Justice Richard Goldstone - Still from Fisks videoRobert Fisk is a very senior writer on Middle-Eastern affairs. He is based in Beirut, Lebanon. Some of his books are listed below. This video-clip has the full text of Fisk's informed comment as it has been published in the British paper The Independent.
Every time, I feel outraged by Israeli behavior in the conflicts it engages into, I am reluctant. I do not want to fall in tune with extremist deniers of the country's right to exist. I am afraid, that open or stealthily antisemitic people will profit from what I have to say. Like Robert Fisk, I have known the idealism and perseverance of Israel's founders. I know, that, even today, a great many Israelis want peace and do not want to be a part of ethnic cleansing.
Those people are victims of the actual policies of their government. Therefore, as much as I am convinced, that only telling the truth about the ideas of the fake-friend of Israel in Holland, Mr. Geert Wilders, in spite of objections from many liberals in my country, who prefer looking away, hoping that the thunderstorm will disappear on its own, - I am as much convinced, that it is time, now, as the stupid and violent policies of Israel's actual government are crying for retaliation, to be part of those who tell the truth about Israeli-American spinning about what is happening in and around Palestine.
Some days ago, I borrowed from a friend his favorite citation of the French Enlightenment thinker Voltaire:
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities."
I now know, that it is also true the other way around.
Those who commit atrocities, can make you believe absurdities.
Only exposure of the absurdity of Wilders' and Netanyahu's allegations, may help, to prevent further atrocities.
Robert Fisk: The truth behind the Israeli propaganda:
Comments:
Fisk mentions the big changes, the israeli Government and army have undergone.Supremacism, racism and men and women who do not fear war crimes, have largely taken over.
Ten, twenty years ago, it would have been unheard of, that a Geert Wilders could link his racist hate-mongering with the State of Israel on a daily basis. And Wilders is not the only one in Europe. All liberals who favor integration of muslims into their societies, are being met by Israeli flags waving extremists who treat them as traitors and antisemites, even if they are jews.
Many commenters (for instance, Daniel Pipes), say, that the Israeli attack was an "error" and counterproductive for Israel. I am not convinced. For the actual Israeli Government, it is of utmost importance, to force the Obama administration back into a W.Bush-like position. Showing, by the attack, that it can humiliate Turkey and a number of Western countries, all allies of the USA, it hopes to drive Obama back into haplessness. And this is what is happening now. So, I believe, that in the eyes of Netanyahu and Lieberman, the piracy perpetrated by Tsahal on the Gaza-relief flotilla, is a success.
The Israeli spin on this event, as unmasked by Fisk and others, if, of course, only a collateral damage. The real problem is, how to help Israeli democratic opposition and American liberals and jewish democratic initiatives, to stop this infernal machine of absurdist propaganda, that provokes atrocities, which in their turn provoke more absurdities, which generate ever more atrocities.
Europe has to understand, that their interests at stake, are mostly of another order than those of the USA.
The USA are not in danger, when Turkey is estranged from NATO and the West. They have their military bases in Georgia, Azerbaidzhan and Kurdistan. But Europe is. A main Middle East conflict will happen at its doorstep. Oil provision will be cut off.
Europe should help prevent an Israeli suicide.