IRANIAN BLOGS OF WAR DURING THE ISRAELI-LEBANESE CONFLICT

Number 04 ● 27 October 2006

The 2006 Israeli-Lebanese conflict was at the center of a sparking debate, which developed in the Iranian cyber-sphere of internet-based personal journals, known as Blogestan. The current international pressure on the Islamic Republic to denuke, the recurrent statements of Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad expressing the need to wipe Israel off the map and the Islamic Republic's sustained moral, financial and military support of Hizballah, have heated the debate in one of the most politically manipulated sites online.

Iranian blog entries posted during the Israeli-Lebanese conflict reveal a wide range of opinions and standpoints, which do not concur and are occasionally even at odds with the Islamic Republic's domestic and foreign policies. However, bloggers who occasionally criticize the Islamic Republic do not necessarily oppose its every policy. A large segment of Iranian bloggers, for example, supports Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities and equates the Islamic Republic sponsorship of Hizballah with pro-Israeli policies of the U.S.

The following review affords a glimpse of Iranian blogosphere attitudes, based on local and expatriate unofficial personal blogs in Persian, posted online from July 13 to August 14, 2006. In relation to the conflict, known by now in Lebanon as "the July War" and in Israel as "the Second Lebanon War", three main trends have emerged among Iranian blogs: pro-Hizballah or anti-Israeli positions, the "morally-neutral" and the "deliberate abstainers".

Under the slogan, "we want peace and justice for Lebanon," Iranian bloggers expressed vigorous support of Hizballah in general or of its leader Hassan Nasrallah in particular. The common denominator in such cases was the glorification of Hizballah's combatants for standing at the forefront of the Islamic resistance against the "Zionist occupying forces" and the "Euro-American imperialist gangsters". Some advocated activism: a few bloggers encouraged young Iranians to assist Hizballah directly or indirectly, for example, by traveling to Southern Lebanon through Damascus and taking part in the actual fighting. Several other pro-Hizballah-bloggers called all Muslims to unite in launching an "Internet-Jihad", infecting Israeli websites with virtual viruses aimed at bringing about the total crash of the IL net. Another set of bloggers followed Ahmadinejad's repeated statements and predicted the rising of a Middle-Eastern utopia once Israel ceases to exist. In one instance, a Tehran-based blogger even accused the Iranian government for not doing enough to assist Hizballah and therefore persisted that "the blood of the oppressed people of Lebanon and Palestine" is on the hands of Iranian leaders.

Meanwhile, other Iranian bloggers posted more moderate viewpoints. In an attempt to present fair and more balanced positions without bias, the "morally-neutral" bloggers maneuvered between various international media outlets, their usual talkbackers and other bloggers appearing on their blogrolls. The most prevalent tendency among these bloggers was criticism of both sides. Iranian bloggers held Hizballah as well as Israel responsible for jeopardizing any real effort for peace in the Middle East through the repeated conflagration of the region. Both sides were also disparaged for using propaganda (such as misleading news outlets and doctored photos) to demonize each other and thus score more points with the international media and public opinion.

At the same time, the Islamic Republic was not off the hook in Blogestan. Few Iranian-based bloggers boldly complained about the biased media in the Islamic Republic and questioned Iran's national interests in Lebanon. Iranian Diaspora bloggers, who are far more conspicuous in criticizing the Islamic Republic online (for obvious reasons), scoffed at the officially sponsored rallies of students, children, ambulance drivers, bikers and Iranian parliament members, who cheerfully waved anti-Israeli and pro-Hizballah slogans and flags throughout the streets of the capital Tehran.

With the escalation of the fighting, at the end of July, photos of South Lebanese casualties, refugees, and Beirut's damaged infrastructure swamped Blogesan. Numerous photos, especially of the Qana village where IDF air strikes killed approximately 28 Lebanese civilians on July 30, obscured the abduction of the two IDF soldiers and the killing of eight others as well as the rockets fired at Israeli border villages by Hizballah on July 12, 2006 (events triggering the heavy Israeli retaliation). The military confrontation giving rise to the conflict, which seemed at first to be yet another border incident between the IDF and Hizballah, was depicted over the course of two weeks as a major conflict between Israel and Lebanon.

In conjunction with these kinds of blog-posts, many members of the Iranian blogosphere community deliberately abstained from addressing the Israeli-Lebanese conflict entirely, even when their usual talkbackers pleaded with them to do so. One blogger attributed three main reasons to what he has defined as "the current indifference projected by Iranian bloggers". One reason emanated from the historical and cultural resentment by Iranians, of Arabs, who conquered Iran in the seventh century. A second reason the blogger raised addressed the bitter memories of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), during which the Arab world supported Saddam Hossein and demonstrated sheer indifference towards Iran's grievances. The third reason was a simmering resentment towards the Islamic Republic's sponsorship of foreign entities and movements, such as the Palestinian Authority, while the vast majority of the local population is under the poverty line. For these reasons, the blogger concluded, there are Iranian bloggers who support Israel's efforts to clamp down on Hizballah.

In another interesting Persian blog-post, an Iranian expatriate compared the Israeli-Hizballah confrontation with Iran's ongoing battle against the Mujahidin Khalq, the oppositional militant organization with headquarters in Iraq. According to this blogger, the international community never condemns the Islamic Republic's continuous military actions against the Mujahidin, because these actions are considered a matter of internal affairs. Moreover, the blogger asserted, in some countries the Mujahidin, similar to the Hizballah, appear on the blacklist of international terrorist groups. Therefore, the blogger urged his fellow Iranians to think how Iran would have reacted if it were in Israel's place.

In conclusion, Iranian bloggers did not view the 2006 Israeli-Lebanese conflict as an isolated episode. On the one hand, their opinions and standpoints drew heavily on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Thus, the Palestinian predicament gave pretext not only to Hizballah's operations against Israel, but also to Iran's policy in supporting the Hizballah. On the other hand, Israel's invasion of Southern Lebanon appeared to be a preliminary step towards a possible U.S. military assault on the Islamic Republic. Such a potential threat, which is much more alarming for Iranians, seems to hover as long as the Islamic Republic does not comply with the U.N. Security Council's resolutions regarding its nuclear research, and ceases its support of terrorist groups. Owing to their intense sense of nationalism, in facing such a clear and present danger, Iranian bloggers seem to pose a united front in support of their country, regardless of their political disagreements and intrinsic differences in viewpoints■

* Liora Hendelman-Baavur is a researcher at the Center for Iranian Studies. 

Tel Aviv University, Ramat-Aviv 61390, Tel Aviv P.O.B. 39040, Israel

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Iran Pulse 4 ● October 27, 2006 © All rights reserved