Looking back over the blog recently I noticed a post I made about Robert Fisk's book, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, which I praised based on the two or three chapters I had read. This was on my mind when I heard an interesting interview with him on The Rachel Maddow Show yesterday, where he had a great deal to say (all of it critical) about the current escalation of U.S. and British troops in Afghanistan. As it turns out, I never got much farther into the book, and the reasons why are interesting although I didn't post about it.

As you may recall, in the summer of 2006 Israel was trying to eliminate Hezbollah by attacking targets in Lebanon, while Hezbollah was retaliating with rockets fired into northern Israel. While the figures for deaths and destruction of civilian infrastructure favoured Israel by something like ten to one, a lot of people (myself included) considered the outcome a propaganda victory for Hezbollah, both because Hezbollah survived and due to the number of innocent lives ended by Israel to achieve this non-result. While this was going on I happened to hear Fisk being inteviewed on the CBC about it. I was listening with considerable interest until he said something that left me incredulous. The details are a bit hazy in my recollection but in effect, Fisk claimed unequivocally that, were Israel to withdraw from some particular piece of disputed land on the border, Hezbollah would be entirely satisfied with that move, and that this would represent a step toward peace. To be clear, Fisk's claim was not that Hezbollah would be happy to score a victory against Israel (clearly they would) but that peace with Israel was, in some sense, Hezbollah's objective, and that settling this claim one way or the other would somehow be a step in that direction.

There's a lot to admire about Robert Fisk. Not only is he a very experienced journalist, but he manages to be a highly knowledgeable Western observer of the Middle East who is not also a patronizing Orientalist (click here for more information). Unfortunately from my point of view this remark led me to seriously question his judgement. I am no fan of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians or of its outright rejection of Palestinian national rights, but whatever the intrinsic merits of some land claim, Hezbollah will be using it as a stepping stone to their ultimate aim: the destruction not only of Israel but most likely the Jews themselves. This remains true no matter what role land claims might play in some peaceful settlement down the road. To take at face value the idea that Hezbollah's aim is limited to one parcel of land represents the triumph of optimism over common sense.

As it turns out, I'm not the first person to go after Robert Fisk for this kind of thing, although I probably still have a lot more in common with him than the kind of people who like to use his name as a verb. In future, I'll continue to give his views a respectful hearing; I'll just have to keep a salt shaker handy.