Here’s Lisa’s explanation, from her blog, on the current investigation by the Israeli Police.

And here’s her witty analysis of the investigation:

For me, the most hilarious aspect of this whole story is that it has united a virulently anti-Israel blogger and a virulently anti-Arab blogger – although I don’t think they know about one another’s existence. They would probably say that they are vastly different people, but in fact they have a lot in common:

1. They both really, really hate me – one because I am a right-wing Zionist lick spittle, and the other because I am a dangerous, seditious leftist who panders to the Arabs and endangers the security of the state

Here’s more from The Jerusalem Post, Haaretz and Agence France Press via The Daily Star of Lebanon.

This is outrageous – but think about it in context: professional journalists, bloggers and ordinary people throughout the Middle East are largely cut off from each other because their countries or cultures prohibit formal contact with each other. Arabs boycott Israel and can’t or won’t meet with Israelis; and Israelis face investigation for threatening state security if they venture into enemy countries.

Blogs, the net and satellite TV certainly bring us all much closer to each other. At next year’s We Media conference we’ll hear from the organizers of the One Voice movement, an attempt to use online organizing tools to unite Israelis and Palestinians around peace. In just a few weeks since the launch of our networking platform, the We Media Community has already seen new members join from all corners of the earth (please join if you haven’t already – go here) . Blogs and multi-lingual aggregators like Global Voices connect us to information and ideas that appear increasingly borderless. Censors in China and other countries must use increasingly sophisticated tools to restrict the flow of knowledge. We are global: Yes, of course.

But walls, borders and policies that emphasize our differences remain daunting challenges to a world that could be made better through media. The We Media community has a long way to go.

Do you care? Do your usual media providers keep you up-to-date on who’s controlling the internet and what they’d like to do with it?

Given the emerging ubiquity and necessity of digital communications, I continue to marvel at the “other world” nature of high-level discussions about how the internet is operated.

Meanwhile, in Athens, on internet censorship …

Reporters Without Border: Internet censorship is spreading
China: Really? We’re not doing it

From AP via MSNBC: Google, others defend China operations
Censorship is a key focus at this week’s inaugural Internet Governance Forum, which ends Thursday. Other main issues are related to security of online networks and diversity of the Internet as Web growth is predicted to shift to China, India and developing countries.

Julien Pain of the group Reporters Without Borders said Web censors were gaining strength in many of those growth countries and that their main target was not dissidents but keeping information from the general population.

“Internet censorship is really spreading around the world,” he said. “Ten years ago, the Internet was not important for an African dictator. … Now China is a model for these countries and their model is spreading around the world.”

Richard Sambrook was there and described “a collision between business interests, principles of human rights and freedom of expression … What is better – compromised co-operation that makes some progress or refusal to compromise that makes no progress? We may be guilty of adopting too much of a Northern and Western view sometimes.”
Athens sidenotes:

1. Our We Media conference infuenced the IGF meeting in Athens. Hurray. The Athens forum was headed by Nitin Desai, who attended and spoke at the We Media London forum earlier this year. We might also note BBC news presenter Nik Gowing, who moderated a portion of the London conference, played a similar role in Athens. Kieren McCarthyin the UK writes that the We Media London experience inspired Mr. Desai to incorporate a “chief blogger” into the UN conference.

2. On the other hand, maybe we should keep quiet about who and how we inspire people, or don’t – since one might just as easily note missed opportunities. Here’s Joi Ito writing about his Athens experience:

I seem to be doing this more and more, but I’m sitting in my hotel room watching the webcast and chatting in the chatroom for the IGF meeting. Until they make it easier for people to use their computers on site, I’m going to continue doing this.

Update: Sorry comments are not showing up here. We’re looking into it.

Nov. 21, 2006 Update: Comments fixed.