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April 27, 2001/Iyar 4, 5761, Vol. 53, No.30
Arabs step up war on Pokemon
TOM TUGEND
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
LOS ANGELES - The Arab campaign against the Pokemon children's game for its allegedly Jewish connotations is picking up steam across the Middle East.
Full-scale anti-Pokemon campaigns are under way in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Oman, Qatar and Dubai, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Pokemon, which includes video games, trading cards and cartoons with images of monsters, has only belatedly made its way to the Arab world. Some Muslim officials now claim that the word "Pokemon" means "I am a Jew" in Japanese, and believe the toy craze is part of a Jewish-Zionist conspiracy to turn Arab children away from Islam.
Despite assurances from the Japan-based Nintendo, which launched Pokemon in 1995, that the trade name stands for "pocket monsters," the video games and related items have been stripped from store shelves in Saudi Arabia and turned away at ports. Schools have set up collection points to turn in clothing decorated with Pokemon figures.
A fatwa, or religious edict, issued by a Saudi sheik urges all Muslims to beware of the game, noting that most of the cards bear "six-pointed stars, a symbol of international Zionism and the state of Israel."
A similar fatwa in Dubai warns that Pokemon is based on the theory of evolution, that conflicts with Islamic principles.
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