Interview with Robert Fisk on what really matters in the Middle East

The Belgian MO*magazine invited journalist Robert Fisk to give a lecture about the wars in the Middle East. Before his sold out lecture in De Roma in Antwerp, MO*magazine had a long interview with him. Watch it here.
Interview: Gie Goris
More info: www.mo.be

[@simpaticaism]

RIP Robert .....we so need more people like you in this troubled world .

[@wolfumz]

For those interested, if you enjoy this interview, you'd probably like Robert Fisk's book "The Great War for Civilization." It's a long string of articles/investigative journalism starting with the soviet invasion of Afghanistan and running up until just after the US invasion of Afghanistan. Personal memories in the form of memoirs lace the articles together. Pretty good read, especially the 1990-2000 era journalism.

[@fightforthemic9081]

An epic. Unforgettable read

[@alisonhilll4317]

The international zionist bankers the Rothchilds are behind all wars , just look at history read Churchills zionism vs bolshevism and Henry Ford's the international jew, then just listen to Barbara Lerner Specter, its time to take back our central banks from these parasitic psychopaths once and for all. Zionazis are satanic scum , research blood lible .

[@BOROZ28]

I love to listen to to Mr Fisk. You learn more in 5 minutes than hours of boring lectures.

[@teresasteele5327]

RIP Robert Fisk. Only recently reporting on the alleged chemical attacks in Douma, I wondered then why the UK MSM didn't listen to his reporting on the ground in Douma. I know understand a little more. Another good man lost to us in the last few years.

[@MrJiddukrishhesse]

Rest in peace 🙏🏿❤️the greatest journalist ever

[@paulvandijck6476]

Robert Fisk, wise and compassionate!

[@MrJiddukrishhesse]

the great robert fisk

[@johnskiotis5492]

I miss Robert Fisk, a lone(?) western reporter who understood the Middle East.

[@BundrenDarl]

I know mister Fisk won't be reading this, but I want to thank him very much. Although the same kind of questions are asked time and again, he redirects and gives answers that I'm hearing for the first time.

[@geraldgeaf1292]

I think Mr Fisk is distorting facts at the very least or simply presenting "alternate facts" He argues that it is Syrians who became ISIL because of Government militia brutality. Now we KNOW the FACTS of the Syrian conflict and we KNOW without doubt nor blurriness that ISIL is NOT made up of Syrian but entirely Foreign mercenaries

[@JMKeynes8491]

Gerald gear He is very aware, and does not try to conceal it, that very many of ISIL are foreign mercenaries.

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

@@geraldgeaf1292 Anyone who feels the need to type FACTS and KNOW and TRUTH in all capital letters to emphasize a point because that's all of the substance they have for their argument, shouldn't be criticizing someone who's lived and worked in the Middle East - particularly Syria and Lebanon - for 40 years and who knows the people there inside and out - because he literally talks to them on a daily basis. The reason you seem to believe that Daesh are made ENTIRELY up of foreigners is because that's all your news has told you - the news has an interest in talking up the foreign jihadis over the local ones because 1) The idea of some French kid dropping everything to go fight for the Islamic State is something which gets ratings - gets people scared - makes them think the war is close at hand - much more so than the fact that very many Syrians are recruited or conscripted into the Daesh 'military' and many more are made to support the IS system of governance and bureaucracy out of necessity. Or were - when Daesh was a thing. 2) Your news has a vested interest in creating a large divide between the Syrian militias associated with Daesh and Al Nusra and other Wahhabis militant groups - and the rebels which are supposedly fighting Assad in interest of a free Syrian state - because that's the interest of your government. It fucks with the message if there is overlap between the two and let me assure you, there was some overlap between the two. Not as much as Assad would like, but it existed - like all things in Syria - out of necessity. Don't think you're so smart that you can render complex and muddy situations into simple black and white equations - it shows that you aren't smart at all.

[@geraldgeaf1292]

@@fuzzydunlop7928 Is there anything more important than facts and the truth? Anyone who finds trouble in facts and truth being emphasized in an argument simply isnt worth having an argument with. I dont belong in your world of "I have my own facts or facts dont matter"

[@37Dionysos]

The US gov't should be shackled to a chair and forced to listen to Fisk for a week. The planet would change for the better in no time.

