ZGram - May 1, 2002 - "Fisk: Beyond Disappointment"
irimland@zundelsite.org
irimland@zundelsite.org
Wed, 1 May 2002 16:18:55 -0700
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ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny
May 1, 2002
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:
Robert Fisk is certainly one of my heroes for his consistently
ethical deportment as a journalist. You may not always agree with
every one of his perceptions, but you can appreciate the manly voice
that speaks of his convictions. Fisk is always a pleasure to read.
Here he is interviewed by one of the most widely read weeklies on the
West Coast, the Los Angeles Weekly:
[START]
April 19 - 25, 2002
Beyond Disappointment: The Middle East, according to Robert Fisk
by Marc Cooper
IN THE AGE OF GERALDO, IT SEEMS almost an anomaly that a rumpled,
56-year-old professorial British-newspaper foreign correspondent
could draw a string of standing-room-only throngs to American
university auditoriums.
But that's exactly what the London Independent's Middle Eastern
correspondent Robert Fisk has been doing from Chicago to Los Angeles,
generating an often rock star-like reception (a crowd of 900 saw him
last week in Cedar Falls, Iowa!).
Though he's rarely published in the United States (except for
occasional short pieces in The Nation), Fisk has built a loyal
following that pores over his ever word via the Internet with almost
cultlike devotion.
Fisk, who has covered the region for 26 years, is considered by many
to be simply the best and most knowledgeable correspondent currently
working in the Middle East. But Fisk also has his detractors: critics
who allege that he is knee-jerk anti-American and anti-Israeli, a
patsy for Yasser Arafat.
But any in-depth discussion with Fisk reveals a thoughtful man,
immersed in Middle Eastern history, tempered by decades of reporting
and ready to argue in ways guaranteed to rankle true believers on any
side of the conflict.
The L.A. Weekly's Marc Cooper interviewed Fisk on Sunday at the home
of the Independent's Los Angeles correspondent.
LA WEEKLY:
In your public speeches, you have been suggesting that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict might turn into something as apocalyptic
as the French-Algerian war of four decades ago -- a horrendous war
that took well over a million lives. Are things that dark?
ROBERT FISK:
I think we already have reached those depths. If you go back and read
the narrative history of the Algerian war, you'll see it began with
isolated acts of sabotage, a few killings of French settlers,
followed invariably by large-scale retaliation by the French
authorities at which point, starting in the '60s, the Algerians began
a campaign against French citizens in Algiers and Oran with bombs in
cinemas and discotheques, which today translates into pizzerias and
nightclubs in Israel. The French government kept saying it was
fighting a war on terrorism, and the French army went in and erased
whole Algerian villages. Torture became institutionalized, as it has
by the Israeli authorities.
Collaborators were killed by Algerian fighters, just as Arafat
does so brazenly now. At the end of the day, life became
insupportable for both sides. At Christmas, Ariel Sharon called
French President Chirac and actually said, We are like you in
Algeria, but "we will stay." And it's quite revealing that Arafat
himself keeps referring to "the peace of the brave." Whether he knows
it or not, that's the phrase De Gaulle used when he found it
necessary to give up Algeria.
For those who have watched this conflict over the years, it
sometimes seems confounding what Ariel Sharon is thinking
strategically. If one accepts the common view that Arafat has been a
reliable and often compliant partner with the Israelis, what does
Sharon think he has to gain by undermining him and opening the door
to the more radical groups like Hamas?
Remember that when Arafat was still regarded as a superterrorist,
before he became a superstatesman -- of course he's reverting back
now to superterrorist -- remember that the Israelis encouraged the
Hamas to build mosques and social institutions in Gaza. Hamas and the
Israelis had very close relations when the PLO was still in exile in
Tunisia.
I can remember being in southern Lebanon in 1993 reporting on the
Hamas, and one of their militants offered me Shimon Peres' home phone
number. That's how close the relations were! So let's remember that
the Israelis do have direct contact with those they label even more
terrorist than Arafat. In the cowboy version of events, they both
hate each other. In the real world, they maintain contact when they
want to.
