Fisk's footwork

If you can see beyond the constant reference by him to his own good self, you might like to have a look at this column by Robert Fisk. The piece concerns the welcome accorded to Samir Kuntar on his return to Lebanon, including by al-Jazeera, and the reaction to this by the father of Daniel Pearl. Fisk quotes him, Judea Pearl, as attacking Kuntar's reception in Lebanon for bringing 'barbarism back to the public square':

[Pearl] wants al-Jazeera to apologise formally for that infamous party which has, he writes, robbed journalism of its "nobleness" and "relegitimized barbarism"...

And Fisk calls 'whoa'. Why does he? Because, if Kuntar represents barbarism, what were the Israelis doing releasing him? And because, if swapping prisoners is what you get into, then the sort of reception Kuntar got is... the one he was inevitably going to get. Neither of these points, you will note, gives so much as a scintilla of a reason for putting Judea Pearl's judgement in question. It's well-known why Israel released Kuntar - to recover the bodies of Israeli soldiers. This doesn't tell against the monstrosity of celebrating a child killer. Neither does it tell against it that the people who celebrated were always going to do so if given the chance. Fisk doesn't want to justify what he calls 'the pathetic performance of the Lebanese government' in hosting this shameful episode. So it's unclear what his 'whoa' towards Pearl's charge of barbarism can be about. Unless it's just those good old impulses: redirect the blame; and treat some (selected) behaviour as merely part of the pattern of things.