And talking of journalism, who in BBC World News decided that even the preparations for the Olympics should take precedence all last week over Syrian outrages? British newspapers and the BBC in Britain will naturally lead with the Olympics as a local story. But in a lamentable decision, the BBC – broadcasting ‘world’ news to the world – also decided that the passage of the Olympic flame was more important than dying Syrian children, even when it has its own courageous reporter sending his dispatches directly from Aleppo.
Then, of course, there’s us, our dear liberal selves who are so quick to fill the streets of London in protest at the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians. Rightly so, of course. When our political leaders are happy to condemn Arabs for their savagery but too timid to utter a word of the mildest criticism when the Israeli army commits crimes against humanity – or watches its allies do it in Lebanon – ordinary people have to remind the world that they are not as timid as the politicians. But when the scorecard of death in Syria reaches 15,000 or 19,000 – perhaps 14 times as many fatalities as in Israel’s savage 2008-2009 onslaught on Gaza – scarcely a single protester, save for Syrian expatriates abroad, walks the streets to condemn these crimes against humanity. Israel’s crimes have not been on this scale since 1948. Rightly or wrongly, the message that goes out is simple: we demand justice and the right to life for Arabs if they are butchered by the West and its Israeli allies; but not when they are being butchered by their fellow Arabs.
And all the while, we forget the ‘big’ truth. That this is an attempt to crush the Syrian dictatorship not because of our love for Syrians or our hatred of our former friend Bashar al-Assad, or because of our outrage at Russia, whose place in the pantheon of hypocrites is clear when we watch its reaction to all the little Stalingrads across Syria. No, this is all about Iran and our desire to crush the Islamic Republic and its infernal nuclear plans – if they exist – and has nothing to do with human rights or the right to life or the death of Syrian babies. Quelle horreur! Robert Fisk, article ‘Syrian War of Lies and Hypocrisy’
People in Beirut have been more than physically wounded, they are invisibly mutilated. As surely as the buildings of the city have been damaged. Robert Fisk, From Beirut to Bosnia: Muslims and the West I: The Martyr’s Smile, 1993
I’ve watched a friendly Muslim population turn to hate the West. I’ve watched it happen among the Palestinians and in Egypt too. I’ve been a witness to that same Muslim hatred from the West in Bosnia. ibid.
1982: Violent terrible days, journalists are witnesses to history … I watched Muslims die in their thousands. Killed by the Israelis by weaponry which was for the most part made in America. ibid.
Massacres are difficult to forget when you’ve seen the corpses. ibid.
For the West there was an especially dark side to militant Islam. ibid.
‘The fire engulfed us because they were using phosphorous bombs.’ ibid. hospitalised woman
The Lebanese are forced to share their country: around 400,000 Palestinians also live in Lebanon but it’s not their home. Home for them is in a country called Palestine to which they cannot return despite the PLO/Israeli accord. Robert Fisk, From Beirut to Bosnia II: The Road to Palestine
Gaza: What lay beyond was a world of destitution and bitterness. ibid.
The Israeli curfew covered most of Gaza City. ibid.
‘Our houses are destroyed! Go on, take pictures!’ ibid. woman victim
The demolition of these homes was to provide the Islamic Movement and its supporters with further reason to hate the Israelis. ibid.
In a land under occupation there are few bounds to the cynicism of those who resist. ibid.
A ring of Israeli concrete around Jerusalem. ibid.
Unchanging Egypt is being transformed by a new force that threatens to overthrow the country’s pro-western government. Robert Fisk, From Beirut to Bosnia III: To the Ends of the Earth
A magnificent timeless country of excruciating poverty. ibid.
Amid these slums live the men who demand an Islamic republic. ibid.
Religion and violence are the only antidotes to poverty. ibid.
Tens of thousands of tourists are too frightened to come to the country. ibid.
The Middle East now stretches all the way to Bosnia. ibid.