As to Sharon, I was speaking with [former Palestinian official]
Hanan Ashrawi last week, and she made the very good point that Sharon
never thinks through the ramifications of what he's going to do,
beyond next week or the week after. That's what we are seeing now. In
that regard, Sharon has many parallels with Arafat. When I had the
miserable task of living under Arafat's awful regime in Beirut for
six years, you could see that Arafat also would get up in the morning
and not have a clue as to what he would be doing three hours later.
But back to Sharon. One thing he knows is that he is opposed to
the Oslo [peace] accords; he doesn't want it. He's systematically
destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian Authority. It's
interesting to note that the European Union is now pointing out to
the Israelis that $17 million of our taxpayers' money, investment in
the West Bank infrastructure as part of the American peace plan, has
been bombed and smashed to pieces by the Israeli military.
LA WEEKLY:
Your critics accuse you of being a mouthpiece for Arafat. But in
your public talks you openly disdain Arafat, calling him -- among
many other things -- a preposterous old man.
ROBERT FISK:
I'm more than disdainful! More than disdainful. I always regarded him
during his time in Lebanon as being a very cynical and a very
despotic man. Even before he got a chance to run his own state, he
was running 13 different secret police forces. Torture was employed
in his police stations. And so it was easy to see why the Israelis
wanted to use him. He was not brought into the Oslo process, and he
was not encouraged by the Americans, and his forces were not trained
by the CIA so that he could lead a wonderful, new Arab state.
He was brought in as a colonial governor to do what the Israelis
could no longer do: to control the West Bank and Gaza. His task was
always to control his people. Not to lead his people. Not to lead a
friendly state that would live next to Israel. His job was to control
his people, just like all the other Arab dictators do -- usually on
our behalf. Remember that the Arab states we support -- the Mubaraks
of Egypt, the Gulf kingdoms, the king of Jordan -- when they do have
elections, their leaders are elected by 98.7 percent of the vote.
In Mubarak's case, 0.2 percent more than Saddam! So Arafat fits
perfectly into this lexicon of rule. He's confronted with the choice
of either leading the Palestinian people or being the point man for
the Israelis. So does Arafat now, for his own cynical reasons,
encourage or support the suicide bombings inside Israel as the
Israelis insist he does? Arafat is a very immoral person, or maybe
very amoral. A very cynical man.
I remember when the Tal-al-Zaatar refugee camp in Beirut had to
surrender to Christian forces in the very brutal Lebanese civil war.
They were given permission to surrender with a cease-fire. But at the
last moment, Arafat told his men to open fire on the Christian forces
who were coming to accept the surrender. I think Arafat wanted more
Palestinian "martyrs" in order to publicize the Palestinian position
in the war. That was in 1976. Believe me that Arafat is not a changed
man. I think that if he ever actually sees a wounded child, he feels
compassion like any other human being. But he's also a very cynical
politician. And he knows that Sharon was elected to offer security to
the Israelis. And Arafat knows that every suicide bombing, every
killing, every death of a young Israeli, especially inside Israel, is
proof that Sharon's promises are discredited.
On the one hand, he can condemn violence. He can be full of
contrition. And in the basic human sense, he probably means it. But
he also knows very well that every suicide bombing hits at the Sharon
policy, and realizes how that helps him.
LA WEEKLY:
Is this current phase the endgame for Arafat? Or his 10th life?
ROBERT FISK:
Actually, both Arafat and Sharon are in danger. Throughout Arafat's
life, the more militarily weak he becomes, the stronger he becomes
politically. Equally, you might say Mr. Sharon has thrown his entire
military at the West Bank, but he is not achieving the security he
promised. Further, one day we will have to find out what has happened
in the Jenin refugee camp, with the hundreds of corpses -- some of
which disappeared, some of which appear to have been secretly buried.
That will further damage Sharon. So as he becomes stronger
militarily, he weakens politically. Way back in 1982, Sharon said he
was going to root out terror when 17,500 Arabs were slaughtered
during three months in Lebanon. And here we are again.
