Why has Israel never appeared in the Civ franchise?

[Barrister]

OTOH, from a marketing standpoint including them as a playable Civ makes no sense if they want to be able to sell their product in the Middle East.

I thought people liked the old Kingdom of Israel.  You just cannot have Golda Meir as the female leader

I think that is exactly the problem.  Ancient Israelites = fine.

But anything that says the modern state of Israel is a continuation of the Israelites is sacrilege in certain circles.

Which is too bad - it'd be fun to have an Israeli cov with, as you say, Golda Meier as the female leader, and it's special unit as MOSSAD special agents.

[Caliga]

Moshe Dayan? That guy was a mega-hardass.

Yeah, that guy. 

[Malthus]

Dude, no, if they do include TEH JOOS they definitely need to have the leader avatar be that general dude with the eyepatch.  YARRRRRRR CHAVERI

Moshe Dayan? That guy was a mega-hardass.

But no, it'd be David Ben-Gurion all day long.

Dayan was, allegedly, a complete asshole, according to everyone who had to deal with him. A braggart, a compulsive liar, completely untrustworthy, compulsive (and successful) womanizer, etc.

He was especially hated by Israeli archeologists, because he took up archaeology as a hobby and made a habit of going after artifacts with bulldozers. None of that "stratigraphy" bullshit for him! 

OTOH, he was a successful general, and charismatic ... 

[Caliga]

Dayan was, allegedly, a complete asshole, according to everyone who had to deal with him. A braggart, a compulsive liar, completely untrustworthy, compulsive (and successful) womanizer, etc.

He was especially hated by Israeli archeologists, because he took up archaeology as a hobby and made a habit of going after artifacts with bulldozers. None of that "stratigraphy" bullshit for him! 

So it sounds like what you're saying is "He was the greatest man of all time", basically.

[crazy canuck]

Stay thirsty my friends

[Iormlund]

I don't think the Celts or Zulu were particularly urbanized either.

Don't know about the zulu but the Celts had oppida all over Western europe.

[Siege]

Come on, the oldest cities in the world were in Israel, before Israel, of course.

[Siege]

I wouldn't mind having a caananite civilization either.

[katmai]

Who cares about some little country barely 60 years old

[Siege]

Who cares about some little country barely 60 years old

What are you talking about.
Israel is the history of survival.

In Civ5 terms, the romans conquered it, taking it out of play, then after over 1800 years, it came back into play recuperating its capital, not because somebody granted it, but independently.

[katmai]

It is a third world shithole.

[The Minsky Moment]

The ancient kingdom of Israel was pretty insignificant in terms of history of civilization.   Why include them and not Damascus, Philistia, Edom, Moab, etc (just limiting to Iron Age kingdoms of the immediate region)?  The only reason why people outside of a few archaeologist specialists know anything about Israel is that about 100 years after Israel was utterly destroyed, some literary works came out of its former sister kingdom of Judah that turned out to have a curious-- and at the time entirely unexpected -- influence on history.

[Neil]

Come on, the oldest cities in the world were in Israel, before Israel, of course.

Yeah, Jerusalem, Jaffa and Acre are all really old, but they're not really 'Israeli cities', you know?  I mean, they're part of modern Israel right now, but because the ancient Israeli occupation was a relatively brief period during their thousands of years of history, it just doesn't seem to fit them.  Maybe Jerusalem, but I think that's a cultural thing caused by Christianity.

[The Brain]

Israel is way too controversial. Germany, Russia and China are not.

[Admiral Yi]

Anyone know what the current thinking is on "the world's oldest city?"

I've read that the oldest continually inhabited place is Antioch, but that's not the same thing.