The new local versions are for Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Yemen. There isn’t one for Libya, where YouTube has been blocked since January.

YouTube already offers an Arabic version and hosts lots of content from users in the Middle East, including news networks Al Arabia and Al Jazeera. And the site is mostly available to Internet users in the region, though it has been blocked by ISPs in Egypt, Tunisia and Libya at the request of local governments both as a domain and as part of general Internet shutoffs over the last few months.

The most important aspects of the local versions of YouTube are dedicated home pages that show the most popular and trending videos in each country. This makes local videos much easier to find, especially because some of the most interesting videos on YouTube come from people who were previously unknown.

Previously, would-be viewers might have had to do extensive searching on YouTube or rely on Facebook, Twitter and news outlets to find important new video posts from these countries.

To whatever extent citizens watch and share local videos, the Middle East pages could mean that YouTube is a bigger touchpoint for on-the-street accounts from protests and other timely content. It should also make it easier for the rest of the world to find such videos.

YouTube seems to be playing down the political implication of the Middle East pages, though it seems obvious given the timing. In an announcement written in Arabic on the Google Arabia Blog (and not yet cross-posted on YouTube’s main blog or its news and politics blog), the company highlighted Jordanian cartoonist DinaKaradsheh, popular Lebanese musician Nancy Ajram and professional news networks–rather than calling out the opportunities to more easily find citizen video.

The post, written by Associate Product Marketing Manager Najeeb Jarrar, ended with a sort of plea to keep the Middle East discourse open:

Of course, the YouTube community reflects the whole world, with its vast differences of ethnicity, religion, nationality, language, politics and more. Not everything on YouTube will please everyone, and we encourage people to actively participate, learn the rules and flag content that might violate them. In the end, YouTube is a place where people go to exchange all kinds of ideas, and we hope you will join the conversation.

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They’re onstage at an event called the Israel Business Conference, put on by an Israeli business publication called Globes.

Walt was interviewed by Vardi. At one point, he noted: “In 10 years, I believe that most readers will be online. I assume that’s already true for my readers. I hope that our paper will be in good shape.”

We do too, but–just in case–don’t miss this amazing online Mossblog that Walt did from Israel called “Peace in the Mideast, With Great Cellphone Coverage.”

My favorite line about Walt’s travels between Israel and Jordan:

In both countries, even in the middle of barely populated stretches of desert, my iPhone had perfect voice coverage from multiple carriers. How come AT&T can’t guarantee the same level of service on the same phone even in the middle of some major American cities?”

I came here to speak at a tech/business conference sponsored by the Israeli financial newspaper, Globes. And then my wife and I stayed for a week or so to be tourists–the first time we’ve been here since 1975. Anyone in the high-tech business knows that Israel is a beehive of digital and Web start-ups, and I met with some of them. But that wasn’t the most interesting experience I have had here. The most interesting experience came nearly a week later, when we simply strolled across the Israel-Jordan border (pictured below; click on the image to make it larger) to do some touring, and then strolled back that same evening. Every soldier and policeman and border official on both sides was polite, smiling and efficient. It was no more stressful or dangerous than going from the U.S. to Canada and back.

The last time we were here, these two countries were at war, and had been for decades. It would have been ludicrous to suggest you could hire a tour guide in Jordan through your hotel concierge in Tel Aviv, Israel, then walk across the border to meet him. But that’s just what we did. We flew from Tel Aviv to the southern Israeli resort of Eilat, which is a few miles from a similar Jordanian resort called Aqaba, and then just walked through a border crossing. We then spent the day deep in the Jordanian desert at the utterly spectacular ancient city of Petra, and returned to Israel that evening to catch a flight back to Tel Aviv. No muss, no fuss.

And it isn’t just Americans who can make this passage. Average Jordanians and Israelis do it, too. In fact, we went to Petra on the enthusiastic advice of a number of Israelis we met. This was all made possible by a peace treaty that has been in effect between Jordan and Israel since 1994.

On our way back to Israel, a two-hour drive through the gorgeous Jordanian desert and mountains, our Jordanian guide–whose family has lived near Petra for 12 generations–called a counterpart in Israel to meet us at the border crossing, pick us up, and take us to the airport. It was a normal, daily thing for him. In fact, he told us, the weekend before, he had invited an Israeli friend on a mountain hike in Jordan.

Now, I am not naive about peace in this region. For readers who don’t know, I spent years as a defense, foreign policy and national security reporter for The Wall Street Journal before becoming a tech columnist. I have been in many Arab capitals and covered the U.S. policy aspects of the 1991 Gulf War. I know the Middle East is mostly a murderous mess. In fact, the day before we had gone to Jordan we were in a town in Israel that had been hit by Palestinian rockets fired from Gaza and were only a few miles from where Israeli troops had killed some Palestinians inside Gaza. So I know that our border-crossing experience doesn’t mean everything is fine and dandy. I know that average people are suffering badly and unfairly on both sides, and that there are rigid people on both sides who aren’t anxious for peace.

I also know that relations between Israel and Jordan aren’t exactly the same as U.S.-Canadian relations. In fact, the border crossing we used (pictured below; click on the image to make it larger) was named for the late Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who was assassinated by a Jewish fanatic for being too willing to make peace with the Arabs. And, on the Jordanian side, we encountered a large picture of the late King Hussein, whose own life was threatened many times by Arab fanatics who thought he was too soft on Israel. It was Rabin and Hussein who worked out the peace treaty between their two countries.

Still, it was exhilarating and amazing to take our little trip, and it proved to me that peace is possible and normalcy is possible under the right conditions.

Oh, and there was a tech aspect to all of this. In both countries, even in the middle of barely populated stretches of desert, my iPhone had perfect voice coverage from multiple carriers. How come AT&T can’t guarantee the same level of service on the same phone even in the middle of some major American cities?