Robert Fisk (1946–2020)

You can see why Robert Fisk is controversial. He comes off as one-note, unceasingly ranting, venomous towards the West and obsessed with describing and lamenting the suffering of people in this very troubled part of the world. He is morally unmovable, and to a large extent his unyielding stance opened my eyes. So many figures that we've seen as fanatical and wicked actually tried to fight what they saw as the great evil facing their people, Western imperialism, from Bin Laden to the show more Ayatollahs to Saddam Hussein, and they were somewhat justified.

There were many memorable accounts in the book, enough to fill a 1000 pages (which they do.) His gruesome reporting from the trenches of the Iran-Iraq war and the Gulf War; his investigation into the origins of weaponry Israel used to recklessly strike civilians in Lebanon; his piercing interviews with Bin Laden; his fearless reports from the blood-soaked quagmire of the Algerian civil war; his historical forays into the Armenian genocide and the First World War. This was doubtlessly a tour-de-force, a lifetime's work of bravery and heart and representative of an inspiring campaign to push the world closer to what is right.

I did find some of his research and focus regrettably partisan, especially when discussing Israel/Palestine, which I've done much research on, being an Israeli myself. Fisk constantly returns to the Sabra and Shatila massacres as an exemplary motivation for revenge against the West, and he constantly refers to the occupation as a primary reason for 9/11, but taking these justifications at face value ignores the complicated web of responsibility that gave rise to the original crimes. Did the IDF know that Phalangists were massacring refugees? Is there not a significant push within Israeli society to end the occupation? With respect to the Israeli peace process, Fisk never discusses how the issue of refugee return has nipped in the bud any possible separation between two future Israeli and Palestinian states, choosing only to focus on settlements, or "colonies", as he calls them. And he also attributes US involvement in Iraq War to the Israeli lobby, something I've never heard before, that Fisk doesn't even go into detail about, that seems plainly wrong. These omissions definitely raise questions about the veracity and integrity of the rest of the book. show less

But war is primarily not about victory or defeat but about death and the infliction of death. It represents the total failure of the human spirit.

It would be spurious to suggest that I'm not haunted by this book. Maybe it is a touch of American isolationism, perhaps a hint of xenophobia, that we -- meaning I -- don't peer more into these pages.

Robert Fisk has proven, amongst loftier achievements, to be an audible author. Dozens of times over the past three days I sighed and groaned under show more the spell of his vivid accounts. Whereas his devotion to the Iran-Iraq War was singular and crushing, his interlude revisiting the Armenian genocide was overly familiar given our reading last summer of Burning Tigris, a text Fisk cites on several turns. Yesterday afternoon I arrived at the plight of the Palestinians the expanse and compunction of the myriad Treaties and Accords, the all-too-familiar events which I recall so directly, the settlements, the Intifadas, the ultimate fall of Sharon and Arafat, who asked Fisk about Michael Collins’ fate.

All of these insights imprint themselves on the conscious reader. I hesitate to say accusations ring and that culpability adheres like the noisome legacy of an accident. I dare anyone to attempt otherwise. show less

Noble-winged seraphs of the jury, look at this tangle of thorns.

See the eruption of this area in flames, see the piles of skulls disintegrating in the wind, see houses ridden with bullets and children torn apart in martyrdom, see trenches full of soldiers, dead of gas.

I would like to read his thoughts on current events, on new revolutions and civil wars, and faint hopes on democracy, but I doubt, after what he has seen and heard, he has any hope.

This is a fearsome history, scourging and show more lamenting, leaving none as the moral victor. Only war, and the failings of the human spirit.

Read it, damn you. show less

The Great War for Civilisation covers the past thirty years of Middle Eastern history, as covered by Fisk, with pauses to take in more distant reaches such as the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire. The book is vast and a real education in the region’s recent history. It is intensely partisan; Fisk is a journalist and his writing is highly emotive (which makes it all the more involving): he is pro-Palestinian and regards Western policy across the region as arrogant, foolish and show more catastrophic. His vivid depictions of the wars and atrocities of the past thirty years amount pass comprehensible levels of horror, and reading the book is a largely dispiriting experience, leavened by the acts of kindness from the people who have to cope with it on a daily basis. show less