Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH)
July 25, 2006

**********

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) aims to promote constructive perspectives and dialogue about Muslim-Western relations.
*This service is available in Arabic, Bahasa Indonesia and French.
*Unless otherwise noted, copyright permission has been obtained and articles may be reprinted by any news outlet or publication. Please acknowledge both the original source and the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
*For an archive of CGNews articles and other information, please visit our website at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).

**********

ARTICLES IN THIS EDITION:

1. Hamas and Hezbollah: one strategy or two? by Gayle Meyers
Gayle Meyers, Director of the Middle East Regional Security Projects at Search for Common Ground, explores the distinction between Hezbollah and Hamas in the broader context of state support and appropriate foreign policy. She encourages governments to move away from "treating states and non-state actors interchangeably" toward approaching conflict in a more constructive way that encourages dialogue in place of violence, especially when non-state actors are involved.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), July 25, 2006)

2. U.S. fights terror on humanitarian front by Carlos Conde
Carlos H. Conde explains how a humanitarian-cum-development approach by the United States to combating terrorism in the Philippines is proving far more effective than the usual military option. "We must address the root causes, the environment, that allow them to recruit and seek sanctuary," Linder said in an interview in Manila.
(Source: International Herald Tribune, July 5, 2006)

3. Not the enemy, but not a reliable neighbour either by Yossi Alpher
Yossi Alpher of Bitterlemons.org not only explains the Israeli take on the current Lebanon/Israel crisis while demonstrating a keen understanding of Lebanese politics’ complexity, but reaches beyond that to imagine a solution: “In recent years, Bashar Assad has asked Israel repeatedly to renew bilateral peace talks. The Pentagon has responded by asking Israel to rebuff Assad …….Now this option should be reconsidered.”
(Source: Americans for Peace Now, July 21, 2006)

4. ~YOUTH VIEWS~ America in the world: not so beautifulby Jennie Kim
Jennie Kim examines American foreign policy choices as the nation's popularity continues to plummet in the global arena. Recognising the "historic peculiarities of American foreign policy, which is characterised by a gap between narrow interests and lofty ideals", she puts forward public diplomacy as a tool for improving the world's perception of a nation that once enjoyed strong international support, particularly in the aftermath of September 11.
(Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), July 25, 2006)

5. Lebanese and Israelis exchange views onlineby Jean-Marc Manach
Le Monde journalist Jean-Marc Manach examines the often surprising exchanges that take place online between ordinary Lebanese and Israeli citizens. Canadian-Israeli blogger and journalist Lisa Goldman catches herself dreaming of a future of Lebanese and Israeli leaders who will benefit from such intimate relations, concluding that "it's not so easy to kill someone you know... as a human being, not simply as 'the former enemy'".
(Source: Le Monde, July 19, 2006)

**********

ARTICLE 1
Hamas and Hezbollah: one strategy or two?
Gayle Meyers

Jerusalem - Here in the Jerusalem office of Search for Common Ground, I work with Palestinians who have family in Gaza, and we have one staff member in Beirut. My Israeli relatives live in the south, within range of Qassam rockets fired from Gaza by Hamas, and in the north, within range of Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah.

The Re’ut Institute, an Israeli think-tank run by an advisor to former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, poses two questions about Israel’s decision to treat Hezbollah as a rogue organisation separate from the Lebanese government (even though it holds seats in parliament) while simultaneously going after Hamas by attacking Palestinian government buildings in addition to military targets.

The two questions are:

What is the organizing idea behind the differentiation between Hamas and Hezbollah? Does damage to the Palestinian political address serve Israel's strategic interests -- or, alternately, does the “protection” of the Lebanese government serve the battle against Hezbollah?

These are important questions for U.S. policy as well, both in the current crisis and in its approach to the “Global War on Terror”. And there is a related debate about what the policy should be toward states like Iran and Syria that use groups like Hezbollah and Hamas as proxies.

