Even when writing about the

Even when writing about the murder of Israeli tourists (and their Kenyan hosts), Robert Fisk still has to blame Ariel Sharon and the Israeli government. He just can't help it; it's in his nature.

Two months ago, Israel's senior military intelligence officers were privately expressing concern that al-Qa'ida would strike Israel next. They talked about high buildings in Tel Aviv, nuclear missile sites in the Negev desert – they talked about this softly, of course, because the world is not supposed to discuss Israel's nuclear capability – but they feared, rightly, that Bin Laden would try to put Israel in the same frame as the United States.

And he has. For whatever al-Qa'ida did yesterday, it set Israel up alongside America. The Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, has claimed, since 11 September, that Israel stands beside President George Bush in his "war on terror". The conflict has – thanks to Washington's one-sided, hopelessly biased Middle East policy – given the impression that Mr Sharon and Mr Bush espouse the same goals.

Never mind all the Islamofascists' talk about the Americans' "weakness", and how they'll just throw down their guns and run as soon as the casualties get to heavy. Never mind the way bin Laden and his men kept attacking, again and again, after the embassies and USS Cole bombings failed to provoke a reaction worth talking about. To Robert Fisk, Al-Qaida wants to be attacked, and that's why we have to give in to all their demands and run away.

Be sure they have looked at the Thames Barrier and the Eurostar and all the other soft, vulnerable symbols of our society. Because they want to bring Europe into an alliance with America and Israel.

The pathetic "clash of civilisations" predicted in Samuel Huntington's book of the same name is as important to Bin Laden's followers as it is to the right-wing American Christian fundamentalists who make the revolting claim that the Prophet Mohamed was a paedophile.

Yesterday was another step in that direction.

The whole thing is worth reading, just to witness Fisk's contradictions and confusion. ("How one gasps in awe at the courage of Israeli holidaymakers," writes Fisk, but he damns any move by the Israelis to keep their people safe.) Only one thing is clear: he says the Palestinians have nothing at all to do with Al-Qaida, no sirree ("Are there any Palestinians in the ranks of Bin Laden's legions? I never met any – and I met dozens of his men in Sudan and Afghanistan.") and that they're simply being used by Islamic fundamentalists who want to milk their cause for propaganda value. He may have a point there - but we know Fisk is wilfully blind to the fundamentalism, death-worship and Jew-hatred that so permeates Palestinian society, so how can we take him seriously?

Posted by damian at November 29, 2002 08:24 AM