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O• B • I • T • U • A • R • I • E • S Robert Fisk, 74, journalist, commentator and author, died Oct. 30 in Dublin, Ireland. Born in Maidstone, England, Fisk’s five-decade career in journalism focused on the Middle East, the last three of which as a foreign correspondent for The Independent. Before coming to The Independent, he worked at the Newcastle Chronicle, Sunday Express and The Times. Fisk, a self-described pacifist and sharp critic of Western intervention and imperialism, made clear who was to blame for many of the tragedies that played out in the Middle East during his career. He believed that the story should be told from the victim’s perspective instead of from those in authority. As a challenger of the dominant discourses crafted by militaries and governments, Fisk expressed criticism of “embedded journalism” and “hotel journalists” who did not actually go into the streets of the countries from which they reported. After earning his Ph.D. in political science from Trinity College Dublin in 1983, Fisk published his first book from his doctoral thesis titled, In Time of War: Ireland, Ulster and the Price of Neutrality 1939-1945. In 1976, Fisk arrived in Beirut and stayed there covering the Lebanese Civil War. He was one of the first journalists to arrive at the scene of the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Beirut. The culmination of his reporting during the civil war resulted in his 700-page book, Pity the Nation, published in 1990. Until his death, he maintained an apartment along Beirut’s corniche. Throughout the ’80s, ’90s and 2000s, Fisk also reported, among other events, on the Soviet-Afghan War, Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War, Kosovo War, Algerian Civil War, Arab-Israeli conflict, Bosnian War, 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Arab Spring and Syria’s Civil War. Fisk also had three exclusive interviews with Osama bin Laden in 1993, 1996 and 1997— well before bin Laden became a priority for foreign journalists to interview. Fisk later condemned the September 11 ter72
ror attacks while also criticizing the Bush administration’s response. According to The Guardian, Fisk shied from prime-time TV interviews, but rather preferred to address community groups about issues happening in the region. He was considered a hero in the Arab world for his critical reporting on Western foreign policies, military interventions and the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians which garnered both supporters and critics among colleagues at home. Regarding Fisk’s death, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis stated that “With Robert Fisk's passing we have lost a journalistic eye without which we shall be partially blind, a pen without which our capacity to express the truth is diminished, a soul without which our own empathy for victims of imperialism will be lacking."
Jan Morris, 94, famous British travel writer, journalist and novelist, died Nov. 20 in Wales. Born in 1926, she began training as a newspaper reporter in Bristol as a teenager and was involved in interviewing victims of bombing raids during World War II. As an intelligence officer, she traveled to Palestine and Italy. After completing a fellowship at the University of Chicago, she visited every U.S. state and wrote her first of more than 40 books, Coast to Coast. Fascinated with the Arab world, Morris found a job at a news agency in Cairo, which then led to a position at The Times. In 1956, as the Suez crisis erupted, Morris left her position at The Times due to her disagreement with the editorial line of the newspaper’s coverage of the crisis. After leaving, she joined The Guardian and traveled to Suez to witness and report on the crisis herself. While in Egypt, she uncovered evidence that debunked allegations that Britain and France had secretly asked Israel to launch an invasion of Egypt, revealing instead that this was merely a front designed to give the two European nations a pre-
WASHINGTON REPORT ON MIDDLE EAST AFFAIRS
By Sami Tayeb text to intervene in the crisis and retake the canal. Morris saw first-hand the fighting in the Negev desert and the canal zone but had to flee to Cyprus due to Israeli censorship. During her travels in the region, French pilots had told Morris that the Israelis had used napalm in the Negev and that French and British pilots had been involved. Her report, published in The Manchester Guardian, caused great difficulty for the British establishment forcing both Britain and France to withdraw their forces from Suez. A few months later, British Prime Minister Anthony Eden resigned due to the embarrassment the revelations caused.
Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, 84, the world’s longest serving prime minister, died Nov. 11 at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. During his fifty-year tenure as Bahrain’s prime minister, Prince Khalifa was a staunch defender of the royal family’s rule over the country, while suppressing critics of the regime. He survived the Arab Spring protests that called for his removal due to corruption. In 2017, Bahrain joined the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Egypt in their blockade of Qatar under his watch. Considered to be part of the old guard of the regime—“rooted in royal privilege” and “personal patronage”— Khalifa shaped and built much of modern Bahrain. It’s been reported that “he had his own private island where he met foreign dignitaries, complete with a marina and a park that had peacocks and gazelle roam its grounds.” He was thought to have an off-the-books income and became entangled in a corruption scandal with British aluminum producer Alcoa in 2014. The U.S. position on his legacy was more cynical. Former U.S. ambassador Ronald E. Neumann stated, I believe that Shaikh Khalifa is not wholly a negative influence…While certainly corrupt, he has built much of modern Bahrain.” ■ JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