Total absolute destruction [Syria]: you question the capacity of human beings to create this … constantly recreating what’s happened for hundreds of years. Robert Fisk, This is Not a Movie, 2019
If you don’t go to the scene and sniff it and talk to people and see it with your own eyes, you cannot get near what the truth is. ibid.
Whenever we want to promote freedom and democracy, we always arrive with all our guns and our soldiers. ibid.
I like my life in Beirut. I’m married to a journalist. So we do the same job. I love reporting. I love writing. Throughout all the time I’ve been in the Middle East, I can fully understand the fury and anger at the colonial world which I originally come from. ibid.
Lebanon 1982: I’d never seen anything on this scale of [Israeli] war crime before. ibid.
If you don’t cut the weapons line, wars will go on. ibid.
Terror terror terror … you’re getting it, aren’t you? I have it written down here sixty times but you know the rest. We are in love with the word. We are seduced by it, fixated by it, attacked by it, assaulted by it, raped by it and committed to it. It is love and sadism and death in one double-vowelled word. The opening of every television symphony, the prime-time theme song, the headline of every page, a punctuation mark in our journalism, a semicolon, a comma, our most powerful full stop. Terror terror terror … ibid.
Good evening, as peace in the gulf continues to claim lives throughout the Middle East … Spitting Image s10e1, David Dimbleby, ITV 1991
Like anyone else who knows anything about the Middle East, you just pray that this man [Tony Blair] will shut the fuck up. William Dalrymple, June 2014
War, tyranny and sectarian strife are tearing apart the Middle East. The stage for this tragedy was set a century ago. One woman was at the centre of it all. Letters from Baghdad, BBC 2017
‘Intelligence in which Miss Bell had a very large hand.’ ibid. General Gilbert Clayton, of success of Lawrence
‘I never weary of the East.’ ibid. Gertrude Bell
‘Miss Bell appeared on the Sunday …’ ibid. T E Lawrence
‘She knows more about the Arabs and Arabia than almost any other living Englishman or woman.’ ibid. Lord Cromer
‘I’m now going to cultivate the Jewish community … They’ll be a great power here some day.’ ibid. Gertrude Bell
‘I think we are on the edge of a pretty considerable Arab nationalist demonstration of which I am a good deal in sympathy.’ ibid.
‘Oil is the trouble of course: detestable stuff.’ ibid.
One hundred years ago the British promise – just a few words in a letter – lit a fire in the Holy Land. The Balfour Declaration ignited one of the most bitter and protractable struggles in modern times – the Arab/Israeli conflict. This World: The Balfour Declaration, Jane Corbin reporting, BBC 2017
So how has it come to this? Did the British bestow a blessing or a curse on the two peoples? ibid.
To one of Britain’s most prominent and wealthy Jews – that man was Lionel Walter – Lord Rothschild. ibid.
Soon after its publication regeneration began. ibid.
Touring the length and breadth of the country Balfour received a rapturous reception from the Jews. ibid.
Many Palestinians believe the Balfour Declaration promised a nation to the Jews, but that same commitment was never made to them. ibid.
In 1939 the British government bowed to the pressure of the Arab revolt, drastically restricting Jewish immigration. ibid.
Now it became the turn of the Jews to revolt against the British. ibid.
The occupation sparked an armed struggle. ibid.
The peace deal was quick to unravel. ibid.
700 kms long it divides Israel from the West Bank. ibid.
When President Trump announced that the US was going to de-certify the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and re-institute sanctions on the country, one of the reasons he cited for that move was the presentation of ‘new’ evidence from Israeli Intelligence showing that the Iranians had lied about their nuclear programme during the negotiation of that deal. The Corbett Report: The REAL Middle East Nuclear Threat, James Corbett online 2018
There is in fact a Middle Eastern nation that is in fact in control of a vast undeclared stockpile of nuclear weapons. This nation does have the capability of deploying those weapons anywhere in the region. It is not a signatory … It’s Israel. This is the story of the real Middle East nuclear threat. ibid.