Posted on 08/04/2006 9:58:31 AM PDT by WmShirerAdmirer
Beirut, 4 August (AKI) - Young Lebanese are trying to break the isolation brought upon by the war with Israel by expressing their thoughts are recounting their experiences on Internet web logs, or blogs and online diaries. To communicate with the outside world many of the blogs are in English. One of around 15 popular sites that have sprung up since the conflict began on 12 July is LebanonsUpdates which provides a chronology of the fighting and the diplomatic moves afoot to bring peace.
Operated by a group of eight friends in their 20s the site also provides maps indicating areas struck in the Israeli air raids and a list of the dead and injured.
But the blog does not only serve as a source of information.
Through a link, visitors can connect with another site, Samidoun (the resistance fighters) were they can sign up to work as rescuers in the areas targeted in the Israel attacks.
Another blog, SiegeofLebanon works more like a traditional journal of events, informing visitors about the latest petrol shortages and where they may find fuel suppplies.
Personal accounts by people caught up in the violence are also posted on the site.
Some blogs are far more political in tone like LebanonScope, a site collecting anti-Hezbollah opinons. In a recent piece, Samy Gemayel, scion of one of Lebanon's most powerful Christian Maroniet faimilies (Bashir Gemayel, who as a pro-Israeli Lebanese president was assasinated in 1982) accuse Hezbollah, which he describes as "an armed movement wearing the uniform of revolutionary Islam".
Lebanonscope also contains criticism aimed at another Shiite grouping, Amal, lead by Lebanese parliamentary speaker, Nabih Berri. The party is described as "corrupt" and as a stooge of Syria.
But some of the country's anti-Syrian politicians are also not spared from the criticism. Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, whose Progressive Socialist Party forms part of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora's coalition government, is accused of having "supported for 15 years Syria's interference in Lebanon."
The current Lebanese political system, Lebanonscope concludes, "can't guarantee prosperity and peace, and especially cultural pluralism in Lebanon.
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