Lebanon - Washington Post discovers blogs

Sometimes a jounalists in writing a story reveals important underlying information. Take this Washington Post report on Lebanese and Israeli bloggers for example.

Schrank reports on how the two civilian sides talked to each other using blogs and notes this:

The Lebanese government forbids its citizens contact with Israelis.

And this...

But shrill or reasoned in tone, the surge in comments still astounds Hamoui. "For myself, I'm 28 and I've never had communication with Israelis" with a single exception, he said by phone from Eheen, in the mountains of northern Lebanon.

Then there was some good advice for the Lebanese.

"We Israelis moved against our own people in order to withdraw from Gaza. Why won't the Lebanese people move against their own people to kick out Hezbullah from Southern Lebanon??" asked Dan K on Beirut Spring in a post-cease-fire thread of comments that includes some heavy Israel-bashing. He added a link to his own bilingual English-Hebrew blog. "I love your blogs. But you gotta stop blaming your government in egnlish [sic] and take your movement to the streets in Arabic. And coordinate with each other. Like kicking out Syria. If you don't like your government, make marches, make protests."

And this....

It is obvious Israelis will not favor a Hezbollah win, but would rather see a moderate, modern, democratic, strong type of government in Lebanon, so they gently 'push' the Lebanese bloggers towards these directions."

This dig at MSM is priceless!

Chuman, the Beirut man who fled for Chicago, had sampled the Israeli blogosphere in April and found it a nuanced and informed contrast to what he could glean from traditional news outlets. "The lack of news about Israel -- not an unimportant country in the region -- is astounding," wrote the political consultant, under his then-nom-de-Web, Lebanon Profile. "Not knowing about 'them' is the worst crime we can commit. It invalidates them as humans, as if they don't even matter. They are Stalin's faceless enemy, the rabid dog, the evil blood suckers whom it is righteous to kill. Our papers definitely need to start covering more than major political events in Israel."

As well as top the faking, lying and biased reporting.

Read the whole thing.

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