Great book .... but should he have been that cynical about the presence of Palestinian leaders in Lebanon? ( )

2383 Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon, by Robert Fisk (read 11 May 1991) Fisk has been a British reporter in Lebanon for 14 years, and this is his story. It is only incidentally historical and really the accounts of what he did gets boring after going on for pages and pages. ( )

I wholeheartedly agree with everything twp77 said in his comprehensive review. I also suspect that Fisk's critics have an ulterior motive. Essential reading for anyone wanting to understand the Middle East. ( )

I finished this weighty tome last night and have seldom been so moved at reading a book by a journalist. Noam Chomsky's academic droning (which is nonetheless very informative) simply pales in comparison to Fisk's first-hand accounts of a country in which he has lived for 31 years.

Nail-biting car chases, near-misses from being captured by the Hezbollah's wing of Islamic Jihad and thus on to certain imprisonment and torture, vivid descriptions of the deaths of Israeli soldiers, Phalange miltiamen, PLO officials, Druze fighters and Palestinian refugees.

By the end of the book one begins to wonder, as does Fisk, whether Lebonon will ever be a country at peace. Of course the sad conclusion to Fisk's book was originally the end of the civil war in 1990 - only to have an additional chapter added which covered the Qana massacre of civilians by Israeli bombardment on a UN base in 1996.

Ten years on would be another bombardment and war on Southern Lebanon would resume with another massacre in Qana - all of which happened after the book's 2001 re-print. It seems even Fisk has perhaps believed there would finally be peace, but rightly concludes that this is unlikely as long the issues which cause such animosity remain.

Perhaps most informative was a detailed account of the political landscape of Lebanon with its various groups, factions and militias. It seems at one time or another every group has been at odds with every other group. The violence seems to be attributed to all groups - none having the monopoly - though the Syrians and Israelis obviously had superior firepower.

The chronicle of Lebanon also helps one to understand the origin of Hezbollah which contained the right-wing Islamic Jihad. They came directly out of the defeat of the PLO and the defeat of political solutions to the crisis as Iran's influence began to rise in the mid 1980s. It is this fact on the far left in Britain which could use further analysis. The more I read of Fisk's account of Hezbollah and their rise, the more amazed I was that I had seen middle-class white protesters donning Hezbollah t-shirts at a rally in London last year with the inscription in English which read "Peace in the Middle East - Our Way" on the back. To align one self with any of the factions in Lebanon seems mad once one reads this book - because it becomes clear that none of these organisations are free from a history of torture, killing of civilians and terrible atrocities.

Fisk tries to weave a line through it all and does an amazingly good job. He reminds the reader that the Lebanese are brave people and indeed no one could question that after reading this. But further it becomes clear that every group has attempted to use Lebanon and its civilians to its advantage and all have equally failed. Somehow, Fisk tries to make sense of the death and destruction he sees and the repetitiveness and the pattern of the fighting but he reaches no startling conclusions and offers no definite solutions. After all he is simply a reporter - and an incredibly brave one at that.

Most surprising was that I was expecting Fisk's book to be biased, full of rhetoric and perhaps even overt antisemitism as his critics have often suggested. In fact none of this existed and in its place was an honest if sometimes emotional account of Lebanon itself. I suspect the accusations of bias and antisemitism are rubbish which have been thrown around to try to discredit him. He accuses Israel when they commit a crime and equally accuses Hezbollah when they fire rockets next to civilian areas - thus bringing return fire onto innocents - or when they imprisoned the AP chief Terry Anderson, friend and colleague and tortured and killed other diplomats and journalists.

No, Fisk does not come across as a biased reporter looking for fame, but a genuinely dedicated journalist who is trying his best to report accurately in the midst of constant chaos. One gets the sense too, though he doesn't say it - that he sees himself tied to Lebanon and I suspect anyone living in a country or city for that many years would feel likewise. I sensed he feels Lebanese and continues to feel affection for this country in which he has lived for so long. It is because of this that I believe he is able to maintain his distance and balanced reporting of the various factions who seem to be fighting for many things, but never the population of Lebanon itself.

For anyone wishing to understand the current situation in the Middle East, this is essential reading and highly recommended. ( )

should be tattooed on dubya's forehead ( )