Robert Fisk: and when Ghassan Tuwayni is made to be the hero

Much of what Robert Fisk is writing these days is BS. We don't need to be timid in saying this even if he is a critic of Israel. When it comes to standards and competence, we can't be blinded by our political biases. And people have different motives in criticizing Israel: look at Pat Buchanan. We don't want him on our side. Robert Fisk wrote this article on the press crisis in Lebanon and about the recent layoffs at An-Nahar (the right-wing, sectarian Christian, racist anti-Syrian (people), anti-Palestinian (people) publication, partly owned by Prince Al-Walid bin Talal). Why is Robert Fisk writing about Arabic media when he cant read or understand Arabic media? This is like me commenting on Russian media. He has no clue about what is going on, and it shows. It is clear from reading the article that his main source is one of the people fired from An-Nahar, Elias Khuri. Look at this: "Is it by chance that An Nahar's culture editor – whose supplement campaigned against assassinated prime minister Rafiq Hariri's plans for rebuilding downtown Beirut – has been fired after the paper cosied up to the politics of Hariri's son Saad, now the Lebanese prime minister designate?" That is how ignorant Robert Fisk is about the situation, and that is how he can be manipulated by Khuri in this report. The Cultural Supplement of An-Nahar (edited for years by Elias Khuri) shed more tears over Rafiq Hariri than any other publication in Lebanon. And An-Nahar did not start to "cosy up" to Sa`d Hariri just now: it has been cosying up to Sa`d Hariri from the second he took over. I defy if you can find one word of criticisms of Sa`d Hariri in the cultural supplement. I will give you a blender. The cultural supplement is no liberal or lefty bastion: indeed, it has been one of the most racist (anti-Syrian, anti-Palestinian) organs of the paper. It carries after all the repugnant columns of Raymond Jbara who opined during the savage assault on Nahr Al-Barid camp that there are no civilian Palestinians. An-Nahar (including the cultural supplement) has been propagandizing for Rafiq Hariri and his son after him but Fisk does not know that because he does not read Arabic. And how highly do you think of the account by Elias Khuri when he makes Ghassan Tuwayni (Amin Gemayyel's adviser during his term, and the man assigned to "co-ordinate" the Lebanese-Israeli negotiations that led to the humiliating May 17 Agreement) to be the hero: ""Tueni offered me the cultural supplement," Khoury says, "and if he was still in control, none of this would have happened."" What would not have happened? Your firing? Maybe. So it is a personal story, and has no political implications whatsoever. Ghassan Tuwayni's politics are as lousy as those of his granddaughter, although the latter can't write, even if her life depended on it. And then Fisk, who does not know anything about the situation and does not know much about the Lebanese press said: "LBC has dismissed three of its best-known journalists." They were in fact the least known journalists: just go down the street and run their names by passers by. See for yourselves. Fisk writes on the assumption that his readers don't know the details of the situation and that they are willing to take his word for it. That is largely true, but not entirely, unfortunately for him. (thanks Ibn Rushd)