Interview with Robert Fisk in Asharq Al Awsat and More Qana Footage

1. Commentary on the Fisk Interview

One of my most favorite journalists, out of all journalists, is Britian's Robert Fisk, who literally lives in Lebanon, and has been there during not only the Lebanese Civil War back in the 80's, but also during the first Qana massacre (see post below) and beyond. He's been writing articles for The Independent, one of Britian's leading newspapers, along with articles on other think-tanks like Counterpunch. In the words of one blogger, he is definitely "bloody brilliant". He also wrote a book, called "Pity the Nation", which is a very comprehensive account of the Lebanese Civil War and his experiences in Lebanon during that time.

Asharq Al Awsat recently conducted an interview with Robert Fisk. What's surprising is that he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the AUB just a few days before the Israeli invasion. Anyways, let's get to the interview itself. The first part concerned Fisk's role as a journalist and how journalists portray the story on the ground. Upon the issue of comparing himself with Western journalists with himself, Fisk brought up several points.

The method used in reporting is no longer, what it used to be. Newspapers are no longer required anymore to provide written information but visual information. The Editor in Chief wants coverage to be supplemented by the opinions of influential people. In Gaza, for example, the correspondent can relay a clear picture of the fear of bombing and explosions and not have to be contented with the official statements of both parties in the conflict. However, in many cases, we find that foreign journalists come to the region, investigate the situation and interview people, but when they write, they only include the opinions of the political authorities in their countries.

The idea here is that in the West, as can be seen via exemplification of Prezdent Bush, most foreign journalists assume that the leaders of the people in the East represent the people, no matter what the case may be (even in situations like in Gaza and the West Bank). This, of course, is a joke: people on the ground usually know about an event than some guy sitting on a golden chair in a palace miles away. Another point he brings up is how journalists are quickly becoming more like historians. Let's face it: there were rarely any journalists in the old times, but people who recorded what happened. But that's not the main point that got me in his reply to the question of such a possibility. What did was this:

In a way, yes. Many journalists say that it’s important to keep a card in our pocket. I say we should preserve history. If we, for example, go back to last century, between 1918 and 1920, we find in documents that the British, when they came to Baghdad , did not see themselves as an occupation force but as a liberation force. They bombed Falluja and Najaf and wrote that “terrorists” has infiltrated Iraq through the Syrian border. History repeats itself and the journalist who hasn’t read this information will not understand what’s happening today in Iraq . This is why I stay in the region to follow events and understand what is happening.

The bolded part strikes me as reminiscient of what is happening in Iraq today. What we are seeing is a force (the Coalition) which calls itself a "liberation" force, even though, just like the Brits, they caused destruction on Iraqi towns and cities just like (ironically) Fallujah and Najaf. However, just like myself, Fisk is pessimistic about the whole MidEastern mess. He summarized it as follows:

I cover what happens in the region. When I started covering the Lebanese war in 1975, I never thought I would go to southern Lebanon and follow the details of the Israeli occupation and continue for 15 years. I am pessimistic about the situation. Iraq is moving to this unknown and the Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.

This was beautifully said, and stems from Fisk's writing style: concise and to the point, when it comes to describing a certain situation. Fisk has, on occasion, shown his support for the Arab people and their struggle against Western imperialism, despite his professional journalism in sticking to the facts. Fisk ultimately sees himself as not only a journalist, but a writer and a historian. This is best shown in how he relates today's situation to past colonialism in the early 90's.

After the WW1, the United States sought to make the Middle East, from Morocco to the Persian Gulf, democratic. But the European powers didn’t want to lose its control over the region and so divided it to enable it to control it easily. They incited neighboring countries against one another and encouraged them to protect themselves. They also sold them weapons. Jamal Abdul Nasser, for example, was accepted in Britain until he decided to nationalize the Suez Canal. Then, he became “the Mussolini of the Nile”.

