Lazy Guide to Net Culture: Levant levity

I HAVE a made a serious error of judgment.

I have just returned from holiday. This morning I bounced happily into the scotsman.com newsroom, my mind full of candyfloss, beaches and splashing in the sea.

As I sat down behind my desk and waited for the soul-drains to be jabbed into my eyeballs, I innocently asked: "So, much been happening while I've been away?"

Came the reply: "Apparently, Tommy Sheridan's very hairy."

"That's nice," I said as the chill claws of my PC slowly dug their way into my heart.

"Oh and Fidel Castro's not dead."

"Good-o," I murmured as the concrete sarcophagus of my workstation shut out the sun.

"Oh, and World War III is breaking out."

Hmm. Before I head off to await the end of the world in my bunker in the Highlands I feel should write about events in Lebanon but I hesitate. I hesitate because it will unleash a flamewar of epic proportions and deluge me with crazed email from extremists of unsound mind from both sides of the madness.

I mean it's bad enough dealing with the net fanboys (and - let's face it - it's usually boys) who get their nit-picking knickers in a twist if you don’t define their online hobbies in the kind of forensically precise detail usually reserved for idiots savants. If I had a penny for every time some obsessive somewhere has mistaken my describing an obscure online concept to a wider audience with being "poorly researched", I’d have 17p. (By the way, if you felt that my definition of machinima - or any other pursuit mentioned in this column - was not exact enough for you, please feel free to get a life already.)

But that's nothing compared to what happens when you mention "Israel", "Palestine" or "Lebanon" in an article, no matter how even-handedly or temperately.

Here goes. Please be aware I will not be looking at my email ever again after this so don’t bother contacting me.

Before we go any further, here are some basic principles. I believe Israel has the right to exist. I believe democracies are better than dictatorships. And I believe terrorism is evil.

I also believe wading into other people's countries and killing loads of civilians does not defeat terrorism but encourages it. Tempting though it may be for the Israelis to bomb Hezbollah into the Stone Age that only works if they can hit Hezbollah's fighters rather than, say, the UN's.

Finally, I think that Israel will be as successful in bringing peace and stability to the Middle East as George W Bush has been in Afghanistan and Iraq. The British experience in Northern Ireland shows that the only way to end terrorism is to involve the terrorists in the political process, distasteful and painful and slow as that is.

I think there should be an immediate ceasefire. I think Israel should withdraw from Lebanon. I think the ills of the Palestinian people should be addressed to ease tension in the region. And I think Hezbollah should be disarmed.

I also think Santa Claus should bring me an E-type Jag for Christmas. It doesn’t mean it's going to happen…

There are a ton of Lebanese and Israeli blogs commenting on the conflict. Two of the most interesting are Siege of Lebanon and Israeli Bunker.

This post on LebaneseBloggers is particularly thought-provoking:

One thing must be clear to all Lebanese - and I mean ALL: what has transpired over the past two weeks eliminates all the pretence for Hezbollah's existence as a military force. Its proclaimed ability to protect Lebanon from Israel has summed up to nothing more than causing a fraction of the damage to Israel in retaliation.

A large number of right-wing blogs are circulating the "fact" that the apartment building in Qana bombed by the Israelis did not collapse until eight hours after the attack. This rumour appears to have started with this article on Ynet.com. The theory is, frankly, bollocks, as is clear from the comments of the Israeli Defence Force brigadier general quoted:

""according to foreign press reports, and this is one of the reports we are relying on, the house collapsed at 8 A.M. We do not have testimony regarding the time of the collapse."

But, hey, why let the facts get in the way of a good bit of propaganda? So let's immerse ourselves in trivia while waiting for events at Har-Megiddo to unfold.

Why not watch this amusing video of Americans being ignorant about world affairs. George W Bush is only in it in spirit.

My favourite was this:

Question: What is a Mosque?
Answer: An animal

However, I fear this one is prophetic rather than stupid:

Question: How many world wars have there been?
Answer: Three

The Lazy Guide will take a short break to cower in a bunker and cover the Edinburgh Festival. It will return in September