http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/?service=Rss http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisks-world-the-german-lawrence-of-arabia-had-much-to-live-up-to-ndash-and-failed-1816593.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisks-world-the-german-lawrence-of-arabia-had-much-to-live-up-to-ndash-and-failed-1816593.html <p>His name was Captain Leo Frobenius and he was the German Lawrence of Arabia, tasked to start an Arab Muslim insurgency against British rule in Sudan and Egypt. Colonel Lawrence's mission, of course, was to persuade the Arabs of the Gulf to rebel against the German-allied Turkish army of the Ottoman empire. There were a few differences. A colonel Lawrence may have been; a captain Frobenius was not. His military rank was a fraud. And unlike Lawrence, the secret Frobenius mission in 1915 was a hopeless failure. </p> Robert Fisk Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-america-is-performing-its-familiar-role-of-propping-up-a-dictator-1814194.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-america-is-performing-its-familiar-role-of-propping-up-a-dictator-1814194.html <p>Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutally punished for it – they still are – and then the Iranians held fraudulent elections in June which put back the weird Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom everyone outside Iran (and a lot inside) regard as a dictator. But now we have the venal, corrupt, sectarian Karzai in power after a poll far more ambitiously rigged than the Iranian version, and – yup, we love him dearly and accept his totally fraudulent election.</p> Robert Fisk Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-the-truth-about-the-middle-east-is-buried-beneath-the-headlines-1812300.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-the-truth-about-the-middle-east-is-buried-beneath-the-headlines-1812300.html <p> Amira Hass was spot on when she said last week that her lifetime women's award was an award for failure. The West Bank correspondent of the Israeli paper Haaretz eloquently explained herself on al-Jazeera's English channel. She received an award for failure, she said, because despite all the facts that she and her journalistic colleagues had explained about Israeli occupation in Palestine, the world still did not understand what occupation meant and still used words like "terror" and "war on terror". Amira was absolutely correct. Most of our Western press and television are as gutless as ever when they have to participate in what Noam Chomsky described as "the manufacture of consent".</p> Robert Fisk Sat, 31 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0000 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-beiruts-history-cant-be-reduced-to-a-mere-heritage-trail-1808432.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-beiruts-history-cant-be-reduced-to-a-mere-heritage-trail-1808432.html <p> They've just discovered a bit of Beirut's Crusader castle. Most of the other great coastal cities of Lebanon – Tripoli, Batroun, Jbeil (for which read Byblos) and Sidon – have their castles in various states of perfect preservation or decay, but the Ottomans and then the Lebanese commercial elite managed to destroy the great keep that guarded the port of Beirut, the first to use as a quarry for their own walls, the latter out of greed. </p> Robert Fisk Sat, 24 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-end-of-an-era-for-lebanons-free-press-1806896.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-end-of-an-era-for-lebanons-free-press-1806896.html ]]> <p>For decades, Lebanese journalism has been applauded as the freest, most outspoken and most literate in the heavily censored Arab world. Alas, no more. Beirut's best-read daily has just shed more than 50 staff and LBC, one of the country's best-known television stations, has just fired three of its most prominent presenters. The Lebanese media are being hit – like the rest of the world – by the internet and falling advertising revenues. But this is Lebanon, where politics is always involved. Is something rotten in the state of the Lebanese press?</p> Robert Fisk Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-you-dont-need-colour-to-see--the-full-bloody-horror-of-war-1804382.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-you-dont-need-colour-to-see--the-full-bloody-horror-of-war-1804382.html <p>When I was three years old, my proud Mum and Dad asked the local Maidstone portrait photographer to take a picture of their dear son. So it was that the snapper arrived at Bower Mount Road, and Robert was duly told to play with his Hornby train set on the floor of the lounge.</p> Robert Fisk Sat, 17 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-man-of-peace-no-just-a-nobel-prize-of-a-mistake-1800928.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-obama-man-of-peace-no-just-a-nobel-prize-of-a-mistake-1800928.html ]]> <p>His Middle East policy is collapsing. The Israelis have taunted him by ignoring his demand for an end to settlement-building and by continuing to build their colonies on Arab land. His special envoy is bluntly told by the Israelis that an Arab-Israel peace will take "many years". Now he wants the Palestinians to talk peace to Israel without conditions. He put pressure on the Palestinian leader to throw away the opportunity of international scrutiny of UN Judge Goldstone's damning indictment of Israeli war crimes in Gaza while his Assistant Secretary of State said that the Goldstone report was "seriously flawed". After breaking his pre-election promise to call the 1915 Armenian massacres by Ottoman Turkey a genocide, he has urged the Armenians to sign a treaty with Turkey, again "without pre-conditions". His army is still facing an insurgency in Iraq. He cannot decide how to win "his" war in Afghanistan. I shall not mention Iran.</p> Robert Fisk Sun, 11 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100 http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-the-right-photographer-can-strip-a-leaders-power-in-a-flash-1800599.html http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fiskrsquos-world-the-right-photographer-can-strip-a-leaders-power-in-a-flash-1800599.html <p> The photograph was taken in the Speaker's Chamber in the Canadian House of Commons in Ottawa – only a four-hour train ride down the old Canadian Pacific tracks from the studio in Toronto where Shelton Chen is displaying it now – and Churchill had just delivered his "Some chicken – some neck!" speech to a crescendo of applause. </p> Robert Fisk Sat, 10 Oct 2009 00:00:01 +0100