[@christinecoughlan4699]

A week? 35 years

[@SURAH267]

Rest in peace great man

[@TohnoTakaki]

Robert Fisk's love for history is admirable. Thank you for sharing.

[@geraldgeaf1292]

Power statement he made when he said "we cry invasion when people from middle east comes to our shores empty handed,whereas we never go to them without tanks,fighter jets,horses and swords"

[@shahart3146]

absolute legend...

[@DocDoomy]

nice one, thanks Sir!

[@fingerhorn4]

This should be compulsory viewing for all politicians, foreign ministers, and above all the broadcast media who have no clue what is really going on in the middle east. Robert Fisk towers over the flawed and conventional wisdom expressed by many other journalists whose knowledge of that region is but a speck of dust compared with Fisk's.

[@peaceandlove1436]

Great guy

[@cesarpolitics7576]

At least he said what should be obvious by now, that Isis was popular, otherwise how the hell would they be able to create such difficulties and not face a lot of resistance. As is the taliban which regained their ground in Afghanistan.

Israel 2016: Ongoing wars are good for us and we will promote such wars!

[@mohainimohamad4038]

+Sten-Åke Dahl Yep they thrive in chaos and open borders too.

[@prettypurple7175]

34:16/// my goodness these people really do love us/////😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@TahaAlZadjali]

you can write a book from what he said

[@fuzzydunlop7928]

The only Civil War (and of course I know he meant specifically, civil conflicts of the 20th/21st centuries) I could think of that lacked a large international dimension was the US Civil War, and the interesting thing about that is it was partly decided by the distinct lack of international support. It's often claimed as one of the things which led to the Confederacy's defeat - among many many many other reasons they failed.

[@frederic834]

The original esponsability of what happens in the middle east is largering shared between frenches and britishes in fact. If the frenches put the alaouites to the power in syria, excluding the sunnite majority of all political activities, the britishes did quite the same in their own areas of influence. In Irak, the chiite majority was dismissed for the profit of sunnite government. All theses events are relevant of the rebuild of the middle east between France and Great britain after the first world war and decided in 1917.

[@darkthought784]

Robert even the grandfather of Hussein was demolishing idols ؛)

[@itssanti]

Great man Robert Fisk. But the interviewer sounds like Werner Herzog, nothing bad about it thou.

[@NightOwl577]

Ik was niet op de hoogte dat er een lezing gegeven werd door Robert Fisk. Als er opnames zijn zou ik die graag willen zien. Zelfs tegen betaling. Enig idee of er opnames zijn gemaakt die ik kan herbekijken?

[@mondiaalnieuws]

+TheSouliG Check: www.mo.be/interview/robert-fisk

[@NightOwl577]

danku!

[@paulvandijck6476]

+TheSouliG Vele interviews van Robert Fisk op KZbin. Ook van John Pilger, Patrick Cockburn over Het Midden Oosten. Interessant zijn tevens Noam Chomsky, Tariq Ali, Norman Filkelstein en Chris Hedges.

[@NightOwl577]

dankje!:)

[@ronbrooke6272]

It is an interesting question, as Fisk says: 'How come a people, the Muslms, who have kept their faith, have come to be dominated by those (the West) who largely have lost their faith? However, how was it that an ancient country like Bulgaria whose people kept their faith and still keep their faith, came to be dominated for 500 years by the Ottomans, also of devout (Muslim) faith and all the atrocities that went with it? This is a fact that the West has difficulty understanding when it comes to the current refugee crisis on Eastern European borders, because they have either forgotten it, or choose to overlook it in favour of current convenience. Even worse are those who clamor for the moral high ground demanding a free flow of refugees but seem to know very little of the trauma that some Eastern European countries endured for generations. At least one of those countries has never inflicted the same mistake on other peoples, even the Jews who were, in spite of certain government hacks, well protected from the Nazis during the second world war.

[@negenTango]

This is a major glitch on the part of RF: he confuses abandoning religion with losing faith. The reality is that living without religion requires real faith.

[@LHyett]

The reason why people dominate others is not a question of faith except unless the nature of the faith (or secularity) has a dominating, aggressive or imperialist nature.

[@fadedflage]

Because science is the process of finding truth and effective solutions, while religion is not. Why would a CULTURE of people who value effectiveness come to eclipse/dominate a culture of people who do not? Is that what he is asking?

