Robert Fisk & Western Leaders

This is one of the shortest articles I have ever read written by Mr. Fisk. Not that he is speechless about Israel's massacre, he wrote other articles about it, but this one particular article aiming at European leaders.


Robert Fisk: Western leaders are too cowardly to help save lives

Has Israel lost it? Can the Gaza War of 2008-09 (1,300 dead) and the Lebanon War of 2006 (1,006 dead) and all the other wars and now Monday's killings mean that the world will no longer accept Israel's rule?

Don't hold your breath.

You only have to read the gutless White House statement -- that the Obama administration was “working to understand the circumstances surrounding the tragedy”. Not a single word of condemnation. And that's it. Nine dead. Just another statistic to add to the Middle East's toll.

But it's not.

In 1948, our politicians -- the Americans and the British -- staged an airlift into Berlin. A starving population (our enemies only three years before) were surrounded by a brutal army, the Russians, who had erected a fence around the city. The Berlin airlift was one of the great moments in the Cold War. Our soldiers and our airmen risked and gave their lives for these starving Germans.

Incredible, isn't it? In those days, our politicians took decisions; our leaders took decisions to save lives. Messrs Attlee and Truman knew that Berlin was important in moral and human as well as political terms.

And on Monday? It was people -- ordinary people, Europeans, Americans, Holocaust survivors -- yes, for heaven's sake, survivors of the Nazis -- who took the decision to go to Gaza because their politicians and their statesmen had failed them.

Where were our politicians on Monday? Well, we had the ridiculous Ban Ki-moon, the White House's pathetic statement, and dear Mr. Blair's expression of “deep regret and shock at the tragic loss of life”. Where was Mr. Cameron? Where was Mr. Clegg?

Back in 1948, they would have ignored the Palestinians, of course. It is, after all, a terrible irony that the Berlin airlift coincided with the destruction of Arab Palestine.

But it is a fact that it is ordinary people, activists, call them what you will, who now take decisions to change events. Our politicians are too spineless, too cowardly, to take decisions to save lives. Why is this? Why didn't we hear courageous words from Messrs Cameron and Clegg?

For it is a fact, is it not, that had Europeans (and yes, the Turks are Europeans, are they not?) been gunned down by any other Middle Eastern army (which the Israeli army is, is it not?) there would have been waves of outrage.

And what does this say about Israel? Isn't Turkey a close ally of Israel? Is this what the Turks can expect? Now Israel's only ally in the Muslim world is saying this is a massacre -- and Israel doesn't seem to care.

But then Israel didn't care when London and Canberra expelled Israeli diplomats after British and Australian passports were forged and then provided to the assassins of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. It didn't care when it announced new Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem while Joe Biden, the Vice-President of its erstwhile ally, the United States, was in town. Why should Israel care now?

How did we get to this point? Maybe because we all grew used to seeing the Israelis kill Arabs, maybe the Israelis grew used to killing Arabs. Now they kill Turks. Or Europeans. Something has changed in the Middle East -- and the Israelis (given their extraordinarily stupid political response to the slaughter) don't seem to have grasped what has happened. The world is tired of these outrages. Only the politicians are silent.

(Source: The Independent)


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Fisk has pointed out to European and American leaders, indeed, but what about Arab leaders?

I followed the news and all what it came out from the intensive 5 hours meeting in Cairo the day before yesterday was the standard printed out condemnation... and ... a call to "break the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza, by all means".

All news agencies got puzzled by the "by all means" part in the final communique. In addition, news came out that Kuwait was the only country withdrew from the Arab initiative regarding the already dead peace process, but why did other "moderate" Arab countries followed suit?

I guess I blowing in an empty jar

In fact there is no need to add anything to this post.

Apologies on Bush's Behalf

On September 22, 2006 I wrote a post on how George W Bush owes the world an apology for everything he has done during his two term presidency. Today I read an article on the independent written by British journalist and political analyst Robert Fisk where he echoed my words but in different context. He started the article with US intelligence reports and gave an example of these report about a possible kamikaze-style air attack on a US navy base at a south Pacific island location. The only problem was that no such navy base existed on the island and no US Seventh Fleet warship had ever been there. In all seriousness, a US military investigation earlier reported that Osama bin Laden had been spotted shopping at a post office on a US military base in east Asia. The point Robert Fisk wanted to make by putting forward such examples was to illustrate the kind of mess Barak Obama inherited from his predecessor. He asks "how is Barack Obama going to repair the titanic damage which his vicious, lying predecessor has perpetrated around the globe and within the US itself?"

Fisk wrote that:
Obama has got to close Guantanamo. He's got to find a way of apologising to the world for the crimes of his predecessor, not an easy task for a man who must show pride in his country; but saying sorry is what – internationally – he will have to do if the "change" he has been promoting at home is to have any meaning outside America's borders. He will have to re-think – and deconstruct – the whole "war on terror". He will have to get out of Iraq. He will have to call a halt to America's massive airbases in Iraq, its $600m embassy. He will have to end the blood-caked air strikes we are perpetrating in southern Afghanistan – why, oh, why do we keep slaughtering wedding parties? – and he will have to tell Israel a few home truths: that America can no longer remain uncritical in the face of Israeli army brutality and the colonisation for Jews and Jews only on Arab land. Obama will have to stand up at last to the Israeli lobby (it is, in fact, an Israeli Likud party lobby) and withdraw Bush's 2004 acceptance of Israel's claim to a significant portion of the West Bank. US officials will have to talk to Iranian officials – and Hamas officials, for that matter. Obama will have to end US strikes into Pakistan – and Syria.

In this case, Mr Fisk is suggesting that Obama would not only clean up the mess, but also take the responsibility of standing in front of the whole world and apologize on Bush's behalf.

However, Fisk has his doubts:

But Obama's not going to be able to make the break. He wants to draw down in Iraq in order to concentrate more firepower in Afghanistan. He's not going to take on the lobby in Washington and he's not going to stop further Jewish colonisation of the occupied territories or talk to Israel's enemies. With AIPAC supporter Rahm Emanuel as his new chief of staff – "our man in the White House", as the Israeli daily Maariv called him this week – Obama will toe the line. And of course, there's the terrible thought that bin Laden – when he's not shopping at US military post offices – may be planning another atrocity to welcome the Obama presidency.

After reading the article, I felt sorry for Barak Obama, there are high expectations of him to make the real change by the whole world, and not only by the US people - one can check a number of Iraqi bloggers and how they expressed their happiness to the result of the US elections last week. I hope there won't be any regrets by Mr. Obama after some time when he finds out that the burden is bigger than anyone would think or imagine.

By the way, I didn't know that a new US legislation will be issued by the Bush administration soon that would ensure that all British citizens will no longer be able to visit America without special security clearance.

full article here.