The Bush Doctrine makes no distinction between terrorist groups and the states that harbour them. This is logical in some cases, as in the decision to wipe out Al Qaeda’s sanctuary in Afghanistan, but it has also lead to confusion and the misplaced use of force, as in the decision to pursue Saddam Hussein in lieu of Osama Bin Laden.

I believe that treating states and non-state actors interchangeably represents wishful thinking. States are easier to confront, both politically and militarily. As signatories to treaties and members of international organisations, they are tied into the international system and can be reached by both carrots and sticks. As entities with territory and borders, well -- they don’t move. Someone wanting to bomb them can always find them. On the other hand, terrorist groups are elusive, with fewer assets, fewer channels for reward or punishment.

To answer Re’ut’s questions, there is a clear distinction between Hezbollah and Hamas at this time. Despite its close alliance with Syria and Iran, Hezbollah is acting as an independent militia, without the approval of the Lebanese government. Israel’s fight on its northern border is with Hezbollah. The strategy of “protecting” the Lebanese government is correct and should go even further. Broad strikes against the infrastructure of Lebanon, which have destroyed the country’s ports, airports, and roads, will only lead to the death of civilians and further embitter the conflict.

The issue of Hamas is much more complicated, not only because the organisation has now been elected to lead the Palestinian Authority (through the Palestinian Legislative Council, though rival Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas still holds the presidency), but also because it is just one facet of the problem of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

I propose that anyone devising national security strategies for the US and its allies needs to develop new approaches for dealing with non-state actors that go beyond emotional responses to terrorism and sweeping linkages between states and other actors. Questions to answer include the following:

What tools are available, other than force, for influencing the behaviour of non-state actors?

Does force in fact work? Do concepts such as deterrence and coercion have merit?

Given that they cannot sign international treaties, how can non-state actors be held to their commitments (e.g. to ceasefires)? When should states be considered responsible for the actions of non-state actors?

I’m sure there are more questions. In the meantime, I suggest that non-state actors should be dealt with on their own terms—friend or foe. And in confronting them, strategies should be designed to avoid punishing the innocent and to limit escalation to state-to-state conflict.

###
* Gayle Meyers is Director of Regional Security Projects at Search for Common Ground- in the Middle East. She can be contacted at gmeyers@sfcg.org. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), July 25, 2006
Visit the website at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 2
US fights terror on humanitarian front
Carlos H. Conde

Jolo, Philippines - Like most children on this predominantly Muslim island, Soraya Tampalan hardly receives proper health care from the government. Torn by conflict and neglect for years, this has not been a good place to grow up in for the 13-year-old girl.

It has been especially difficult for Soraya because she was born with a cleft lip, a deformity that forced her to drop out of school after the third grade because she could not take the teasing.

Poverty and strife -- mainly caused by a negligent government, the Muslim rebels who have been fighting for self-rule for decades and, lately, the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf -- have conspired to make this island one of the most depressed, violent and volatile areas in the Philippines. Residents like Soraya have been caught in the crossfire.

The United States was drawn to this island this year as it pursued its campaign against terrorism in Southeast Asia, providing support in logistics and intelligence to the Philippine military as it attempts to crush terrorists from the Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah groups who are responsible for some of the most violent terrorist attacks in the country.

Hundreds of U.S. military personnel are deployed on Jolo and on the nearby island of Basilan Province, a stronghold of Abu Sayyaf that, according to American officials, has become since 2002 a showcase of how to fight terrorism.

The strategy was simple: at the same time that the Philippine military, with U.S. help, goes after the terrorists, parallel efforts by both Filipinos and Americans - but mostly using U.S. resources - attempt to address the problems that allow the extremists to recruit from what Colonel Jim Linder, the commander of the U.S. forces on Jolo, called "a disenfranchised, disgruntled and dissatisfied population."

"We must address the root causes, the environment, that allow them to recruit and seek sanctuary," Linder said in an interview in Manila. The U.S. government, through its armed forces and agencies like the Agency for International Development and with the collaboration of the Philippine government, has built roads, bridges, school buildings and wells in many Muslim communities that, for decades, had been neglected by their leaders and by Manila.