[@geraldgeaf1292]

The American civil war was not internationalized. Beside,there has been no civil war in Syria - a war between a state and a FOREIGN faction(Foreign finance,foreign personnels,etc) is not a civil war

[@pericodelospalotes3852]

The sanity version of the history fforget Mcain trip and the weapons american and mercenaries

[@panthera50]

As usual : Mr.Fisk is right on the dot. :-) unfortunately... :-(

[@squatch545]

Fisk has a ruddy complexion here, either a sunburn or bad video color?

[@urania2601]

+Joe Smith: it looks like rosacea in a flare. No cure, but it's not a real threat to general health.

[@TheHoffbill]

+Joe Smith He was in Belgium, so he probably had some Belgian beers the night before.

[@pericodelospalotes3852]

Yours self censur come not from value but monopoly of information and manipulation of corooration here and there a over all ideologizin not change this

[@monjiaitaly]

Why aren't western governments listening to him. Answer: The don't want peace.

[@albertrand71]

Yet we made Blair our Middle Eastern envoy. A man who shares a huge responsibility for the current state of the region. Somebody who has knowledge like Fisk should be advising our leaders, who either don't have a clue or are still actively destabilising the Middle East.

[@timpurkiss5365]

What he is saying is so very very important.

[@FarooqKifayat]

his book war for civilization is also very revealing.

[@MrChickster12]

I do what he would think of current situation in Israel - Gaza

[@JMKeynes8491]

How refreshing and illuminating to listen to a man who, without fear or favour, tells the truth.

[@yaserbatal6474]

As usual, the problem for the West is not killing a million Syrians and sending 7 millions to refugees camps, but the tiny ISEL who didn't commit even 1% of the crime committed in by Assad . We face the same dehumanization of victims when talking about Israel crimes vs Hamas

[@darkthought784]

The Muslim Brotherhood was close to the Egyptian royal family, and it is a recognized party, and it arrived through elections, how to be radical !¿?¡

[@cesarpolitics7576]

By the way, when has he got this strange idea that all of those attacks were in fact blowback, you really think someone explodes in an Ariana Grande concert, or goes to the bataclan, in a country with far less involvement in today's middle east, in order to avenge anyone.

[@docteejay]

Robert Fisk will be missed. Great insights from an experienced Middle East journalist.

[@darkthought784]

Why does Robert not forget that the Kaaba is from gold, and Khaybar from clay?

[@crushedz]

Interesting,informed conversation.Thank you!

[@petegascoigne8965]

brilliant Tusind tak

[@cesarpolitics7576]

And is it really true that the people in the middle east have ever asked other people when they were the one's going to other people's lands in order to rule them? Because I really don't remember that.

[@GuntherL1]

Where is the self criticism in the Middle East? The West has people like Chomsky, Finkelstein and Fisk. Where is the Arab self criticism?

[@syourke3]

Where is the Israeli self criticism? That's a better question.

[@GuntherL1]

There is. Ilan Pappé in Israel, Chomsky and Finkelstein in the US. Do you have examples in the Arab world?

[@GuntherL1]

@Cathal Ó Braonáin The Arab uprisings have everything to do with rising food prices, not with self criticism. It's not an answer to my question. I'm well aware of what the West has done in the Middle East, so there's nothing for you to teach me about it. My question remains. Where are the Arab dissidents? The intellectuals who criticize their own leaders, clerics and societies?

[@GuntherL1]

Cathal Ó Braonáin The freedom of speech in Western societies appears to be so unique that you only get self criticism in Western societies. Interesting. Apparently, no nation in the Arab / Islamic world is or has been able to create such a free society for some reason. How weird.

[@GuntherL1]

@Cathal Ó Braonáin I'm not pretending anything. I also don't think the West is to blame for every evil in the world. It's called nuance. There are plenty of horrible Islamic states that the West didn't create.

[@cesarpolitics7576]

Besides, he always comes with this idea that no one asks why the 9/11 hijackers did what they did. And worse, he comes with all those explanations that this was about the secular reasons and the american involvement, it's almost like a tik. Trouble is, these people wrote a lot, and I am sure that being such aa well informed guy he knows what they said. Get Raymond Ibrahim's the Al Qaeda reader and read what they say themselves, in arabic where they thought we weren't listening. It is ALL about religion, they did play ball here and there with the justifications the left tends to give, but when they were talking with other muslims it was pure the religion tells us to conquer the world.