The Internet also provides considerable information not available elsewhere. This includes not only news about Palestine difficult to access in the West, but also information unavailable internally. On more than one occasion, local media neglected to report on key events occurring in Palestine. These events were reported on the Internet, such as a 1998 hunger strike by Palestinian prisoners in Jneid prison under the Palestinian Authority. Discussion groups that debate issues in an open, democratic and immediate way are an excellent example.
Any post can immediately reach hundreds of people with an equal right to reply.
The best recent example of the organizational potential of these discussion groups was the 1999 campaign against the Burger King franchise in the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim. The WWW's organizational capacity is particularly important in Palestine, where solidarity networks are currently very weak. Rebuilding networks between people at the grassroots level is crucial for progressive politics, and the Internet can play a key role in this process. The project aims to establish Internet centers in Palestinian refugee camps across the Middle East and to encourage refugees to build websites describing their lives in the camps and thereby sharing their experiences and hopes for the future with each other and with the wider world. A key objective of the project is to rebuild and strengthen links between different, widely separated refugee communities.