LA WEEKLY:
I heard some contradictory notions in your talks regarding the U.S. I
can't tell if you are just plain sarcastic about the American role in
the Middle East, or if you are merely disappointed.
ROBERT FISK:
I'm way past being disappointed. I am very sarcastic. And
deliberately so. A week ago, I wrote in my newspaper that when Colin
Powell goes to Israel and the West Bank, we shall find out who runs
U.S. policy in the Middle East: The White House? Congress? Or Israel?
On an ostensibly urgent mission, Secretary of State Powell -- our
favorite ex-general -- wandered and dawdled around the Mediterranean,
popping off to Morocco, then off to see the crown prince of Saudi
Arabia, then he went to Spain, then he went to Egypt, then he went to
Jordan, and after eight days he finally washed up in Israel. On an
urgent mission! If Washington firefighters turned up that late, the
city would already be in ashes. As Jenin was.
It was generally hinted at on the networks, in the usual coy,
cowardly sort of way, that Powell wanted to give Sharon time to
finish the job, just as he got to finish the job in '82 in such a
bloody way. And now Powell arrives and we see the two sides of the
glass.
On the one hand, he quite rightly goes to inspect by helicopter
the revolting suicide bombing in Jerusalem where six Israelis were
killed and 80 wounded. But faced with the Israelis hiding their own
activities, where hundreds [of Palestinians] have been killed, Powell
does not ask to go to Jenin. Why? Because the dead are Palestinians?
Because they are Arabs? Because they are Muslim? Why on earth doesn't
he go to Jenin?
Powell is not being evenhanded. American policy never has been. It's
a totally bankrupt policy. No wonder the Europeans are saying, "For
God's sake, we have to play a role in the Mideast now."
LA WEEKLY:
But till now the Europeans have not acquitted themselves much more
honorably in the Middle East. And their role in the Balkans was
abominable.
ROBERT FISK:
Well, they haven't had a chance yet to make a mess of the Middle East
in the way you Americans have. But yes, if you look at European
foreign policy within Europe, we totally screwed up in Bosnia. We
didn't have the courage of our convictions over the breakup of
Yugoslavia -- that's if we had any convictions.
We allowed the horror and the tragedy and the most horrible
atrocities to take place in Srebenica. We needed the Americans in
Bosnia. We needed the Americans in Kosovo. We still need American
support with their influence over the Republican movement in Northern
Ireland to keep that peace process together. But Europe has a much
clearer understanding of the Middle East. Owing partly to much more
forthright press and television coverage of the region, of what's
going on.
We do not hide from our readers and viewers what's happening
there. Unlike the American press, we do not hide the brutality of the
Israelis. And we certainly do not hide the brutality of the
Palestinians. The peoples of the Middle East -- Jews, Muslims,
Christians -- are our neighbors in Europe.
Not only do we have large numbers of Muslims living in Europe, but
the fault line between the Muslim world and Europe runs down the
Mediterranean -- in many cases through Europe itself, like in Bosnia.
And we have got to have a proper, grown-up, modern relationship with
our neighbors in the Middle East.
You Americans don't have to. You can play Wild West out there
because they are 9,000 miles away from you, and you will never have
to be neighbors. But for us, there are new priorities. America
doesn't even have a real policy in the region.
You say, "Well, it's up to the parties." That's what we Europeans
said in Bosnia, and look what happened. How odd. Here's a superpower
with enormous leverage, if you care to use it, over the Israelis. Yet
you don't do so.