Let's reflect over this last tidbit. During those times post-WW1, the "divide and conquer" policy was implemented by Britian and France, who were the main colonialists in the Middle East. This is shown by the phrases "divided it (the Middle East)" to enable the two colonialist powers to "control it (the Middle East)". Furthermore, you can see how colonialists fomented conflict between countries so it may be easy to control the situation without fuss ("incited neiboring countries against one another").

This is similar to what is happening in Iraq now. As explained in my "War on Iraq" post that I wrote awhile back, the Coalition has pitted Sunnite groups against Shi'ite groups and vice versa, all the while with "terrorist attacks" going on between the two groups. Speaking of the word "terrorist", this is something you will rarely see in Robert Fisk's articles (the word "terrorism" and its derivatives, that is...). Why is that? I think the answer is obvious:

Because this word is the key to justifying US foreign policy. It’s enough to use for evil to become present and true questions to be abandoned. Journalists should ask: Why is terrorism happening? But this question means that the one posing it is the enemy of US policy and democracy and a supporter of violence. But it is elementary to ask this question before any other, in order to cover any event or carry out an investigation. We notice that, after September 11, the only acceptable question is: How did the event take place, when and what are the methods used and who is responsible? But the question, why, is now forbidden. No one answers it, despite it being the most important question. If we want to be more in-depth in our analysis, it is enough to go back to the big US newspapers, before the invasion of Iraq, to see that it only reported one point of view, that of the White House. Today, the situation has slightly returned to normal and US newspapers have starting asking questions about US foreign policy.

Before I continue explaining Fisk's points, just take note that the fact that the White House was the main body exposing its views to the big U.S. newspapers confirms the fact that Western journalists usually take word from politicians for gold; I, for one, don't. But just recall: terrorism is usually a symptom, not a cause, of imperialism, interventionism, and aggression, which may or may not be acts of terrorism but equally if not more debilitating. Note, also, the use of "enemy of U.S. policy and democracy" (i.e. imperialism). Never mind that Karzai, president of Afghanistan, was appointed by the U.S. government, and elections were postponed. Never mind, also, that the government in Iraq is sectarian, and favors feudalism, strife and the sort. Keep in mind, also, the aggression on Iraq's people, those who disagree with its government; it seems that those who resist U.S. "democracy" are "terrorists" and therefore have to be eliminated. I guess stupid and blind totalitarianism knows no bound.

We avoided the main issue being discussed in that last paragraph spiel of Fisk's interview. He said that the question being avoided is why things happen. One can see why it is a mistake to avoid this question. The question is starting to become more about intent and less about motive. The motive is what underlies a certain event, not the intent as the question of intent is subjective and only depends on who has caused the event in question; the motive is constant because it explains why a certain event occurs. As one journalist put it, a news story is like "an onion". And finding more about it is like "peeling that onion". Furthermore, finding out the motive of a certain event helps people to find a certain solution in order to either prevent that event from happening, or for discovering the underlying cause for that event in the first place. The answer should've been obvious, but a good explanation is worth it. That being said, why terrorism happens is because of the many reasons that happened before. Are these actions excusable? Not at all, but finding the motive is better than excusing it in the first place. But the thing is, "terrorism" is "evil", and therefore it is a spontaneous action. That's according to the rightwing, of course.

There is also the issue of anti-Arab racism present in the Western media, most notably news and movie outlets like Hollywood (when the dust in Lebanon settles, I will be writing a review of Syriana). Fisk, ever aware of the media that surrounds the Arab and Western world, comments on this issue quite succinctly:

In order to confront the propaganda, those speaking in the name of Arabs should be fluent in English, in order to reach the Western public. If we follow television, these days, we notice that the Israeli spokesman is very fluent in English and chooses expressions and terms that serve the idea he wants to convey. But the Palestinian spokesman, unfortunately, isn’t fluent enough to reflect positively on his cause.

