JERUSALEM: Financed by a controversial Sydney businessman, the Israeli computer game designer Yaron Dotan will this month launch what he believes could be the war to end all wars in the Middle East.
"Online, of course," explained Mr Dotan.
Set in the Palestinian territory of Gaza in the year 2040, the game is called Rising Eagle - Gaza and simulates an infantry battle between the elite Israeli Golani Brigade and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Or, as Mr Dotan prefers to call them, "the Waffen SS of today".
"The President of Iran says he wants to wipe Israel off the map," Mr Dotan said.
Delighted at the idea the game might offend Iranian sensibilities, Mr Dotan is keen to point out he has included a few surprise special effects to rub salt into the wound.
"Inside the game, we have billboard-size photographs of [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad looking like a monkey."
With Gaza governed by the radical Palestinian Islamic movement Hamas, widely believed to be the recipient of financial and military support from Iran, Mr Dotan reckons the game makes a serious point about the political situation in Gaza. But he was careful not to include any Palestinian fighters. "I think that would have been taking things too far. I do not want to make war with the Palestinians."
Dotan, 34, said Rising Eagle is the first game to be produced by his company, Invasion Interactive.
The key to future success, Mr Dotan said, is that high quality games can be produced in Israel at a fraction of what it would cost in the US or Europe.
The other secret weapon, he said, is the company's financial backer - the Sydney businessman Kevin Burmeister, who made a fortune during the 1980s and 1990s through his company Sega-OziSoft and was Australia's biggest distributor of video games titles. In recent years Mr Burmeister has made news as the man behind the internet song-swapping program Kazaa, which made him the target of several lawsuits brought by the global music industry.
