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The authors found that Arabic bloggers mostly focus on local politics and local issues, and that, perhaps surprisingly, “the United States is not a dominant political topic in Arabic blogs; neither are the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.” The one political topic that did cut across all the various clusters in the Arabic blogging world, however, was the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians, in particular the situation in Gaza. Berkman’s Bruce Etling noted that the authors were also surprised “that there was no cluster around extremism or jihad.” In fact, the report notes, “When discussing terrorism, Arab bloggers are overwhelmingly critical of violent extremists.” (via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Arabic blogosphere begins to bloom)