However, when you see figures like Joseph Farah, Wafa Sultan and Walid Phares (Arabs), all whom are fluent in English, they convey their points to the American people, and supposedly "represent" Arabs; the last person who really did so was Edward W. Said, though I wish more people like him come out in order to relay the truth to the American people. Moreover, about the recent Qana massacre, not much of the footage has reached the American people: most of the footage is indeed gruesome and terrifying. Many people in the West barely see such gore, such violence, such insanity being inflicted on innocent Arabs. But then again, such denial of depictions is testimony to anti-Arab racism in the West. Remember: Arabs are terrorists, and therefore they have no feeling and no regard for human life. They are inhumane, and deserve to die...

*cough*

These days, it's hard to be serious, as I grow completely cynical of such measures being taken in the world of today against innocents worldwide. I like to conclude this first part with a confirmation of calling what's happening Lebanon as it is:

Death, massacres and violence, this is its name. Al Qaeda is al Qaeda and has its own members. When we use the term terrorism and suffice ourselves with it, we fall into an endless ocean and can no longer sea terra firma.

Mr. Fisk, I could not agree with you more.

2. Footage from the Two Qana Massacres (captions included)

Many Americans in the West who are more critical of Israel than their neoconservative and Zionist counterparts complain quite often of the lack of reliable footage that comes from the Middle East, especially regarding how Palestinians and other Arabs are being affected by Israel and other foreign aggressions. I will just show you a handful of pictures from BOTH Qana massacres, that of 1996 and that of 2006.

THE FOLLOWING IMAGES ARE GRUESOME AND NOT SUITABLE FOR YOUNG AND/OR SENSITIVE READERS. DISCRETION IS ADVISED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

The following picture is probably the most famous one that came out of the first massacre in Qana.



Here, a U.N. soldier hands the headless body of a young infant to one of the Lebanese residents on the ground in Qana. It was this image that sent outcries from the Qana residents, who chanted "Death to Israel" and "God is the Greatest". Disfigured bodies lay in heaps. Blood and destruction was all over.



This is just a small sample of such a "heap". All over, there were cries of horror, directed at the current situation, and anger, directed at the Zionist aggression.

Now, on to the new Qana massacre:



This was one of the fragments of the bomb(s) that was/were launched on Qana. This "guided" "smart" bomb killed over 55 civilians, so definitely, it didn't miss now, eh? Moving along, let's take a look at some of the "terrorists" and the "terrorist bases" and "missile launch sites" that Israel destroyed or killed.























Taking a look at the rest of the pics, are you convinced that those dead are not really terrorists? They were civilian... every last one of them. What made it worse was that this was intentional, far from being a "grave error". Why is that? Qana wasn't being used by Hizbullah, as eyewitnesses confirmed this. Furthermore, what was hit was the center of civilian infrastructure in Qana, which was a good distance from a clear area that could've been used as a "missile launch site". A smart bomb, supposedly precise, couldn't miss that.

Robert Fisk himself was on the scene after the First Qana Massacre took place. He described the scene aptly in this article. He wrote,

It was a massacre. Not since Sabra and Chatila had I seen the innocent slaughtered like this. The Lebanese refugee women and children and men lay in heaps, their hands or arms or legs missing, beheaded or disembowelled. There were well over a hundred of them. A baby lay without a head. The Israeli shells had scythed through them as they lay in the United Nations shelter, believing that they were safe under the world's protection. Like the Muslims of Srebrenica, the Muslims of Qana were wrong.

This gives you an idea of what continued and sustained artillery fire from warships could do to a population of innocents clutterred in such a space.

In front of a burning building of the UN's Fijian battalion headquarters, a girl held a corpse in her arms, the body of a grey- haired man whose eyes were staring at her, and she rocked the corpse back and forth in her arms, keening and weeping and crying the same words over and over: "My father, my father." A Fijian UN soldier stood amid a sea of bodies and, without saying a word, held aloft the body of a headless child. "The Israelis have just told us they'll stop shelling the area," a UN soldier said, shaking with anger. "Are we supposed to thank them?" In the remains of a burning building - the conference room of the Fijian UN headquarters - a pile of corpses was burning. The roof had crashed in flames onto their bodies, cremating them in front of my eyes. When I walked towards them, I slipped on a human hand...

