Pro-Palestine Site in Second Life With Gaza Flotilla Tribute and Extreme Imagery Provokes Community Firestorm

In Second Life there's a region called Jordan River, named for the selfsame water body that borders Palestine. It was built by Palestinians (some within Palestine, some scattered around the world) to promote Palestinian independence, with a mosque on one end, an open air disco on the other, and political placards in between. It was built before the recent bloodshed during a raid on a Gaza aid flotilla containing militant Turkish activists; but after that happened, the builders of Jordan River erected a shrine memorializing the incident, in the shape of the yacht that was stormed by Israeli commandos. (Only in Second Life, the yacht's interior is totally blood red.) I was told about Jordan River by an SL Resident named Moshe Wardell, who runs a blog called Second Life Mossad, named after Israeli's intelligence agency, which documents pro-Palestinian activism in SL. When I visited Jordan River a few weeks ago, however, the site was quiet, and I had a relatively civil conversation with a tall and stylish redhead wearing a T-shirt that said Bling Bling, who told me she was actually a Palestinian living in the West Bank.

Lately, however, Jordan River has provoked a firestorm of controversy on SL's community forum, especially over Jordan River's most extreme forms of expression, such as an exhibit depicting Gilad Shalit, the IDF soldier held captive by Hamas, next to sculptures meant to depict eviscerated IDF soldiers. As with the pro-Palestine protests that stormed into Israeli and Jewish sites in Second Life this year and last, this seems like another instance where Second Life's Community Standards, which prohibit most forms of "[a]ctions that marginalize, belittle, or defame individuals or groups", cannot adequately account for the full range of political and ideological tumult in the real world. In any case, educator Ignatius Onomatopoeia has an interesting interview with Lord Ansar, the Palestinian activist behind much of Jordan River's protest messaging.

Bottom image credit: SL Mossad.

Comments

[Crap Mariner]

*cough* *cough*

Jewish sites, Hamlet.

-ls/cm

[Hamlet Au]

Well, last year's was at SL Israel, but I added
"and Jewish" to clarify more.

[John]

I visited this place and it is disgustic. I can just ask everybody to go there and file an abuse report. Let´s kick these Terrorists out of SL.

[Little Lost Linden]

I admit I do not know enough about terrorism. I just wish most terrorists could be more like the ones from Back to the Future. As far as terrorists go, the ones from Back to the Future didn't seem that bad.

[Adric Antfarm]

Little Lost is funny when not obsessed with bots.

[IntLibber Brautigan]

This is just part and parcel of Linden Lab's double standards on its "Broadly Offensive" rules. If Jews portrayed true imagery of the savage nature of muslim terrorists, they'd be banned from SL. But hey, its Israel, right?

Along with straight white males, its perfectly okay to be racist against Israel if you belong to a politically correct "victim" group.

And yes, the Lab is anti-semitic. What do you think the banking ban was about anyways? The Jews brought banking and interest into medieval europe and dragged it kicking and screaming into the Rennaissance and Enlightenment with capital development of free markets. The Lab dragged the internet back into the middle ages with its feudal economic model and obsession with guild-esque content creators.

Second Life will continue dying until the Lab stops being anti-semitic and anti-free-market, and stops embracing religions of hate.

[mani]

good

good

[Nexus Burbclave]

It is easy to forget it with stories like this, and some of the comments that they engender, but I think it worth noting that I've encountered far more people promoting and groups promoting tolerance and peace on the grid than fomenting hate. It really is a shame that the negative perceptions on both sides of this argument are the only one that some people will ever encounter.

It is a shame that the good work people are trying to do never gets the same coverage as the hate filled messages. Why provide a soap box only for those intending to cause rifts while ignoring all of those attempting to heal? I suppose intolerance results in more page views (and I realize this is a fault that traditional media is every bit as guilty of, if not more so).

[soror nishi]

I agree, Nexus, which is why I didn't even bother blogging it.

[Arcadia Codesmith]

I grow increasingly weary of bloody fools who think a bullet is an answer, and I'm not in the mood to entertain the fantasy that the bloody fools amongst Israeli hardliners are any better than the bloody fools of Hamas. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

[Ignatius Onomatopoeia]

"Second Life will continue dying until the Lab stops being anti-semitic and anti-free-market, and stops embracing religions of hate."

Thank you for insulting Islam. You seem to the the hater, IntLibber.

I have, in my 3+ years in SL, seen absolutely no evidence that LL is anti-Semitic. Could you provide some examples?

"Guid-esque content creators?" Explain that. Anyone can build in SL, and anyone can sell content. Where're the guilds?

I don't think most of the banned banks were run by Jews. Where's your proof for that claim?

[SL MOSSAD]

"called Second Life Mossad, named after Israeli's intelligence agency, which documents pro-Palestinian activism in SL."

Correction.

We do not mind pro-Palestinian activism in SL as long as activists behave respectfully and according with TOS. SL Palestine: Jordan River might have been a very different window to Palestinian culture if pro-terrorism activists were not in control there.

Vigdorova/17/235/73 portraits pro-Palestinian paraphernalia together with Zapatist, Guevarist and such socialist/communist/progressive/left/revolutionary themes and as I stated before when talking to a RL Communist Party member from Cuba in Habana as we drank Cuban cafe espresso: "perhaps Arab-Israeli conflict is the only subject upon which we might never agree, but given my Socialist and Zionist background, we do agree about everything else, or almost."

It is not a secret, or at least it should not be, that Arab monarchies had a big problem with Zionism because of its socialist principles.

[Bob L]

"it, the IDF soldier held captive by Hamas, next to sculptures meant to depict eviscerated IDF soldiers."

Talk about making it clear the only thing they are protesting is they aren't the one's doing the atrocities.

[Jojo]

The palestinian cause have always been a false nose for extrem islamism.

[Arabella]

Given the very pro nazi words and actions of most of the arab world during WW2, it is outrageous to have a display at this waste of space Jordan River sim comparing Israel to Nazi Germany. I should not really be too surprised though, considering most of the arab world today deny the Holocaust. People need to read more history, it explains a LOT about the world today.

[SL MOSSAD]

@Arabella. Do you know what's so funny about their comparing Israel to Nazi Germany? They keep on denying the Temple, the Shoah (Holocaust) and even claiming Islam is the oldest faith on Earth. Their current position about the Temple is only relevant for everyone when it's argued within an archeological, historic and sociological context, yet they love to get into such discussions from a theological viewpoint. The elderliness of Islam beyond Christianity or Judaism is clearly nonsense. However when they deny the Shoah and yet dare to compare Israel to Nazi Germany, they contradict their own arguments - which happens very often or always - in a hilarious way they need to step back, think again and reformulate their statements like Akhmadinejad have done before for tv and as questions such as: "Why is this six million people more important than the twenty one million from Soviet Union?" well the answer is simple: it is not who's live is more relevant but what group of people were systematically annihilated and why. Nazi Arabs from WW2 were racist, yes, but they were also living as monarchies getting rich out of their peoples' poverty, thus Zionism as a socialist movement was a "clear and present danger" for their survival to the point they pushed the antisemitic propaganda to hard, they got eventually defeated by religious extremist who have focused upon two goals: make money out of terror and oil, and kill every single Jew. They say so on daily basis as they have done ever before 1948.