Recently GamePolitics reported on a first-person shooter released by the radical organization Hezbollah (see: Hezbollah Game Celebrates 2006 Clash with Israel).

Word of the game has sparked outrage among some in the Arab world. As reported by the Gulf Daily News, an online petition was created to ban the game from sale in the Persian Gulf nation of Bahrain.

One of the petition’s creators - described as an avid gamer - told the Gulf Daily News:

It’s created by a religious and political party and that makes it unacceptable. And it’s [inexpensive], so it’s accessible to children. The war happened only a year ago and so it’s not appropriate to make a game out of it. It’s not helping Bahrain and the region.

As a Muslim, I should not promote violence against a social sect or religion, and we are supporting Hizbollah with this… We are recruiting the next line of Hizbollah fighter. What’s next, being against Sunnis or Shi’ites?

Why not create a strategic game like Rise of Nations and teach them this way. Honestly, Hizbollah is killing more civilians and all they are doing is creating havoc and agitating the Israeli government. I have friends in Beirut and it was destroyed.

But  Mohammed Hassan Al Aradi of the Bahrain Society Against Normalization with the Zionist Enemy scoffed at the petition:

[The petition creators] can’t take a decision for everyone in the country… If I wanted to make a petition against this I already have 150 people in my family who would sign. The game is just putting a message to Arabs that we can win.

Our children are already watching all this on TV anyway, so it makes no different… Let’s remember, we are hearing the name of Israel all the time on the TV and they are showing films against Arabs and no-one is saying anything. Again it is free will.

There are also games for [low price] that are against Muslims and you can probably get all these types of games through the Internet even if they aren’t sold here. If they start banning this, you will have to ban everything.

GP: Due to their ubiquity, online petitions don’t normally rate getting picked up on GamePolitics. But we made an exception for this one because the game is topical, because the petition surfaced in the volatile Middle East, and because it was apparently an important story in the island nation of Bahrain. View the online petition.