Martin Amis
The readers interview in the Independent with Martin Amis is quite funny. Also, and not so funny, it contains this statement:Well, make the most of being Hizbollah while you can. As its leader, Hasan [sic] Nasrallah, famously advised the West: "We don't want anything from you. We just want to eliminate you."
I can't find any source for this quote on the internet or in UK newspapers since 1991 except Amis himself. The New York Times never mentioned it. I am not in anyway suggesting he has made it up (though he's clearly not telling the truth about it being famous - maybe he means infamous?), it is probably the case that he has just got the quote wrong in some ways (ie say it was destroy not eliminate (it's not though)). Can anyone provide the source?
Update: Ah, maybe Amis has got his leaders wrong. Mark Steyn (yes, I know, this isn't a good source) says "In the words of Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah: ''We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you.'"
Update II: The mystery deepens. Amis has clearly got the wrong person. Only Mark Steyn has quoted Massawi in the UK press over the last four years, but in 2001 this guy quoted him. You'll note that it's not clear now he is advising the West. So anyone find a reference before 2001? And who is this Massawi person - Wikipedia has never heard of him.
Update III: Maybe they mean former Hezbollah leader Abbas al-Musawi (not that similar a name, I admit). He was killed by the Israelis in 1992. But no-one links that quote to him.
Update IV: Chris Brooke suggests, persuasively, that they mean Husayn Al-Musawi, who whilst not a leader of Hezbollah was a 'prominent member'. I can't find any reference online or in the searchable UK news database (or on the NYT) linking him to that quote or a version of it, the nearest I've found so far is "In the future, we will wipe out every trace of Israel in Palestine". I've emailed the academic referred to in Update II to ask what his source was, but so far I have had no reply.
Labels: Decent Left, England
posted by Matthew @ 1/20/2007 12:33:00 PM
Comments: 4
