AUDIO: Robert Fisk on the Iraqi resistance, Palestine/Israel, & attitudes in the region

24:30 minutes
Most people in this region believe that the Americans are working for the Israelis. They believe that the American plans and the Israeli plans are the same. They note that Israel is the only Middle East nation which supports American policy in the region without exception -- which it is. They believe that Israel stands to be the soul beneficiary of US policy in Iraq...or in Iran or Syria or anywhere else.

I have to say that when I heard Mr. Bush announce that Syria has weapons of mass destruction, I came to look asconce towards London and say that isn't that what our dear Prime Minister Tony Blair told us about Iraq? And we haven't found any yet. But at the end of the day, we're back to the same old game.

Like a few minutes ago, I was watching Colin Powell (your secretary of state) announcing that it was up to the Palestinians to end violence. It was up to the Palestinians if they wanted a state...And you know, listening to him...if I came down from Mars or Planet Jupiter, I'd have the impression that the Palestinian T-54 tanks were occupying the streets of Tel Aviv when in fact it's the Israeli Merkava tanks [which] are occupying the streets of Ramallah and Gaza and Bethlehem. It is a total falsity which is being foisted on the Americans with the assistance of a most shameful press. I more and more come to think that The New York Times, The Washington Post, the LA Times are so gutless...I wouldn't want to include them in the realm of journalism. But the way in which they are promoting American policy in the Middle East, as favoring always the people with the most weapons, the most arms, and the most power, has reached a point where it has become, I would have thought, insufferable for journalists to continue to work for these newspapers. But over and over again, we are hearing "the Iraqis must sort out their country...the Palestinians must want peace...they must stop violence" -- again and again, the victim is the accused. And as long as that goes on, whether it be in Iraq or whether it be in Afghanistan, or whether it be in Israel/Palestine, there will be tragedy...And ultimately, and this I think is the point for Americans, it will be a tragedy for the United States because at the moment the whole Iraq adventure is collapsing in flames (sometimes literally when the oil aqueducts are being blown up and in blood, literally, when American soldiers are being killed). There is a neo-conservative cabal of fantasists running US policy in the Middle East and they're leading the United States into a dark and very dangerous adventure and a dark and very dangerous future in the Middle East.
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37:00 minutes
The arrogance of power has reached such a point now, both in the rhetoric and in the actions of the US administration that I don't know how violence can be controlled anymore. It isn't a question of saying "ok well people are angry in the Middle East, people are upset, they don't like Bush they don't like Condoleeza Rice, etc." It is that you feel out here, and I live out here, and I am in Beirut as I speak to you. You Feel the sense of betrayal of the basic norms of morality. Here is a country the United States which wants (so it says) democracy to bloom. And why not in this part of the world. These people would like a bit of democracy out here as opposed to the third rate governments supported by the West and the United States which they're doomed to live with and suffer under. They would like a bit of democracy. But they hear constantly, that they're unworthy of it till they're liberated. Not long ago, a few weeks ago, someone threw a stone at my balcony where I was sitting. The English wife of a Lebanese friend of mine was spat at on the street. Little things. This is a very, very liberal, friendly country Lebanon despite the civil war here. You see little things cropping up. General anger props up. My landlord...my grocer...the guy who repairs my shoes. The venom is not false. It's not created by dictators or Saddam Hussein. It is a constant, constant feeling that the West (by which they mean the Americans, of course) are bulldozing them into a handgrenade of a peace. And they don't believe in it and they don't believe it's democracy. And I have to say, neither do I. We'd all like democracy, we'd all like peace. I'd have a greater life expectancy and a greater chance of not having my family call the insurance agents if there was peace in the Middle East. But the situation in Iraq (to quote Churchill about Palestine in 1947) is becoming a Hell of a disaster. And still, your newspapers don't tell you that. And that to me as a journalist is one of the most extraordinary things.
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43:40
And no matter how many times Condoleeza Rice or George Bush or Colin Powell talk about two separate states, they always talk about them in terms of the Arab Palestinian state having to make compromises and having to prove things -- the victims, the occupied state, as opposed to the occupier.
-Robert Fisk

Once again thank you for another excellent interview.

How wonderful the world would be if journalists gave the facts as opposed to altering them to suit their own agenda.

Without your courage, integrity, and intelligence, your sense of understanding of the place you are, we'd be left with a huge vacuum with respect to Middle East.

