Arabs, Israelis, War and Blogs (and English)

During the war several Lebanese bloggers continued to blog in English. They soon started getting comments from Israelis. The Israeli bloggers then switched from Hebrew to English so that the Lebanese bloggers could read their blogs. Soon, despite the war, real communication broke out. Admitedly some of it was of the 'drop dead you evil #$%#!' variety, but it was real communication.

One casualty of the war though may be Perpetual Refugee, a Lebanese blogger I found particulary effective in his writing. According to the Washington Post

Perpetual Refugee now "writes that he does not want to rebuild the bridge with Israelis. He has closed the comments option and deleted the comments that were left in previous posts," Goldman said. "He and I are still in irregular contact, but our relationship is very fragile." The Perpetual Refugee declined to respond to requests for comment.

This is a great shame. If you read his blog, however, you will see how difficult and complex his relations with the Israelis have been. He is a sensitive writer, one who feels and records rather than records and analyzes. I think we should stay tuned, though he seems to have stopped blogging, at least for the moment.