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Last updated on August 9th, 2017 at 01:22 pm
Arabic daily Asharq Alawsat interviews Robert Fisk, whose answers may have been altered during an English-Arabic-English translation process:
Fisk: The Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.
Few corpses are. One of the main rules of corpses is that they are not permitted to live; it’s in the corpse code. Discussion continues:
Asharq Alawsat: Before we started the interview, you said you had a bad relationship with the internet. Why? Do you consider that journalism is restricted to being in close contact with people away from technology?
Fisk: I think the internet steals the journalist’s time and deprives him of working with people and books that give clear information that is easily archived. Many times, they call me from the newspaper’s library to ask me about information that might be available in my archive. The internet lacks this precision and the person searching can be submerged with detrimental information that might result in mistakes. This is why I tell those gathering information about me in the internet: it’s not me. This is an internet man who bears no relation to the real me. Instead of searching the internet for information or references, I prefer to go to the field and speak to people and obtain my information from them.
Resulting in Fisk’s famous accuracy.
Asharq Alawsat: Your books are taught in Lebanese schools. How did you become a reference on the region?
Fisk: As for why my books are taught, it’s because I am a Middle East specialist. Other than that, I am a normal person doing their job.
But not really normal, because Robert has important friends:
Asharq Alawsat: You interviewed Osama bin Laden three times between 1994 and 1997. How do you remember him?
Fisk: It’s true and he asked to meet me after the September 11 attacks but I was unable to reach him in Afghanistan because of the US raids at the time. He mentioned me in one of his interviews before the US presidential elections.
Swoon!
Fisk: Like all people, he has changed over the years. He matured a bit but didn’t have any experience of world politics. Imagine that he told me he expected a civil war in the United States. I laughed at the time.
Ha ha ha! Reminder: we’re obviously looking at a clumsy translation here. Even so, the following is intriguing:
Fisk: Nowadays, the problem is no longer bin Laden but al Qaeda, an organization bigger that can’t be summed up in one person. I met, once, Palestinians from al Qaeda. They were on their way to Iraq . One of them told me his family didn’t like bin Laden but did not object to him going to defend Islam. This is why it’s not important if bin Laden is loved or not; he is no longer a person or the president of a party for them. He is an ideology in itself. The cause is the absence of democracy. If there was democracy in the Arab world, Osama bin Laden would not have continued to exist.
- Oh yeah, HE’S normal. It’s the rest of us who are freaking insane.Posted by Spectre765 on 2006 07 27 at 11:41 AM • permalink
“The cause is the absence of democracy. If there was democracy in the Arab world, Osama bin Laden would not have continued to exist.”
Wait wait wait. Did Fisk say something that makes sense, or is that a translation goof? If the first… color me shaken and trembling, for these are truly the Last Days.
- Maybe they gave his noggin a floggin again…Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2006 07 27 at 12:04 PM • permalink
If there was democracy in the Arab world, Osama bin Laden would not have continued to exist.
Gee, what a novel idea!
Wonder if anyone’s suggested that to President Bush? The concept might be worth exploring.
(Fisk is, after all,
a self-describedexpert on the Middle East.)Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2006 07 27 at 12:35 PM • permalink
- Most likely Fisk’s “democracy” is the Marxist-Leninist kind complete with an Arab Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez as Presidents-for-Life. Remember the Left considers “democracy” as synonymous with socialism but they will gladly accept rabid, violent anti-Americanism as a substitute, i.e., Iran.
As for bin Laden’s remark about an American civil war, I believe that bin Laden is basically right. The MSM and intellectual community openly hope for America’s defeat and downfall. G-d forbid, but if Bush were assassinated tomorrow a large segment of the Democratic party and liberal-left would be jubilant. I would expect for them to host parties celebrating the murder. Oh, they would express dismay followed by the infamous “but…”
Posted by Mark Razak on 2006 07 27 at 12:50 PM • permalink
- I think he’s trying to say that OBL ‘has grown in office’ the way the Left talks about Supreme Court justices who move left. The farther Left OBL moves, the more Fisk assumes he’s ‘grown’.
It’s all about the voices in his head.
Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2006 07 27 at 01:01 PM • permalink
- The Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.
Like a vampire with a stake through its heart? Or maybe a golem?
Instead of searching the internet for information or references, I prefer to go to the field and speak to people and obtain my information from them. For example, did you know that the typical Afghan tribesman prefers to use the backhand stroke when pummeling an outsider with his shepherd’s staff?
Other than that, I am a normal person {sic} doing their job. Their job? Whose? The job that should be done by Lebanese teachers?
If there was democracy in the Arab world, Osama bin Laden would not have continued to exist. If there were any formal standards for certifying journalists, Robert Fisk would be stocking produce at Tesco.
- I hearby refuse to shop at Tesco if Robert Fisk is employed therePosted by Pogue Mahone on 2006 07 27 at 01:41 PM • permalink
It is impossible to ignore Fisk’s anger at the west and his conviction that the policies of western governments are responsible for a lack of true democracy in the Middle East.
Oh, it’s quite possible. I’ve been doing it for years.
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.
Oh yeah, that’s the problem with the Palestinian “cause” all right.
