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In Palestine, the Israelis claim they found a land without people,' a Syrian officer explained to us. 'Now they will take southern Lebanon and claim they have found another land without people if these refugees do not return.

Robert Fisk

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Robert Fisk
Age: 74 †
Born: 1946
Born: July 12
Died: 2020
Died: October 30
Historian
Journalist
War Correspondent
Writer
Claims
Refugees
Return
Officer
Land
Palestine
Found
Refugee
Another
Explained
Without
Officers
Syrian
Take
Southern
Israelis
People
Claim
Lebanon

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And history`s fingers never relax their grip, never leave us unmolested, can touch us even when we would never imagine their presence.
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Even my landlord, who is a moderate Lebanese guy, says, But bin Laden says what we think. These people believe that bin Laden is being targeted not because of the World Trade Center and Washington they are not convinced by the evidence that has been produced. They believe he's being targeted because he tells the truth.
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Bin Laden was constantly revolving in his mind the fact that he had got rid of the Russians therefore, the Americans can be got rid of, too. And where better than in the country where he knows how to fight?
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Colleagues will malign you if you're a moderately successful journalist.
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Bin Laden was very keen to point out to me that his forces had fought the Americans in Somalia. He also wanted to talk about how many mullahs in Pakistan were putting up posters saying, We follow bin Laden. He even produced a sort of Kodak set of snapshots of graffiti supporting him.
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The Americans may think they have 'liberated' Baghdad but the tens of thousands of thieves - they came in families and cruised the city in trucks and cars searching for booty - seem to have a different idea what liberation means.
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Everyone outside the Roman Empire was called a barbarian. Everyone outside Obama’s empire is called a terrorist.
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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.
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People turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.
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Fundamentalism is not bred in poverty. There are plenty of poor countries in the world that don't have violence because amid the poverty there is a kind of justice and in some countries a democracy.
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At the end of the day, bin Laden's interest is not Washington and New York, it's the Middle East. He wants Saudi Arabia. He wants to get rid of the House of Saud.
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I do not make stories up, full stop.
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It's a journalist's job to be a witness to history. We're not there to worry about ourselves. We're there to try and get as near as we can, in an imperfect world, to the truth and get the truth out.
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U.S. journalists I don't think are very courageous. They tend to go along with the government's policy domestically and internationally. To question is seen as being unpatriotic, or potentially subversive.
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A businessman admits that he 'let go' an employee because he was a Sunni Muslim. You simply have to look after yourself, he explains. I am shocked, like a good Westerner should be.
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I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'
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Some of the guys in the Northern Alliance are war criminals. One of the Northern Alliance commanders ran a slave girl network in Kabul in 1994. Remember that there was a period when every woman on the streets was at risk of being raped. This was the Northern Alliance period of glory.
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I don't know what happens if they get bin Laden. I'm much more interested in what happens if they don't get bin Laden.
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Whatever the political injustices are that created an environment that brought this about, it was not Americans who flew those planes into those buildings. And we should remember that. The crimes against humanity were perpetrated by people who were Arab Muslims.
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It's very easy to start a war but the muftah, as the Arabs say, the key to switch off a war, is very difficult to find.
Robert Fisk