According to officials, this humanitarian and development-oriented approach is proving to be even more effective than a purely military one. It has transformed Basilan, the Abu Sayyaf stronghold where U.S. forces first went after the attacks of Sept. 11, into a relatively safer island after the terrorists were eliminated one by one, either in combat or in manhunt operations supported by the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice programme, in which hundreds of thousands of dollars are offered for the capture of Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiyah leaders.

Today, the Americans are trying to duplicate on Jolo their success on Basilan and would like to do the same thing in Tawi-tawi, the most remote part of the Muslim southern Philippines.

There had been initial trepidation on the part of the United States, officials said, considering that Jolo shares a rather dark past with it. Jolo's warriors and sultans led the resistance to American colonisers in the late 1800s. Just a few kilometres from the town center is a mountain called Bud Dajo, the site of what Muslims here call the massacre by the US of hundreds of Muslims. The massacre's 100th anniversary was observed here in March, just as U.S. troops were setting up their camps on the island.

It is said that of all the Muslim areas in Mindanao, anti-American sentiment is strongest here. But many Muslims, like Soraya and her family, are just too overwhelmed by poverty to care about what happened more than a hundred years ago.

Soraya's family lives in a poor village in a remote part of this town. Her father died and her mother, a laundrywoman, could hardly make ends meet. Her grandmother took care of her most of the time.

For years, Soraya and her family tried to find the means to fix her lip, but being a peasant girl from an island where basic health care is practically nonexistent, she did not stand a chance.

Until the Mercy came along. The U.S. Navy's hospital ship, which visited Jolo last month, treated thousands of poor Filipinos, mostly Muslims, in three provinces during its visit.

One day early last month, Soraya finally got her wish. Doctors on the Mercy operated on her cleft lip for free. "We are very thankful. We never dreamed this would happen," said Fatima Tampalan, Soraya's grandmother, who accompanied her.

Filipino officials on Jolo are likewise grateful. "We are thankful not just for the assistance but for the friendship," said Fahra Tan-Omar, the administrator of the Sulu Provincial Hospital, which has received assistance from the United States. She said that because of American help, the hospital is better able to serve the people of Jolo.

These humanitarian and development programs are "a new paradigm," said Lieutenant Commander Franklin Sechriest of the navy, who led the group at the hospital.

"We have no ill intentions here," Sechriest said. "What we're doing is helping by stepping outside our traditional military role." Addressing the unmet needs of the local population, he said, "will contain the spread of terrorism."

To Michele Okamoto, a 51-year-old nurse from New York who volunteers for Project Hope, the private charitable and humanitarian project involved in the Mercy visit, this is the kind of initiative that would, in the long run, help defeat terrorism and prevent another Sept. 11, which she personally experienced as a nurse volunteering to help the victims of the World Trade Center attacks.

Sept. 11, she said in an interview on the Mercy, changed the way she looked at things. The attacks, the intolerance, the hatred, the poverty and disenfranchisement on Jolo - "I just think they're all connected," Okamoto said.

Her work on the Mercy, and the smile that would soon come from the lips of Soraya Tampalan, "are the small things that we could do to prevent Sept. 11 from happening again," she said.

###
* Carlos H. Conde serves as Secretary-General of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines, and writes from Manila for the International Herald Tribune and New York Times. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: International Herald Tribune, July 5, 2006
Visit the International Herald Tribune at www.iht.com (http://www.iht.com/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 3
Not the enemy, but not a reliable neighbour either
Yossi Alpher

Tel Aviv - In mid-983, I joined six other academics from Tel Aviv University in a visit to Lebanon. We were the guests of Maronite Christian academics, for a seminar they organised on the future of Israeli-Lebanese relations. At the time, a year or so after Israel's invasion of Lebanon and siege of Beirut, the Maronite-Israeli alliance was on the verge of collapse. The Sabra and Shatila massacre, the murder of Bashir Gemayel and the unreliability of the Maronites as allies had all taken their toll. Israelis were fed up with the Lebanon adventure orchestrated by Ariel Sharon. The academic conference idea was a last-ditch Maronite attempt to shore up the foundations.

