Israel & Hizbollah battle while the people talk - war2.0

As war rages in lebanon and northern israel between hizbollah and the israeli army, on the web another campaign is fought.. that of the common people on both sides of the border (and further afield) who are able to talk, in a previously unprecendented way, with each other on the boards and blogs, sharing experiences under fire, fighting a war of words and perhaps also attempting to understand each other despite (or perhaps because of) the suffering that war brings. Is this "War2.0" ?

We've collected a few links to interesting discussions on boards and blogs where you can keep up with whats going on in the region from the perspective of the people whose lives are directly affected..

This topic on flyertalk focuses mostly on two people.. Dovster and BEYflyer. Dovster is an israeli living on a kibbutz close to the lebanese border and BEYflyer is lebanese and living in Beirut. They give their accounts of events as they happen on the ground and its a very interesting read which so far covers 32 pages and over 1200 posts!

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=563147

The 'Lebanese Political Forum' on Lebanese-Forces.org board contains many hot topics related to the current situation and the people taking part in the discussions there now consist of lebanese (including christian and muslim), israeli, palestinian and others.

The conversations show the entire range of feelings experienced by the people there from anger and hate to understanding and criticism of all parties involved and provides a unique insight into the issues and how people in the region view them as well as being a source on news events as they happen..

http://www.lebanese-forces.org/vbullet/forumdisplay.php?f=18

TimeBomb2000 covers just about all the major global events and of course many of the topics are about the current conflict. Most of the participants are in the US but they scour the worlds news sources, collecting many interesting articles (a mix of news, views and some rumour) which are then posted neatly organized into relevant topics so its a good way to keep up with whats going on, at least according to the various commentators whose articles are posted..

http://www.timebomb2000.com/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=9

The following blogs are by lebanese, some who are (or were) in Beirut when the conflict began. They provide interesting news and views and I recommend reading them starting from the posts made at the beginning of the war to follow the events in chronological order..

http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/
http://lebop.blogspot.com/

And here are some blogs by israelis..

http://ontheface.blogware.com/
http://olehgirl.blogspot.com/
http://www.onejerusalem.com/

There are thousands more discussions going on right now on the boards and blogs and to keep up with them you can save the following links..

On the boards..
http://www.boardtracker.com/search/?search=lebanon&order=0
http://www.boardtracker.com/search/?search=israel&order=0

or subscribe to the rss feed..
http://www.boardtracker.com/srss/?search=lebanon&order=0
http://www.boardtracker.com/srss/?search=israel&order=0

On the blogs..
http://technorati.com/search/lebanon
http://technorati.com/search/israel

Of course there are many more conversations in other languages so modify your search terms to suit.

Now you too, no matter where in the world you may be, can join in the conversation directly with real people caught in the conflict and hear their personal stories and accounts rather than just relying on the mainstream media reports.
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