[END]
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--></style><title>ZGram - May 1, 2002 - "Fisk: Beyond
Disappointment"</title></head><body>
<div><font color="#000000"><b><br>
<br>
ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny<br>
<br>
May 1, 2002<br>
<br>
Good Morning from the Zundelsite:<br>
<br>
Robert Fisk is certainly one of my heroes for his consistently ethical
deportment as a journalist. You may not always agree with every
one of his perceptions, but you can appreciate the manly voice that
speaks of his convictions. Fisk is always a pleasure to
read.</b></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b><br></b></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b>Here he is interviewed by one of the
most widely read weeklies on the West Coast, the Los Angeles
Weekly:<br>
<br>
[START]<br>
<br>
April 19 - 25, 2002<br>
<br>
Beyond Disappointment: The Middle East, according to Robert
Fisk<br>
</b></font><font color="#990000"><b><br>
</b></font><font color="#000000"><b>by Marc Cooper<br>
<br>
IN THE AGE OF GERALDO, IT SEEMS almost an anomaly that a rumpled,
56-year-old professorial British-newspaper foreign correspondent could
draw a string of standing-room-only throngs to American university
auditoriums.<br>
<br>
But that's exactly what the London Independent's Middle Eastern
correspondent Robert Fisk has been doing from Chicago to Los Angeles,
generating an often rock star-like reception (a crowd of 900 saw him
last week in Cedar Falls, Iowa!).<br>
<br>
Though he's rarely published in the United States (except for
occasional short pieces in The Nation), Fisk has built a loyal
following that pores over his ever word via the Internet with almost
cultlike devotion.<br>
<br>
Fisk, who has covered the region for 26 years, is considered by many
to be simply the best and most knowledgeable correspondent currently
working in the Middle East. But Fisk also has his detractors: critics
who allege that he is knee-jerk anti-American and anti-Israeli, a
patsy for Yasser Arafat.<br>
<br>
But any in-depth discussion with Fisk reveals a thoughtful man,
immersed in Middle Eastern history, tempered by decades of reporting
and ready to argue in ways guaranteed to rankle true believers on any
side of the conflict.<br>
<br>
The L.A. Weekly's Marc Cooper interviewed Fisk on Sunday at the home
of the Independent's Los Angeles correspondent.<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
LA WEEKLY:<br>
<br>
In your public speeches, you have been suggesting that the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict might turn into something as apocalyptic
as the French-Algerian war of four decades ago -- a horrendous war
that took well over a million lives. Are things that dark?<br>
<br>
ROBERT FISK:<br>
<br>
I think we already have reached those depths. If you go back and read
the narrative history of the Algerian war, you'll see it began with
isolated acts of sabotage, a few killings of French settlers, followed
invariably by large-scale retaliation by the French authorities at
which point, starting in the '60s, the Algerians began a campaign
against French citizens in Algiers and Oran with bombs in cinemas and
discotheques, which today translates into pizzerias and nightclubs in
Israel. The French government kept saying it was fighting a war on
terrorism, and the French army went in and erased whole Algerian
villages. Torture became institutionalized, as it has by the Israeli
authorities.<br>
<br>
Collaborators were killed by Algerian fighters, just
as Arafat does so brazenly now. At the end of the day, life became
insupportable for both sides. At Christmas, Ariel Sharon called French
President Chirac and actually said, We are like you in Algeria, but
"we will stay." And it's quite revealing that Arafat himself
keeps referring to "the peace of the brave." Whether he
knows it or not, that's the phrase De Gaulle used when he found it
necessary to give up Algeria.<br>
<br>
For those who have watched this conflict over the
years, it sometimes seems confounding what Ariel Sharon is thinking
strategically. If one accepts the common view that Arafat has been a
reliable and often compliant partner with the Israelis, what does
Sharon think he has to gain by undermining him and opening the door to
the more radical groups like Hamas?<br>
<br>
Remember that when Arafat was still regarded as a
superterrorist, before he became a superstatesman -- of course he's
reverting back now to superterrorist -- remember that the Israelis
encouraged the Hamas to build mosques and social institutions in Gaza.
Hamas and the Israelis had very close relations when the PLO was still
in exile in Tunisia.</b></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b><br>
I can remember being in southern Lebanon in 1993
reporting on the Hamas, and one of their militants offered me Shimon
Peres' home phone number. That's how close the relations were! So
let's remember that the Israelis do have direct contact with those
they label even more terrorist than Arafat. In the cowboy version of
events, they both hate each other. In the real world, they maintain
contact when they want to.<br>
<br>
As to Sharon, I was speaking with [former
Palestinian official] Hanan Ashrawi last week, and she made the very
good point that Sharon never thinks through the ramifications of what
he's going to do, beyond next week or the week after. That's what we
are seeing now. In that regard, Sharon has many parallels with Arafat.