We landed by IAF helicopter at Junieh, north of Beirut, under blackout conditions. Our armed escorts from the Lebanese Forces reminded us of mafia gangs. The seminar, held in a beach hotel, featured lectures by both sides on the history of Lebanese-Israeli and even ancient Phoenician-Hebrew relations. But the dominant theme was the Maronites' glorification of Ariel Sharon and insistence that the IDF strike again at Syria and push it back from Lebanese soil.

None of the Israeli delegation had a word of praise for Sharon. The atmosphere was surrealistic, the tension audible despite the academic decorum. The clincher came when the Maronite professors, almost as one, turned to us and said, "if you don't get rid of the Syrians for us, we'll have to become their allies!"

That was, and is, Lebanon: torn by inter-communal conflict, unable to stand on its own feet, hating its neighbours but drawing them in cynically to fight its internal wars. In the 23 years that have elapsed since the Junieh meeting, Hezbollah was born and gained strength, aided and abetted by its Iranian co-religionists. It seeks to represent the 40 percent (or more, there are no censuses in Lebanon lest the results bring about total collapse) of Lebanese who are Shi'ites and are under-represented in its anachronistic confessional system. It effectively rules large swaths of the country. Its forces are the best armed and best trained, with Iran and Syria firmly behind them. It would win a civil war.

Israel's current strategy in Lebanon is intended to weaken Hezbollah to such an extent that the central government can, after nearly 40 years, finally exercise its authority in the South. Even assuming we succeed against Hezbollah, the history of those past decades, reflecting as it does Lebanon's built-in limitations as a viable state, suggests that the intended Lebanese government role will be problematic, if not impossible. Communal tensions will still dominate the government; Shi'ite units in the army might not serve the common cause. Hezbollah will rebuild, with Iranian help; both will cite a mandate to lead the downtrodden Shi'ites. The Syrians, then as now, will await the anguished calls of one or more of Lebanon's myriad of ethno-religious communities for help.

One way to bolster the Lebanese government's performance when and if the time comes, could be large-scale international intervention: not an international force on Israel's border but rather a multi-national effort, bordering on a condominium, to reinforce the courage and capacities of Lebanon's government and armed forces.

Another option is to try to neutralise Syria -- the weak link in the Iran-Iraqi Shi'ite-Syria-Hezbollah axis, but for Lebanon an overbearing and highly-manipulative neighbour. Israel has ruled out doing this militarily, since the resultant escalation could be extremely dangerous for all parties and the Middle East at large.

That leaves the diplomatic option. In recent years, Bashar Assad has asked Israel repeatedly to renew bilateral peace talks. The Pentagon has responded by asking Israel to rebuff Assad lest he break out of the isolation imposed on him due to his support for terrorists in Iraq, Israel and Lebanon. In Ariel Sharon's day that caution was welcomed, since Sharon had no intention of giving up the Golan.

Now this option should be reconsidered. Washington, which helped lay the foundations for Israel's current two-front war by encouraging armed Islamists like Hezbollah and Hamas to participate in premature democratic processes, might stand back. In a renewed Syrian-Israeli peace process, Israel would have to insist that in return for most of the Golan Heights it get not only peace with Syria but peace and quiet in Lebanon and an end to Damascus' support for Palestinian Islamist radicals.

A tall order, but perhaps now is the time to try.

###
*Yossi Alpher is co-editor of the bitterlemons family of internet publications. He is former director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies at Tel Aviv University, and a former senior adviser to PM Ehud Barak. This article was distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Americans for Peace Now, July 21, 2006
Visit Americans for Peace Now at www.peacenow.org (http://www.peacenow.org/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service - Partners in Humanity.
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 4
~YOUTH VIEWS~ America in the world: not so beautiful
Jennie Kim

Washington, D.C. - The world must seem like a cold place to Americans, as the question du jour, “Why do they hate us?” now invites another: “Which ‘they’ are you talking about?”

