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AMY GOODMAN: For a report from Lebanon on the crisis today, we turn to journalist Robert Fisk. He's the chief Middle East correspondent for the London Independent. He's lived in Beirut for almost three decades. He's the author of Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon. His latest book is The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East. We reached him late yesterday at his home in Beirut. He spoke about the Israeli assault on Lebanon.

ROBERT FISK: What's happening is obviously the mass punishment of a whole people, the Lebanese, in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers and the killing of three others on Wednesday of last week. The death toll now has just topped 240 in the last few minutes. We've -- almost all of the Lebanese dead are civilians, of course, as usual. The Americans, in the usual pusillanimous way of Mr. Bush, are doing nothing to prevent this from taking place.

It amazes me -- I mean, living here in Beirut, as I have for 30 years. Here are the Lebanese people, sophisticated, educated, cosmopolitan, people who don't look like the Arab world, they look like us; I mean, people who could be quite at home on the streets of Paris or New York and London, and some of them are; people who read, who are very well educated; people who speak English fluently, French beautifully, and fluent Arabic, as well, of course; and who, when they die in such large numbers, the best we can produce is a call for restraint by the State Department and a claim by the British, our own dear Tony Blair, that the Israelis are using disproportionate force.

The exchange rate for neutral slaughter between Israel and here at the moment is now 1 to 10. 24 Israelis – I think 25 now -- to 242 Lebanese, many of whom, as I say, most of whom, but a far larger proportion of civilians. Many Beirut people were very moved Saturday when the Lebanese Beirut newspapers carried a very, very tragic picture of a young girl, a little girl -- must have been 4 or 5 years old -- near a place called Ter Hafra, lying dead in a field in her blue pajamas, looking, as I said in my newspaper, very similar to that terrifying picture from Poland in 1939 of a little Polish girl lying dead with her weeping sister beside her.

I did receive a phone call today from an Israeli woman living in the East Coast of the United States, who said she thought that what was being done to the Lebanese was unforgivable. I thought she was a very generous and good woman, saying she prayed for the Lebanese people and the Palestinians, and for the Israelis, of course.

But it's a tragedy of immense proportions, because it’s also tearing apart a country. In the last 24 hours we found the Israelis have turned to attacking a milk factory, Liban Lait -- it’s actually the producers of milk I drink every morning in my tea -- a paper box factory, for heaven’s sakes, hardly a terrorist target. We've already seen them smash up the runways of Beirut Airport and destroy part of the -- most of the lighthouse, the new Manara lighthouse, in Beirut. The Israelis today even attacked the factory which imports Procter & Gamble goods here. We've had an ambulance convoy, a convoy of new ambulances from the United Emirates, cross from Syria into Lebanon, got attacked from the air. It's an all-out war against the economy infrastructure of a country that was at last beginning to look modern again, after the 15 years of civil war, which cost 150,000 lives. And it's very sad to see.

I think the massacre of the innocents must obviously apply to both sides. The Israeli dead have an equal right to that claim. But the scale -- I mean, “disproportionate” is not the word for it -- the scale of the response is obscene. Even a small example, I’ll give you. Yesterday, something fell out of the sky over a small area of Beirut called Qurashim [sic]. I think it was part of the wing, the wingtip of an F-16. The Israelis say it’s not, but I think it probably was. And it crashed in a fiery volcano glow and burned trees, bushes, the roadway, and decapitated a young man in his car who was driving home to his family.

I got there in about eight minutes. And there were three very friendly Lebanese soldiers. By chance, I knew one of them, the sergeant, who said, “Mr. Robert, you must be very careful. The Israelis will come back and bomb again, but we’ll take you into the fire and show you as much as we can.” And they stood around me and protected me as we went up the road for about a mile walking -- or running, to be very honest with you, because Mr. Fisk here is not a very brave warrior. And I saw parts of what appears to be a wing. I think it was burning fuel all over the road. I think it came out of whatever the aircraft was. I think what actually happened is a Hezbollah missile probably hit an F-16, and the Israelis didn't want to claim it. They said that it was part of a barrel containing propaganda pamphlets and leaflets, which -- well, I didn't see leaflets anyway, and I know they burn on fuel, but anyway, I saw what I could and got away afterwards and said, you know, waved at the soldiers and thanked them.

And the Israelis did come back some hours later and bombed the barracks of these soldiers, which were members of a logistics unit. Their job was to repair bridges and electrical lines. They weren't combat soldiers. And they killed ten Lebanese soldiers, including the three young men who had protected me the previous day. This was outrageous, because the Israelis know what each individual Lebanese army unit is doing. They know if it's a combat unit, armored personnel carriers, helicopters, whatever.

And they picked on this sole barracks to destroy those men, to exterminate them, because, of course, their job was to keep Beirut alive, to keep the power systems running, to repair the bridges which were being destroyed -- 46 bridges now, according to Minister of Finance, who told me this a few hours ago, have been destroyed in Lebanon. This is the inheritance, of course, of former prime minister, assassinated prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was murdered on the 14th of February last year. He rebuilt this country. He rebuilt the city of Beirut. Now, bit by bit the bridges, the lighthouse, the international airport are being destroyed.

AMY GOODMAN: When Robert Fisk was almost killed by an angry Afghan mob, when he was covering the war in Afghanistan, Rafik Hariri called him after he had gotten out of that situation, almost died, and asked if he could send a plane. But Robert Fisk said he felt that was inappropriate to receive anything from a government or former government official.

Well, on Tuesday the Lebanese prime minister said Israel's opening the gates of hell and madness in his country and urged Hezbollah to release the two captured Israeli soldiers, but said Israel's response has been disproportionate. I asked Robert Fisk about the Prime Minister's comments.

ROBERT FISK: You know, I know Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, quite well, and I like him very much. And he's a very affable, friendly and honorable man, but his response has been pretty pathetic. You know, to call the Israeli response “disproportionate” is to go along with the European, the E.U.'s equally pusillanimous response. Roaring on about gates of hell is not something that Lebanese prime ministers can do. He appeared on television not long ago crying, which I don't think Winston Churchill was doing in May of 1940. But he's not Rafik Hariri and never claimed to be. He's an economist, not a professional politician.

The usual problem -- I mean, the moment the attack took place, the Israelis blamed the Lebanese government, who can't even control a water faucet, let alone a Hezbollah militia man. And that, by saying the Lebanese were responsible, gave them the excuse to start destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon. Even the beautiful new viaduct that Hariri had built on the transnational highway to Syria has been broken by the Israeli bomber strikes. I’ve been there and seen it and stood on it.

You know, what it needs is a government, which -- there's no power in the Lebanese army. It’s 50,000 strong, but they can't defend Lebanon. And there's only three Vietnam-era helicopters or some ancient hawk hunter fighters belonging to Lebanon. They can't fight off the Israelis.

But, you know, I asked tonight, for example, the Minister of Finance whether he's considered suing the major American armaments manufacturers, who are producing the missiles, who are killing all of these innocent people here. And he hadn't thought of it. You know, I mean, most of the missiles which are landing here are made in Seattle and in Miami, Florida, by Lockheed Martin or Boeing.

But it's as if you've got this little tiny parish council, you know, parish pump government. And they talk about the gates of hell, and then they talk about disproportionate, and then they cry. I’m afraid that's not a way to run a country. But Lebanon is a very small weak country, and Israel is a nuclear-powered superpower, nuclear-armed superpower; what can you do?

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Fisk speaking from his home in Beirut late Tuesday night. We'll come back to the interview in a minute.

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