The term "cyberwar" makes for good copy, but reporters and commentators were somewhat callous in comparing the virtual battle raging between Israeli and Arab Web sites to the very real fighting on the ground. "For 50 years, the Arab-Israeli conflict has been fought with planes, tanks and stones on the parched land of the Middle East. But now there's a new front: cyberspace. Israelis, Lebanese and Palestinians are waging a ruthless virtual battle with a hail of e-mails and an army of mouse clicks - the new weapons of the information age," MSNBC's Kim Ghattas wrote. Later in the story, Ghattas said, "Hezbollah may have fought a bloody battle to oust Israel from south Lebanon, but Israelis are now struggling to bump the Islamic party off the World Wide Web."
It's not that the digital skirmishes aren't significant. As the AP reported, "Both sides are emphasizing the public relations aspect of their conflict. The targeted (Israeli) sites provide information about the conflict from an official Israeli point of view." So when the site was crippled by denial-of-service attacks, Israel briefly lost one means of telling its side of the story. An attack on the Israeli Parliament site was even more serious - according the AP, hackers broke into and tampered with files, though officials said nothing sensitive was damaged.
According to a front-page Washington Post story, Israeli hackers started the online fight. "A spearhead force of Israeli hackers, augmented by thousands of teenage keyboard warriors, launched their Internet assault on Hezbollah and other Arab world Web sites earlier this month as violence in the region spun out of control," wrote reporter Lee Hockstader. In one provocative hack, the Web site of the Islamic guerrilla movement Hezbollah was altered to display the Israeli flag, Hebrew text and "a slightly tinny piano recording of 'Hatikva,' the Israeli national anthem," Hockstader reported.
Heated as all this is, though, the reaction to it seemed hyperbolic. The Post quoted Ori Noy, director of the information division of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, saying, "Shutting down a site is like burning books. And in another era this was very symbolic. We are talking about the Nazi era." And the AP quoted a member of the Israeli parliament saying, "We need to have a cease-fire on the Web." Sure, but not as badly as they need one in real life. - Michelle Goldberg
Pings and E-Arrows Fly in Mideast Cyber-War
Israeli Web Sites Crash
New York Times
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