In our eternal search for an answer to the question “What is normal?”, somehow I don’t think Robert Fisk is the answer.
Posted by Kyda Sylvester on 2006 07 27 at 03:32 PM • permalink
- The Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.
The important thing for corpses is that they are permitted to marry.
Posted by Bill Spencer on 2006 07 27 at 03:41 PM • permalink
- I don’t even know what I meant by #17.Posted by Bill Spencer on 2006 07 27 at 03:41 PM • permalink
- #22 – Not if the Palestinian state is like Frankenstein’s monster, composed of previously-alive but now-dead parts (various settlements in Gaza), with no brilliant Doctor around to reanimate them, only death-cult jihadis destroying the remains.Posted by Crispytoast on 2006 07 27 at 05:01 PM • permalink
I met, once, Palestinians from al Qaeda. They were on their way to Iraq….going to defend Islam.
Fisk is nothing but a traitor and not worth spit.
The man smells of mendacity. Middle East expert, my Aunt Fanny’s left buttock. In the things I’ve read, he has displayed zero ability to understand what stares him in the face, so living in the Middle East doesn’t mean that any perceptual evidence was impugned by a critical thought. He just sorta floats about like a mote on air, leaving his body to struggle with holding itself erect. The fact that he is called upon by the media as an expert shows an appalling lack of critical journalists, not expertise on the part of Mr. Fisk.
- I think what it is is that whatever thoughts fly about in his great, empty noggin, he then opens his mouth and they fall out, like so many spiders and toads.
Occasionally, a diamond like “If there was democracy in the Arab world, Osama bin Laden would not have continued to exist,” slips out as well.
All hail Zog, Imperious Leader, Excellency of the Seas, Skies, and Mountains, Inventor of Fire, and King of the Blairites!
- This interview is just the logical consequence of Fisk’s infatuation with Islam, taqqiya included. Much like imams will claim moderation in English and preach violence in Arabic, Fisk makes sense when interviewed by Arabic newspapers but is batshit insane in Western ones…
It makes sense if you think about it. (Okay, not really.)
- “The Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.”
Rather, the Palestinian state is a corpse (yet to have lived) that is not allowed to be buried.
Posted by dover_beach on 2006 07 27 at 06:26 PM • permalink
- Fisk: “It’s true and he asked to meet me after the September 11 attacks but I was unable to reach him in Afghanistan because of the US raids at the time. He mentioned me in one of his interviews before the US presidential elections.”
So Fisk couldn’t go on his man date with OBL after 9-11 because of “US raids”? Talk about cause/effect disconnect. I guess he wouldn’t have been able to visit Berlin in 1948 because of that goddamn airlift either. Notice he’s still “mentioned in dispatches”, which Fisk seems inordinately proud of.Posted by Vanguard of the Commentariat on 2006 07 27 at 08:32 PM • permalink
- “So I wrenched the bag back from the hands of the young man who was holding it. He stepped back. Then I turned on the man on my right, the one holding the bloody stone in his hand and I bashed my fist into his mouth.”—From lil’ Bobby Fisk’s account of his being beaten half to death by a pack of Afghani loons.
That’s what “normal” people do when someone attacks them, Bobby. They fight back. The next time you start blithering about our filthy war against Al Qaida (and other terrorist organizations), you might want to consider that simple principle.
Halfwit.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2006 07 27 at 09:11 PM • permalink
- Asharq Alawsat: Before we started the interview, you said you had a bad relationship with the internet. Why?
Fisk: I accidentally transcribed goatse instead of goat into a search engine. Never again could I enjoy the pleasure of a goat without that image coming back to haunt me!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2006 07 27 at 09:16 PM • permalink
- The Palestinian state is a corpse that isn’t permitted to live.
And who won’t ‘permit’ it? The democracy of Israel?, OR the NON-democracies of the Arab world?
Logically, if the Arab world were democratic, the displaced ‘Palestinians’ would long ago have settled down alongside Israel [with no Arafat/bin Laden agitators left in power], just as the Jews, who were displaced from Arab lands decades go, have settled down inside Israel.
But don’t expect Fisk to think logically or coherently – he’s in the thrall of the Arabistas and Leadenites..
- #26 King!?!, I didnt vote for that. I voted for Supreme Chancellor.Posted by The_Wizard_of_WOZ on 2006 07 27 at 11:05 PM • permalink
I am a normal person doing their job.
Possibly there was more to that botched pronoun than the usual sex-neutral PC mauling: “Their” referring to the Islamists.
Posted by Rittenhouse on 2006 07 28 at 07:27 AM • permalink
- #29: Regretfully, I must ask you to put your hat back on, ErnieG. Dorothy Parker’s lines had not occurred to me.
Speaking of Rumania, though, I recall a limerick from somewhere, which refers to the mistress of King Carol, Magda Lupescu:
“Said the beautiful Magda Lupescu,
As she came to Rumania’s rescue,
” ‘Tis a wonderful thing, to be under a king,
Is democracy better, I esk you?”I’m sorry I do not know to whom I should be attributing this.
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Huh????so wait, he agrees with George W. Bush?
Miranda, say it ain’t so!