“They” no longer refers exclusively to terrorist groups. Indeed, American diplomacy has atrophied worldwide. Nowhere is this more painfully evident than in the Middle East, where for two weeks now Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged devastating blows, while Washington -- cut off from key regional powers in Tehran and Damascus -- did nothing to broker the peace. Tragically, Lebanon, one of America’s precious few Arab allies, will bear the brunt of two costs: the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict and America’s stunning diplomatic failure in the Middle East.

The Lebanon crisis will certainly not improve the dismal perception of America shared by Arab and Muslim publics, the key audiences of the Bush administration’s Iraq and War on Terror policies. According to the newly released June 2006 Pew Global Attitudes survey, only 30 percent of Egyptians and 15 percent of Jordanians have a favourable opinion of America, despite receiving billions of dollars in U.S. bilateral aid over the years. In 2000, a solid majority of Indonesians (75 percent) held positive views of America -- today, only 30 percent do. However, the most dramatic decline was in Turkey, where positive views of America have tumbled more than four-fold in six years (from 52 to 12 percent).

In fact, America’s image has fallen sharply worldwide in the years since 9/11. Today, 37 percent of Germans and 23 percent of Spaniards have a favourable opinion of the U.S. -- less than half the number from six years ago. During that time, America’s favourability also dropped more than one-third in France (from 62 to 39 percent). Even in Great Britain, its strongest ally, America draws a lukewarm reception, with 56 percent of the British public expressing positive views of the US, down from 83 percent in 2000.

Being an object of global disdain is a relatively new role for this country, which has generally followed Willy Loman’s philosophy in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, “Be liked and you will never want”, to manoeuvre its way around the world. Indeed, no other country has capitalised on the relationship between popularity and global success better than the United States, a nation whose stunning military and economic resources have, until recently, been matched by an enviable store of soft power -- the power of influence and persuasion that comes from being respected and liked.

Some may dismiss soft power as irrelevant, arguing that America is mighty enough to pursue its interests without regard to international opinion. But hard power has its limits. Like globalisation, the worldwide spread of democracy is double-edged. Anti-American sentiment among foreign audiences can constrain would-be allies and have serious policy implications: consider Turkey’s decision to prevent American troops from crossing its borders to fight in Iraq, or the repercussions of the Spanish elections after the Madrid subway bombing, which resulted in Spain withdrawing its troops from Iraq.

What can soft power do to reverse this trend? While we may never get the world to agree with our decision to invade Iraq, or our stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, public diplomacy -- the act of understanding, engaging and influencing foreign public opinion -- can go a long way to dampen what Edward Djerijan, a former diplomat and expert on public diplomacy, calls “the dangerously reinforcing cycle of animosity”. Furthermore, he recommends, the tools of public diplomacy must be used in the early stages of policymaking to avoid producing negative reactions that could undermine American interests.

To that end, Undersecretary of State Karen Hughes has taken several steps forward since she became the nation’s public diplomacy tzarina last fall. After a rocky start -- Beirut’s Daily Star derided her first Middle East listening tour as “not charming, but definitely offensive” -- Hughes has successfully pushed for much-needed reforms to raise public diplomacy’s profile and budget (albeit to a scant $1.14 billion).

Public diplomacy is a generational endeavour and, after many years of idling, it will need a great deal more time, talent and funding to succeed. Of course, there will always be a limit to how much public diplomacy can do: bad policies, like bad products, won’t sell. Nor can public diplomacy dismantle the historic peculiarities of American foreign policy, which is characterised by a gap between narrow interests and lofty ideals, creating a dissonance that an arrogant, at times messianic, sense of purpose feigns to obscure.

From Woodrow Wilson’s solemn justification (“God helping her, she can do no other”) for sending America to intervene in the First World War, to Bush’s bold claim that “freedom is…the almighty God’s gift to every man and woman in this world,” American presidents have shown themselves willing to risk extraordinary over-reach, so long as they’re erring on the side of the divine. Under the shade of this theory, international opprobrium is a burden secondary to moral duty -- a consoling thought. But if America alone could not “make the world safe for democracy” in the last century, how do we expect to make democracy safe for the world in this one?

