David Hirst

About the author

David Hirst (1936–2025) was a British journalist and foreign correspondent whose career became synonymous with authoritative coverage of the Middle East. Based in Beirut for most of his working life, he wrote for The Guardian from 1964 to 2001 and continued contributing until 2013, earning recognition as the paper's definitive voice on the region across four decades. Known for an academic approach to journalism, he focused heavily on the Arab–Israeli conflict and authored two major works: The Gun and the Olive Branch (1977) and Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East (2010).