Right after the terrorist attacks in France and Mali, there emerged quite a number of pundits predicting an eternal war, writes established Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk of The Independent.
“Each morning, I awake to find another Hollywood horror being concocted by our secret policemen or our public relations-inspired leaders,” Fisk writes.
The author further writes that some even predict that Paris killings are now supposed to “have changed Paris (or even France) forever.”
However he regards such commentary as inappropriate.
“I would accept that the collaboration of General Pétain with Nazi Germany changed France forever – but the atrocities in Paris this month simply cannot be compared with the German occupation of 1940.”
Fisk also quotes the “most tiresome of French philosophers, Bernard-Henri Lévy,” as labelling ISIL as “Fascislamists.”
The author however wonders why the very same man failed to apply a similar label to “the avowedly Christian Lebanese killers of up to 1,700 Palestinian civilians in the Beirut Sabra-Shatila refugee camps of 1982 – Israel’s vicious Lebanese militia allies?”
“The American-armed and funded Israeli army watched the slaughter – and did nothing. Yet not a single Western politicians announced that this had “changed the Middle East forever.” And if 1,700 innocents can be murdered in Beirut in 1982 without “world war” being declared, how can President François Hollande announce that France is “at war” after 130 innocents were massacred?” he indignantly questions.
The author also explained a possible background for the recent Mali massacre by the French policy in the country, dating back to 2013.
“For those who believe that European soldiers who go clanking around African countries are not going to provoke revenge from those of Malian origin, note how we virtually ignored the background of the Isis killer of the French policewoman and of four French Jews at the Paris supermarket last January. Amedy Coulibaly was born in France to Malian Muslim parents.”
Fisk highlights the hypocrisy of French society and its ignorance over the “injustices” in its own country and in other regions, particularly in the Middle East. Calling it an apocalypse when it refers to their own country and completely ignoring it elsewhere is not the best example of dealing with the challenges of the modern world.