###
* Jennie Kim (jenniek@gwu.edu) is a graduate student at the George Washington University’s School of Media and Public Affairs. She received her degree, in History, from Stanford University in 2005. This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: Common Ground News Service (CGNews), July 25, 2006)
Visit the website at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

ARTICLE 5
Lebanese and Israelis exchange views online
Jean-Marc Manach

Paris – In 2003, Salam Pax (http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/), the pseudonym of an Iraqi blogger, enabled millions of Internet users to follow the advance of American troops in real-time from Baghdad. The “blogosphere” was then bristling with controversies: was the United States right to go to war, and was this an invasion or a liberation? And attention focused on the Iraqi blogger not only because he wrote in English—and with some talent—but also because there were practically no other Iraqi bloggers around.

The difference with the war in Lebanon is that there is a legion of Salam Pax’s, both on the Lebanese and the Israeli sides. They are indeed so numerous that websites have been set up to take an inventory of them, to syndicate their postings and finally to facilitate consulting them: Jblogosphere (http://www.jblogsphere.net/special/) and Webster (http://english.webster.co.il/) on the Israeli side; OpenLebanon (http://openlebanon.com/) and Lebanese Blogger Forum (http://lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com/) on the Lebanese side; while The Truth Laid Bear (http://truthlaidbear.com/mideastcrisis.php) has, for its part, made an inventory of bloggers on both sides of the border, as well as of Palestinian bloggers.

These sites feature international calendars of pro-Israeli and pro-Lebanese protests, practical information (emergency phone numbers, contact information for the Red Cross or blood banks), and photos and propaganda videos which, because they can be shocking, have not been published by Western media.

Like their fellow citizens, a majority of Israelis support the Tsahal (Israel Defence Forces) and are especially concerned by Hezbollah’s missiles. Others condemn the biased perception of the international community. IsraPundit (http://israpundit.com/2006/?p=1878) thus likens CNN to a mouthpiece of Hezbollah. On the Lebanese side, incomprehension and anger take precedence in the face of the violence of Israeli bombings and the number of civilians killed (BloggingBeirut (http://bloggingbeirut.com/)), alongside the impression that it is the country itself, more than Hezbollah alone, that Tsahal wishes to destroy (Stop Destroying Lebanon (http://stopdestroyinglebanon.com/)).

But what is most outstanding is that beyond ideological diatribes and reflex reactions, snippets of a true dialogue are beginning to appear between Israeli and Lebanese Internet users. Ignoring their political differences, they benefit from the human, not to say intimate, aspect of blogs to engage in a conversation that conventional media cannot enable.

“With the web, the war becomes personal”

Ramzi, 27, lives in Beirut. The first post published on his blog (http://ramziblahblah.blogspot.com/), launched just two years ago, attested to the challenge of living in a country so invaded by tourists that it becomes difficult to find a seat at the terrace of a café. In early July, he mentioned the fact that, while waiting for a visa, he kept cancelling his plane ticket and saying “goodbye” to his friends. Today, he comments on the “Israeli aggression” through, namely, advertisements full of humour and poetry. Several Israelis have written to him in the form of comments to condemn the “waste” of this war, express their compassion, wish for a quick resolution to the conflict and call for peace between “neighbours”. Ramzi summarises this in a single line: “With the web, the war becomes personal” - thanks to blogs, amateur videos posted on the Internet and to the comments posted by Internet users.

For Lisa Goldman, a Canadian-Israeli journalist and blogger (http://ontheface.blogware.com/blog) who lives in Tel Aviv, this was the “first time that residents of ‘enemy’ countries engaged in an ongoing conversation while missiles were falling”. And the examples abound. Thus, the first person to react on her posting dedicated to an anti-war protest last Sunday was a Lebanese woman who condemns the state of siege, the destruction of her country and the death of civilians but adds that “with people like you, the dialogue will continue; we have no choice”.

