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Thursday, December 17, 2009

Protest reaches the Net - Anti-freeze web game: Break Bibi's ice

(Ynet).Next big hit among settler's children? The "freeze game" is a new computer game in which the player must prevent characters representing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Bark from throwing ice cubes on settlements.

During play, the mouse's cursor turns into a spear, which the player must use to pierce the ice cubs that fall over 145 settlements. At the end of the game, the phrase "Bibi, we are cold even without the freeze – So stop!" appears on the screen.


The man behind the game is not a settler, but a 27-year-old Petah Tikva resident by the name of Ami Khania, who told Ynet he created the game as a way to express his protest.

Khania said he created a similar game during Operation Cast Lead, in which the goal was to help residents of southern Israel defend themselves from Qassam rockets.

According to Khania, the game was very successful and sparked interested around the world.

"The message of the freeze game is the sentence that appears at the beginning and the end, and also to demonstrate the amount of communities being frozen. All the communities are affected by this," he said. "The original idea was to use only Bibi's image, but Barak was also the initiator."

According to the game's creator, ever since it was launched, it has received many responses. "It varies according to political opinions. On the one hand I get annoyed responses like 'Why are you doing things like this?' and 'A game is not a political thing'.


"On the other hand, I get happy remarks, one such remark was from (National Union) MK Michael Ben-Ari, who enjoyed the game very much. He told me, ' Chapeau! By doing such things you are contributing to the struggle, well done.'"