Justin forwarded me a link to wizel.com, a site that invites you to take part in a distributed denial-of-service attack on the websites of Hizbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian National Authority, and various other sites that "provide disinformation on the facts in Israel, Lebanon and the Palestinian Authority territories," in the words of Wizel's webmaster.
I think this may be the saddest web site I've ever seen, on so many different levels. The site itself is a wrenching mixture of militaristic cheer, youthful enthusiasm, miserable frustration, and exhausted hatred. Equally wrenching are the "target" sites Wizel links to: the Palestinian Information Center, in particular, is terrifying to read, and left me with a saddened sympathy for everyone caught up in this whirlwind, even as I was recoiling in disgust.
To me, this site is an unendingly depressing window onto the conflicts between Israeli and Palestinians: there's so much of the history of violence and suffering implied in it. And now, here we are, being asked to pick up virtual rocks to launch ping floods against the public faces of these various organizations, to extend the fight to the cyberspace front -- looking at it, I just want to curl up and cry.