Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel from the perspective of the terrorists.
The decision to remove the game from circulation in the UK came in response to a request from Britain’s Counter-Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU) on Oct. 24, according to a report in the Middle East Monitor.
The game, developed by Brazilian religious Muslim Nidal Nijm and released in 2022, was later updated to include the ability to simulate events from the deadly Oct. 7 attack and the ongoing war in Gaza. For instance, one scene depicts a Hamas terrorist paragliding into Israel, where he attacks and kills an Israeli soldier by stabbing him in the neck.
The video game is intensely violent, focusing on acts such as suicide bombings, throat slitting, and decapitations aimed at killing Israeli soldiers and police. The game incites terrorism against Israel, featuring locations modeled directly after IDF bases near Gaza, and actively promotes attacks on these targets.
Many have raised serious concerns about the game, but it’s only now that public pressure is leading to action. StandWithUs, an education organization that supports Israel and fights antisemitism, is urging people to contact the Steam gaming platform to demand the game be removed from the site. However, since the campaign's launch, the option to email Steam directly about the controversial game has been removed from the platform's website.
Stand With Us urged people to action: “Steam gaming platform is allowing an antisemitic video game, “Fursan al-Aqsa”, to be sold on its platform. The game openly encourages players to murder Israeli soldiers, take hostages, and commit terrorist attacks against Jews!”
Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, senior director of policy and advocacy for Canada-based Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies, sent a letter of complaint to Valve Corporation, which founded Steam.
He wrote, “This game glorifies horrific acts of terrorism and is rife with violent and antisemitic content, including the explicit recreation of the October 7, 2023, invasion of Israel by Hamas.
The game advertises itself as, “A Third Person Action Game on which you play as Ahmad al-Falastini, a young Palestinian Student who was unjustly tortured and jailed by Israeli Soldiers for 5 years, had all his family killed by an Israeli Airstrike and now, after getting out from the prison, seeks revenge against those who wronged him, killed his family and stolen his homeland, by joining a new Palestinian Resistance Movement called Fursan al-Aqsa: The Knights of the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
However, the Steam website insists, “This game does not promote "terrorism", antisemitism, hate against jews or any other group, this is a message of protest against the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian lands. Fursan al-Aqsa is a video game about war like many other games here on Steam (Six Days in Fallujah, Call of Duty and others).”
The game remains available for purchase in several countries, including, somewhat perplexingly, Israel.
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Jo Elizabeth has a great interest in politics and cultural developments, studying Social Policy for her first degree and gaining a Masters in Jewish Philosophy from Haifa University, but she loves to write about the Bible and its primary subject, the God of Israel. As a writer, Jo spends her time between the UK and Jerusalem, Israel.
