{"id":230,"date":"2009-01-21T01:26:51","date_gmt":"2009-01-20T19:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iqsoft.co.in\/wordpress\/?p=230"},"modified":"2009-01-21T01:26:51","modified_gmt":"2009-01-20T19:56:51","slug":"disputed-territory-war-in-gaza-provokes-protest-and-conversation-in-second-life-israel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venusimportexport.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2009\/01\/21\/disputed-territory-war-in-gaza-provokes-protest-and-conversation-in-second-life-israel\/","title":{"rendered":"Disputed Territory: War in Gaza Provokes Protest (And Conversation) In Second Life Israel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Israel_protest\"<\/a>Protesters continue convening in SL Israel today<\/em><\/span><\/h3>\n
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In Second Life there is a new Israel, appropriately called SL Israel, which recreates in virtual form aspects of the country, from religious landmarks of Jerusalem such as the Temple Mount, to tourist sites of Tel Aviv.\u00a0 Last week when Israel began launching guided missiles at Hamas targets in Palestine, however, SL Israel became a flashpoint of another kind.\u00a0 As the airstrikes pounded Gaza, so did protesters, teleporting into SL Israel, waving flags.<\/p>\n

\"Israel_protesters\"<\/p>\n

“Lots of people yelling,” Beth Odets tells me. “They were going on and on with slurring obscenities about murderous Israeli forces, etc.”\u00a0 She gives me a screenshot taken during the incursion, festooned with anti-war or pro-Palestinian signs, some depicting dead Arab children.<\/p>\n

Ms. Odets helped create SL Israel, so she maintains land permissions to the region.\u00a0 She began ejecting the most obstreperous protesters. “I had to be careful not to boot people who didn’t actually do anything wrong,” as she puts it.\u00a0 But the protesters kept coming, and eventually she felt forced to close all of SL Israel to outsiders.\u00a0 “Just shut it down for a little while.\u00a0 Just to make it stop. ‘Cause people weren’t wanting to be logical, or talk.”<\/p>\n

The protesters keep arriving, however.\u00a0 On a brief visit to SL Israel late last night, for example, I found a half-dozen members of something called “Second Life International Socialists”, brandishing placards and chattering in front of a lone avatar wearing a yarmaluke.<\/p>\n

In SL Israel, this was not the full extent of the reaction to the ongoing war in Gaza, however.\u00a0 “Later came people who were wanting to really talk,” Beth adds, “like the ones here.”\u00a0 She teleports me over, so I can see for myself.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which is how I found myself on the shoreline of SL Israel, amid an impromptu colloquium between a pro-Palestinian Muslim in a kaffiyeh, and avatar dressed as an IDF soldier, three Jewish women, and, of course, a talking rabbit.<\/p>\n

\"Sl_israel_gathering\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Along with the Arab headscarf, Clip Chau wears a “Free Palestine” T-Shirt, and when I arrive, he is talking on the boardwalk with a brunette named TamaraEden Zinnemann.<\/p>\n

“… and I was the only Muslim in the class and she was the only Jew so whenever Israel and Palestine came up, you know what happened,” Chau tells her. “She was a great teacher.\u00a0 Never biased, and she understood Palestinian pain.\u00a0 I think she was a huge reason behind me starting to even consider talking to Jewish people.\u00a0 Before that it was a no go area for me, it was a birth hatred, I guess.”<\/p>\n

\"Tamaraeden_zinnemann_and_clip_chau\"<\/a>As it turns out,\u00a0 Ms. Zinnemann is also a teacher in real life:<\/p>\n

“I am very cautious when my kids ask me ‘Jewish’ or Political questions,” she tells Chau. “I like to tell them when they want my opinion that my job, as their teacher, is to help them make up their own minds.”<\/p>\n

I mostly listen from the sidelines, but TamaraEden Zinnemann looks up.<\/p>\n

“Hamlet, please write that I’m an American Jew. Clip is a Canadian Muslim, and we are having a great time sharing our commonalities. I’m serious.”<\/p>\n

\"Shmoo_snook\"<\/a>I tell her that I will.\u00a0 Someone small at our feet pipes up.<\/p>\n

“Write that I’m a bunny, OK?” Shmoo Snook demands.\u00a0 \u00a0I assent to that as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“And cute, too!”\u00a0 he adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That duly noted, the bunny proceeds to talk about the photos he saw of IDF rescuing Palestinians from a collapsed tunnel, and complain about the Bush Adminstration.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Wednesday, January 07, 2009 inRead World in SL<\/a>,\u00a0Social Structures, Social Upheaval<\/a>\u00a0<\/span>|<\/span>Permalink<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Protesters continue convening in SL Israel today In Second Life there is a new Israel, appropriately called SL Israel, which recreates in virtual form aspects of the country, from religious landmarks of Jerusalem such as the Temple Mount, to tourist sites of Tel Aviv.\u00a0 Last week when Israel began launching guided missiles at Hamas targets…
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