Pity the Nation Quotes

“When I arrived in Beirut from Europe, I felt the oppressive, damp heat, saw the unkempt palm trees and smelt the Arabic coffee, the fruit stalls and the over-spiced meat. It was the beginning of the Orient. And when I flew back to Beirut from Iran, I could pick up the British papers, ask for a gin and tonic at any bar, choose a French, Italian, or German restaurant for dinner. It was the beginning of the West. All things to all people, the Lebanese rarely questioned their own identity.”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“كان مقاتلو الحرب الأهلية يُعاد تسليحهم من قبل سوريا , وهي الدولة ذاتها التي أخذت على عاتقها تجريدهم من السلاح- بحجة أن الميليشيات الخارجة عن السيطرة السورية تتلقى سلاحها من مصادر أخرى.”
― روبرت فيسك, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“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, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“The [Israelis] believed - they were possessed of an absolute certainty and conviction - that 'terrorists' were in Chatila. How could I explain to them that the terrorists had left, that the terrorists had worn Israeli uniforms, that the terrorists had been sent into Chatila by Israeli officers, that the victims of the terrorists were not Israelis but Palestinians and Lebanese?”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“No militia or political leader is so powerful - his name never so influential - as when he is dead, enshrined on wall posters and gateposts amid naively painted clusters of tulips and roses, the final artistic accolade of every armed martyr in Lebanon.”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“The cedars 'know the history of the earth better than history itself.' If this was so, it was little wonder that they had clung to life only here, up in these high altitudes where the mountains, ice and wind ensured that the Lebanese who so often took the name of the cedars in vain would rarely appear.”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“.. أصابت النكسات الجيوش التي وصلت لبنان : منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية والسوريون والسعوديون واليمنيون الشماليون والسودانيون والأسرائيليون والأميركيون والفرنسيون والإيطاليون وحتى المفرزة البريطانية – كلهم غادروا بيروت ومنهم من استولى عليه اليأس او لحقت به الإهانة أو خجل من نفسه. كل هؤلاء رحّب بهم اللبنانيون بسعادة وود ودهاء وشك. ففي تشرين الثاني 1976 راقبت الدبابات السورية وهي تعبر ضاحية الحازمية ببيروت. وكان أحد طاقم الدبابات الأولى يعزف على قيثارة. هذا بينما كان المسيحيون اللبنانيون يرشون ماء الورد وينثرون الرز على السوريين من شرفاتهم, وهي ظاهرة كنا نحن الصحفيين نصفها بأنها تحية عربية تقليدية , وبعد نحو خمس سنوات ونصف كنت أقف في البقعة ذاتها أراقب الإسرائيليين على الطريق ذاتها بينما كان اللبنانيون ذاتهم يحيونهم بالطريقة نفسها من شرفاتهم. وقال لي إذ ذاك كولونيل اسرائيلي مرح:"أنظر كيف يحيوننا , لقد جئنا لتحرير بلادهم, وكانوا في إنتظارنا"..”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“watching and witnessing history and then, despite the dangers and constraints and our human imperfections, recording it as honestly as we can.”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War

“Should one therefore regard Auschwitz as a place to understand evil or as a shrine to the dead and all their sufferings? Or merely as a measure of distance between the experience of those who survived Auschwitz and those who can never comprehend what that meant? In”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: Lebanon at War

“When I was in Berlin then, Nazism did not have the reputation it has now. Nazism? In every system in the world, you can find something good. But Nazism was not Nazism at all. The word came afterwards. In their system, I saw discipline. And we in the Middle East, we needed discipline more than anything else.”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon

“When I was in Berlin then, Nazism did not have the reputation it has now. Nazism? In every system in the world, you can find something good. But Nazism was not Nazism at all. The word came afterwards. In their system, I saw discipline. And we in the Middle East, we needed discipline more than anything else. -Pierre Gemayel”
― Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon