Lebanese War Diaries in the Digital Age: Blogging About the Home Front During Times of Violence

The recent proliferation of online writing, blogging, and diary keeping in response to current affairs has not passed over the Middle East. Arabs-and Arab women in partic­ ular-have kept war diaries that have attracted worldwide audiences. These innovative narratives include Suad Amiry’s Sharon and My Mother-in-Law: Ramallah Diaries (2004); Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq (2005), by an Iraqi woman who goes by the pseudonym Riverbend; and Laila el­Haddad’s Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything in Between (2010). The Palestinian writers Amiry and el­Haddad provide personalized accounts of the struggles of everyday Palestinians in Ramallah and Gaza, respectively. They highlight the plight of farmers, mothers, children, and other civilians whose lives are frequently disrupted by the violence of the Israeli occupation. Similarly, Riverbend’s online diary deals with the American invasion of Iraq from the perspective of a young Iraqi woman who, exasperated by the mainstream, or corporate, media’s coverage of the war, decided to tell her side of the story.