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While Lebanon is well represented on the Internet, the best single resource for researchers is the Al-Mashriq server http://almashriq.hiof.no. This is hosted by the Infomatics Department College, Norway, and administered by Professor Borre Ludvigsen, a previous resident of Lebanon for some twenty years.
It earns bouquets for the size, breadth and design of the site. Al-Mashriq is truly a mega-site; with well over 15,000 multimedia documents it is the largest repository of cultural information about Lebanon on the Internet. Its sections encompass subjects from archaeology and architecture to weather and World Wide Web resources. Of particular interest are the vast photographic archives and map collections, both historical and contemporary. Its spartan design also avoids the flowery graphics that increase downloading times.
Al-Mashriq also links researchers to useful academic centers and research institutes. For these, click on 'Lebanon' on the main page, then 'WWW Resources' and follow the 'Websites in Lebanon' link http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/000/005/leb-domain.html
#. This yields a good supply of Lebanese educational, organizational, and governmental websites. Two particularly useful sites are the Digital Documentation Centre http://almashriq.hiof.no/ddc, co-hosted by Al-Mashriq and the American University of Beirut http://www.aub.edu.lb, and the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies http://www.lcps.org.lb or http://www.lcps-lebanon.org, an independent research institute based in Beirut. The latter, founded in 1989 and run by Paul Salem and Michael Young, researches and hosts conferences on the political, social, and economic development of Lebanon. It publishes the Lebanon Report, Abaad, and the Beirut Review periodicals, selected articles from which are archived on the website. These publications provide reliable economic data - a difficult thing to come by on Lebanon - alongside political analysis.
For those requiring up-to-date news information, follow Al-Mashriq's 'Media' link and you will find the Lebanese Arabic press--for example, al-Anwar http://www.alanwar.com.lb, and Nahar http://www.annahar.com.lb, and as-Safir http://www.assafir.com. These all require a .pdf file reader, such as Acrobat. However, clicking on the Daily Star link http://www.dailystar.com.lb yields the free Internet version of Lebanon's principal English-language newspaper. Launched in October 1997 and updated daily by administrator Ali Mneimneh, this website hosts the full text of articles, features, opinions, cartoons, and discussions.
On the negative side, Al-Mashriq purports to cover the entire Levant though almost all the site is devoted to Lebanon. In terms of search engines, Al-Mashriq does not link researchers to Edmond Ibrahimian's Lebhost, the first search engine exclusively dedicated to websites containing information pertaining to Lebanon. It is also well worth a visit http://www.lebhost.com.lb.
Its 'Media' page also omits the Israeli daily Ha'aretz http://www3.haaretz.co.il or http://www.haaretzdaily.com, a useful source for research regarding Israeli perspectives on Lebanon. The 'Media' page also does not include the valuable Institute for Documentation and Research on Lebanon (IDREL) website http://www.idrel.com.lb, whose free Shufimafi report (a very useful publication) provides a neat synopsis of the week's events in Lebanon. 'Shufimafi' is superior to the newswire provided by its American made cousin, Lebanon.com http://www.lebanon.com.
Aside from a section on Hizballah and some articles and images on Israel's 'Grapes of Wrath' operation http://almashriq.hiof.no/lebanon/300/350/355/april-war/index.html, Al-Mashriq's coverage of the conflict in southern Lebanon is a bit thin.
Best results require both Lebanese and Israeli perspectives. For the former, the Lebanese 'Resistance' has well-maintained official homepage http://www.moqawama.org that includes a daily chronicle of events from the appearance of an Israeli reconnaissance drone to heavy artillery bombardments, statistics detailing the results of military operations, and an alphabetical listing of Hizballah's dead. This website ought to be visited in conjunction with the glitzy website of Hizballah's Central Press Office http://www.hizbollah.org and the personal homepages of Hizballah's Secretary-General, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah http://www.nasrallah.net, and spiritual guide, Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah http://www.bayynat.org.lb.
For an Israeli perspective, visit the Israeli Defence Force website http://www.idf.il, which gives a more detailed perspective than the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs site http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il, consisting mostly of reference documents and speeches under the 'Peace Process' link. The IDF website offers a chronology of events on Israeli's northern border and in southern Lebanon, violations of the 'Grapes of Wrath' understandings, and data regarding IDF casualties. Also worth visiting is the website of the Four Mothers Movement http://www.angelfire.com/il/FourMothers, a rich source of articles of which many are sympathetic toward Lebanese perspectives.
Despite a few shortcomings, though, the Al-Mashriq server represents an excellent research tool for information and analysis on contemporary Lebanon.
Travis Benson is a final-year Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Otago, New Zealand. His dissertation examines the orientations of Lebanon's Maronite community since the Taef Agreement. He is also the editor for Lebanon-Related Internet Resources, at the Centre for Lebanese Studies, Oxford http://nonuniv.ox.ac.uk/cls/links.html.