Viral News of Attacks

More than any event since the US election, I’ve been receiving news of the attacks on Gaza through viral means.  There was a text message that a Norwegian doctor sent to his friends in Norway that made it to my friend’s email box to be posted on a message board:

They bombed the central vegetable market in Gaza City two hours ago. 80 wounded, 20 killed, all came here to Shifa Hades [hospital]! We are wading in death, blood, and amputees. Many children. A pregnant woman. I have never experienced anything so terrible. Now we hear tanks. Pass it on, send it around, shout it out. Anything. DO SOMETHING! DO MORE! We are living in a history book now, all of us. Mads G. 3.1.09 1:50PM, Gaza

And then there are the notes coming over facebook from different Israeli friends linking to clips from local news reports, mostly the demonstrations against the attacks.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mc9DN2Oi0-w]

This reminds me vaguely of the war in Lebanon, when suddenly some 4 or 5 people I know took off to cover the events, and video clips and emails streamed in.  Talk about the internet compressing space and time.  The world just crowds in on you, as marvelous and disturbing as that is.

Now help me out with some brilliant quote on the politics of witnessing in a mediated world…