Beyond generating this type of civilised dialogue between citizens of warring nations, the Internet also creates otherwise more unsettling situations where the military, and those who support it, are kept informed of the consequences of their actions by the very people they are bombing. Last Monday, Shachar, a Tsahal soldier usually stationed at the Lebanese border, was on leave to attend a funeral. He took advantage of this by consulting a collaborative and very popular blog, Lebanese Bloggers (http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/), in order to stay informed of what is happening on the other side of the border: “We can’t see all the bombing in Lebanon from Israel (naturally, we’re focusing on bombs in Israel)”.

When hate fades away…

For several nights now, Lisa Goldman has found herself “chatting” live with a Lebanese man she met through his blog. Sitting on the roof of his apartment building in Beirut, he describes his impressions to her while Israeli missiles fall on the city “in a human, personal way that no newspaper article or television news segment can convey”.

More generally speaking, what comes out of these conversations—through blogs or interspersed commentaries between Israelis and Lebanese—is a feeling of powerlessness and sadness regarding this conflict over the civilian losses it has caused, and over the policymakers of their respective countries and their international allies who have subjected them to this fait accompli. Hope is also present in these conversations, for while many Lebanese bloggers today feel hate toward Israel and will now refuse any contact with Israelis, most of those who communicate online do not consider themselves as “enemies” but as “neighbours”.

Lisa Goldman goes even further: “When the anger dissipates, perhaps they will remember the personal connections with their ‘enemies’”. Catching herself dreaming that the next generation of Lebanese and Israeli politicians and business leaders will benefit from such intimate relations, she concludes that “it’s not so easy to kill someone you know… as a human being, not simply as ‘the former enemy’”.

###
* Jean-Marc Manach is a journalist for Le Monde. He also maintains a blog, rewriting.net (http://rewriting.net/), a distribution list on the information war, guerrelec (http://groups-beta.google.com/group/guerrelec), and a research interface of 200 search engines and databases, manhack.net (http://manhack.net/). This article is distributed by the Common Ground News Service (CGNews) and can be accessed at www.commongroundnews.org (http://www.commongroundnews.org/).
Source: ãLe Monde, July 19, 2006
Visit Le Monde at www.lemonde.fr (http://www.lemonde.fr/)
Distributed by the Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH).
Copyright permission has been obtained for publication.

**********

The Common Ground News Service – Partners in Humanity (CGNews-PiH) provides news, op-eds, features and analysis by local and international experts on a broad range of issues affecting Muslim-Western relations. CGNews-PiH syndicates articles that are balanced and solution-oriented to news outlets worldwide. With support from the Norwegian government and the United States Institute of Peace, this news service is a non-profit initiative of Search for Common Ground, an international NGO working in the field of conflict transformation.

This news service is one outcome of a set of working meetings held in partnership with His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan in June 2003.

~YOUTH VIEWS~

CGNews-PiH also regularly publishes the work of student leaders and journalists whose articles strengthen intercultural understanding and promote constructive perspectives and dialogue in their own communities. Student journalists and writers under the age of 27 are encouraged to write to cbinkley@sfcg.org for more information on contributing.
*The views expressed in these articles are those of the authors, not of CGNews-PiH or its affiliates.

Common Ground News Service
1601 Connecticut Avenue, NW
Suite #200
Washington, DC 20009 USA
Ph: +1(202) 265-4300
Fax: +1(202) 232-6718

Rue Belliard 205 bte 13
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
Ph: +32 (02) 736-7262
Fax: +32(02) 732-3033
E-mail: cgnewspih@sfcg.org
Website: http://www.commongroundnews.org

Editors

Emad Khalil (Amman)
Juliette Schmidt (Beirut)
Chris Binkley (Dakar)
Medhy Hidayat (Jakarta)
Elyte Baykun (Washington)
Leena El-Ali (Washington)
Emmanuelle Hazan (Washington)

**********

To subscribe or unsubscribe, send an email to cgnewspih@sfcg.org with “subscribe” or “unsubscribe” in the subject line, indicating your language of choice among English, French, Arabic and Bahasa Indonesia.

Posted by Evelin at July 26, 2006 04:51 AM