God bless and keep you safe

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don't bump garbage

Robert fisk has not quite as much journalistic integrity of pilger. you can view that in the light of what I said about pilger.

You can say whatever you want about Robert Fisk and John Pilger, Scottie. "Whatever you want" is of little consequence.

Those two things you are trying to bring together are points on different levels.
I can say that someone is unreliable and yet not be surprised if people continue to read him.
Your inability to understand those things is the reason why you should stay away from commenting on politics.
(but I dont expect you to)

Here's some interesting info on Israel's involvement in the war -

"According to the former official, also feeding information to the Office of Special Plans was a secret, rump unit established last year in the office of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel. This unit, which paralleled Shulsky's--and which has not previously been reported--prepared intelligence reports on Iraq in English (not Hebrew) and forwarded them to the Office of Special Plans. It was created in Sharon's office, not inside Israel's Mossad intelligence service, because the Mossad--which prides itself on extreme professionalism--had views closer to the CIA's, not the Pentagon's, on Iraq. This secretive unit, and not the Mossad, may well have been the source of the forged documents purporting to show that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium for weapons from Niger in West Africa, according to the former official."

June 19, 2003
More Missing Intelligence
by Robert Dreyfuss
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030707&s=dreyfuss

You and "us" would dearly love it, wouldn't you, were I to fade off the Board here and leave you to it. Think again, oh deluded one! Like bloody hell.

Believe me, "you ain't seen nothing yet" as someone once uttered long ago and far away because I've only just started (hahaha).

"You and "us" would dearly love it, wouldn't you, were I to fade off the Board here and leave you to it. Think again, oh deluded one! Like bloody hell."

- Did I say that? stop making stuff up. I hadnt even considered that.

Believe me, "you ain't seen nothing yet" as someone once uttered long ago and far away because I've only just started (hahaha).

- started what?

"" I was watching Colin Powell (your secretary of state) announcing that it was up to the Palestinians to end violence. It was up to the Palestinians if they wanted a state...And you know, listening to him...if I came down from Mars or Planet Jupiter, I'd have the impression that the Palestinian T-54 tanks were occupying the streets of Tel Aviv when in fact it's the Israeli Merkava tanks [which] are occupying the streets of Ramallah and Gaza and Bethlehem."" (These words are from the above article).
How can the Palestinian People stop their fight for freedom as long as you have Israel Confiscating their land and demolishing their homes and destroying their fruit orchards and depriving them of water. etc etc.

For there to be Peace we need a Palestinian State with reasonable borders that the Israeli Military are forbidden to cross.

For Possible Solution where both the Palestinians and the Israeli have a State they can each live in Peace:
CLICK HERE > http://www.indybay.org/news/2003/06/1618616.php

This is Iraq media

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/coxnet/iraq/ap_story.html/Intl/AP.V6624.AP-Iraq-Truth-and-.html

"When a newspaper reported that American night vision equipment can be used to see through women's clothing, U.S. civil affairs troops visited the editors personally to let them look through the goggles.

Despite these efforts, Iraqis, who grew up on a steady diet of anti-American rhetoric, are being bombarded by a fresh wave of disinformation, much of it coming from an explosion of new newspapers. The country now has about 150 newspapers, up from 14 before the war.

Some of the claims are breathtaking: --The Assaah newspaper on Saturday claimed that the Israeli government ordered the modification of its export laws to flood Iraqi markets with Israeli goods. The paper urged Iraqis to carefully check Taiwanese or Chinese-made appliances for hidden Stars of David. --The same paper recently reported that American helicopters swooped down on construction stores in the southern city of Nasiriyah to steal building supplies. --Word is traveling on Iraqi streets that U.S. patrols are blaring messages from loudspeakers telling people they won't have electricity until attacks on Americans stop. --A shadowy Iraqi group calling itself ``Wakefullness and Holy War'' issued a statement on Iranian TV claiming responsibility for recent attacks and announcing that Jews have arrived in Baghdad to spread ``sex, prostitution and drugs among young people.''

Many of the claims provoke a visceral reaction among Iraqis, especially when they relate to women's modesty and Zionism. Newspaper articles appear daily claiming that Jews are buying up property in Baghdad and other cities in order to turn Iraq into another Palestine.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. official in Iraq, has declared that newspapers can print what they wish as long as they do not incite violence. "
I expect to see these stories poping up in the "liberal" media soon if that isnt where they came from origionally