When I had the miserable task of living under Arafat's awful regime in
Beirut for six years, you could see that Arafat also would get up in
the morning and not have a clue as to what he would be doing three
hours later.<br>
<br>
But back to Sharon. One thing he knows is that he is
opposed to the Oslo [peace] accords; he doesn't want it. He's
systematically destroying the infrastructure of the Palestinian
Authority. It's interesting to note that the European Union is now
pointing out to the Israelis that $17 million of our taxpayers' money,
investment in the West Bank infrastructure as part of the American
peace plan, has been bombed and smashed to pieces by the Israeli
military.<br>
<br>
<x-tab> </x-tab>LA WEEKLY:<br>
<br>
Your critics accuse you of being a mouthpiece for
Arafat. But in your public talks you openly disdain Arafat, calling
him -- among many other things -- a preposterous old man.<br>
<br>
ROBERT FISK:<br>
<br>
I'm more than disdainful! More than disdainful. I always regarded him
during his time in Lebanon as being a very cynical and a very despotic
man. Even before he got a chance to run his own state, he was running
13 different secret police forces. Torture was employed in his police
stations. And so it was easy to see why the Israelis wanted to use
him. He was not brought into the Oslo process, and he was not
encouraged by the Americans, and his forces were not trained by the
CIA so that he could lead a wonderful, new Arab state.<br>
<br>
He was brought in as a colonial governor to do what
the Israelis could no longer do: to control the West Bank and Gaza.
His task was always to control his people. Not to lead his people. Not
to lead a friendly state that would live next to Israel. His job was
to control his people, just like all the other Arab dictators do --
usually on our behalf. Remember that the Arab states we support -- the
Mubaraks of Egypt, the Gulf kingdoms, the king of Jordan -- when they
do have elections, their leaders are elected by 98.7 percent of the
vote.<br>
<br>
In Mubarak's case, 0.2 percent more than Saddam! So
Arafat fits perfectly into this lexicon of rule. He's confronted with
the choice of either leading the Palestinian people or being the point
man for the Israelis. So does Arafat now, for his own cynical reasons,
encourage or support the suicide bombings inside Israel as the
Israelis insist he does? Arafat is a very immoral person, or maybe
very amoral. A very cynical man.<br>
<br>
I remember when the Tal-al-Zaatar refugee camp in
Beirut had to surrender to Christian forces in the very brutal
Lebanese civil war. They were given permission to surrender with a
cease-fire. But at the last moment, Arafat told his men to open fire
on the Christian forces who were coming to accept the surrender. I
think Arafat wanted more Palestinian "martyrs" in order to
publicize the Palestinian position in the war. That was in 1976.
Believe me that Arafat is not a changed man. I think that if he ever
actually sees a wounded child, he feels compassion like any other
human being. But he's also a very cynical politician. And he knows
that Sharon was elected to offer security to the Israelis. And Arafat
knows that every suicide bombing, every killing, every death of a
young Israeli, especially inside Israel, is proof that Sharon's
promises are discredited.<br>
<br>
On the one hand, he can condemn violence. He can be
full of contrition. And in the basic human sense, he probably means
it. But he also knows very well that every suicide bombing hits at the
Sharon policy, and realizes how that helps him.</b></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b><br>
LA WEEKLY:<br>
<br>
Is this current phase the endgame for Arafat? Or his 10th life?<br>
<br>
ROBERT FISK:<br>
<br>
Actually, both Arafat and Sharon are in danger. Throughout Arafat's
life, the more militarily weak he becomes, the stronger he becomes
politically. Equally, you might say Mr. Sharon has thrown his entire
military at the West Bank, but he is not achieving the security he
promised. Further, one day we will have to find out what has happened
in the Jenin refugee camp, with the hundreds of corpses -- some of
which disappeared, some of which appear to have been secretly
buried.<br>
<br>
That will further damage Sharon. So as he becomes
stronger militarily, he weakens politically. Way back in 1982, Sharon
said he was going to root out terror when 17,500 Arabs were
slaughtered during three months in Lebanon. And here we are again.<br>
<br>
LA WEEKLY:<br>
<br>
I heard some contradictory notions in your talks regarding the U.S. I
can't tell if you are just plain sarcastic about the American role in
the Middle East, or if you are merely disappointed.<br>
<br>
ROBERT FISK:<br>
<br>
I'm way past being disappointed. I am very sarcastic. And deliberately
so. A week ago, I wrote in my newspaper that when Colin Powell goes to
Israel and the West Bank, we shall find out who runs U.S. policy in
the Middle East: The White House? Congress? Or Israel? On an
ostensibly urgent mission, Secretary of State Powell -- our favorite
ex-general -- wandered and dawdled around the Mediterranean, popping
off to Morocco, then off to see the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, then
he went to Spain, then he went to Egypt, then he went to Jordan, and
after eight days he finally washed up in Israel. On an urgent mission!