Hold it. Notice how the U.N. officer claimed that the U.N. office told the Israelis to stop shelling the area, even though they did so after they were satisfied. Whatever it is, the Israelis are at fault for not only continuing to shell the area, but doing so even after U.N. officials told them that there were innocents in the area. Not so "moral" now, are we, "IDF"?

Israel's slaughter of civilians in this terrible 10-day offensive - 206 by last night - has been so cavalier, so ferocious, that not a Lebanese will forgive this massacre. There had been the ambulance attacked on Saturday, the sisters killed in Yohmor the day before, the 2-year-old girl decapitated by an Israeli missile four days ago. And earlier yesterday, the Israelis had slaughtered a family of 12 - the youngest was a four- day-old baby - when Israeli helicopter pilots fired missiles into their home. Shortly afterwards, three Israeli jets dropped bombs only 250 metres from a UN convoy on which I was travelling, blasting a house 30 feet into the air in front of my eyes. Travelling back to Beirut to file my report on the Qana massacre to the Independent last night, I found two Israeli gunboats firing at the civilian cars on the river bridge north of Sidon.

It's interesting to note that the Qana massacre was the hallmark of a 10-day offensive on Lebanon because of Hizbullah militants who fired on Israeli positions AFTER a land mine killed several innocents. Anyways, moving along...

Every foreign army comes to grief in Lebanon. The Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinians by Israel's militia allies in 1982 doomed Israel's 1982 invasion. Now the Israelis are stained again by the bloodbath at Qana, the scruffy little Lebanese hill town where the Lebanese believe Jesus turned water into wine. The Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres may now wish to end this war. But the Hizbollah are not likely to let him. Israel is back in the Lebanese quagmire. Nor will the Arab world forget yesterday'a terrible scenes.

The blood of all the refugees ran quite literally in streams from the shell-smashed UN compound restaurant in which the Shiite Muslims from the hill villages of southern Lebanon - who had heeded Israel's order to leave their homes - had pathetically sought shelter. Fijian and French soldiers heaved another group of dead - they lay with their arms tightly wrapped around each other - into blankets. A French UN trooper muttered oaths to himself as he opened a bag in which he was dropping feet, fingers, pieces of people's arms.

And as we walked through this obscenity, a swarm of people burst into the compound. They had driven in wild convoys down from Tyre and began to pull the blankets off the mutilated corpses of their mothers and sons and daughters and to shriek "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great") and to threaten the UN troops. We had suddenly become not UN troops and journalists but Westerners, Israel's allies, an object of hatred and venom. One bearded man with fierce eyes stared at us, his face dark with fury. "You are Americans," he screamed at us. "Americans are dogs. You did this. Americans are dogs."

President Bill Clinton has allied himself with Israel in its war against "terrorism" and the Lebanese, in their grief, had not forgotten this. Israel's official expression of sorrow was rubbing salt in their wounds. "I would like to be made into a bomb and blow myself up amid the Israelis," one old man said. As for the Hizbollah, which has repeatedly promised that Israelis will pay for their killing of Lebanese civilians, its revenge cannot be long in coming. Operation Grapes of Wrath may then turn out then to be all too aptly named.

Whatever it is, history has repeated itself. Qana is not a forgivable massacre, and I speak of both massacres. Israel has sunk to many lows in order to kill civilians, and continues to do so without regard for innocent life and international law, and with no regard to the voices of those it supposedly wants to make peace with. Israel has to stop its offensive on Lebanon, and trade all prisoners. But I can't believe that they would sink this low and "capture" five civilians, even though it just did another kidnapping operation, just like they've been doing on Southern Lebanon towns even before the invasion and Hizbullah's "spontaneous" attack. Well, we just have to wait and see, and pray that no more innocents, Lebanese, Palestinian and Israeli, get caught up in the resulting mess that might be a prolonged war against Lebanon and its people.

Salaam, from
Saracen