Robert Fisk is a journalist who has lived in the Middle East for years, and who has repeatedly risked his life in every major battle zone there (incl Iraq), while other journalists stay confined in their hotels where they do their "reporting." See him speak, here...Yes, Israelis deserve security. Twenty Israelis dead in 10 years around Gaza is a grim figure indeed. But 600 Palestinians dead in just over a week, thousands over the years since 1948 – when the Israeli massacre at Deir Yassin helped to kick-start the flight of Palestinians from that part of Palestine that was to become Israel – is on a quite different scale.
2 comments:
Great link, Stan. Fisk is noteworthy because he has a memory that goes back more than a few months and he questions everything that is said and done by all sides.
Best of all, he states the blindingly obvious - which is incredibly rare and to be valued above obfuscation and indirectness. And with some things, like Gaza, that is something rare and valuable indeed.
Yes, great man. I read avidly his book The great war for civilisation, that should be required reading for any journalist who writes about Middle East. It's amazing how little we -meaning the westerners- have learnt over the years and how much we have forgot.
The bottom line is that we are watching the last of the European induced colonial conflicts ravage a region and kill thousands of innocents. And it doesn't look like it's going to end anytime soon.
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