If Washington firefighters turned up that late, the city would already
be in ashes. As Jenin was.<br>
<br>
It was generally hinted at on the networks, in the
usual coy, cowardly sort of way, that Powell wanted to give Sharon
time to finish the job, just as he got to finish the job in '82 in
such a bloody way. And now Powell arrives and we see the two sides of
the glass.<br>
<br>
On the one hand, he quite rightly goes to inspect by
helicopter the revolting suicide bombing in Jerusalem where six
Israelis were killed and 80 wounded. But faced with the Israelis
hiding their own activities, where hundreds [of Palestinians] have
been killed, Powell does not ask to go to Jenin. Why? Because the dead
are Palestinians? Because they are Arabs? Because they are Muslim? Why
on earth doesn't he go to Jenin?<br>
<br>
Powell is not being evenhanded. American policy never has been. It's a
totally bankrupt policy. No wonder the Europeans are saying, "For
God's sake, we have to play a role in the Mideast now."<br>
<br>
LA WEEKLY:<br>
<br>
But till now the Europeans have not acquitted themselves much more
honorably in the Middle East. And their role in the Balkans was
abominable.<br>
<br>
ROBERT FISK:<br>
<br>
Well, they haven't had a chance yet to make a mess of the Middle East
in the way you Americans have. But yes, if you look at European
foreign policy within Europe, we totally screwed up in Bosnia. We
didn't have the courage of our convictions over the breakup of
Yugoslavia -- that's if we had any convictions.<br>
<br>
We allowed the horror and the tragedy and the most
horrible atrocities to take place in Srebenica. We needed the
Americans in Bosnia. We needed the Americans in Kosovo. We still need
American support with their influence over the Republican movement in
Northern Ireland to keep that peace process together. But Europe has a
much clearer understanding of the Middle East. Owing partly to much
more forthright press and television coverage of the region, of what's
going on.<br>
<br>
We do not hide from our readers and viewers what's
happening there. Unlike the American press, we do not hide the
brutality of the Israelis. And we certainly do not hide the brutality
of the Palestinians. The peoples of the Middle East -- Jews, Muslims,
Christians -- are our neighbors in Europe.<br>
<br>
Not only do we have large numbers of Muslims living
in Europe, but the fault line between the Muslim world and Europe runs
down the Mediterranean -- in many cases through Europe itself, like in
Bosnia. And we have got to have a proper, grown-up, modern
relationship with our neighbors in the Middle East.</b></font></div>
<div><font color="#000000"><b><br>
You Americans don't have to. You can play Wild West
out there because they are 9,000 miles away from you, and you will
never have to be neighbors. But for us, there are new priorities.
America doesn't even have a real policy in the region.<br>
<br>
You say, "Well, it's up to the parties."
That's what we Europeans said in Bosnia, and look what happened. How
odd. Here's a superpower with enormous leverage, if you care to use
it, over the Israelis. Yet you don't do so.<br>
<br>
[END]</b></font></div>
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