News editor talks positively about Lebanese cleric, neocons rage, she gets fired

[Kuya]

NEW YORK -- Octavia Nasr has been fired. CNN fired the editor responsible for Middle Eastern coverage after she posted a note on Twitter expressing admiration for a late Lebanese cleric considered an inspiration for the Hezbollah militant movement.

Lebanon's Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died Sunday after a long illness. He was staunchly anti-American and linked to bombings that killed more than 260 Americans, a charge he denied.

In a Twitter posting over the weekend, Nasr said she was sad to hear of Fadlallah's death. She called him "one of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot." CNN issued a statement on Tuesday calling it an error in judgment for Nasr to write such a simplistic tweet.

Nasr later said in a blog that she had been referring to Fadlallah's attitude toward women's rights. The cleric had issued edicts banning "honor killing" of women and giving women the right to hit their husbands if attacked first.

Juan Cole on the deceased cleric:

Unlike Mughniya, Fadlallah mellowed with age. When the theocratic Islamic Republic of Iran emerged, underpinned by Imam Ruhollah Khomeini’s doctrine that the clerics must rule Muslim societies, Fadlallah rejected that principle, known as the ‘guardianship of the jurisprudent’ (wilayat al-Faqih). He also tried to modernize Shiite law affecting women, and in 2007 gave a fatwa condemning honor killings in absolute terms that made his stance more progressive than Lebanese statute on the matter.

The cleric is largely revered by Shiites in the Middle East, including US ally and Iraqui PM Nuri Al-Maliki:

So help me understand this. Nuri al-Maliki, still the Iraqi prime minister for the moment, expressed his appreciation for the accomplishments of the late Grand Ayatollah Hussein Fadlallah:

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki paid tribute for late Fadlallah, who provided the “Islamic library” with “tens of books in jurisprudence, interpretation and Islamic culture.” “He devoted his life for serving big Islamic causes in the front line during contemporary cultural and political struggle arenas,” said Maliki. While acknowledging the big loss in the Islamic world, Maliki said Fadlallah would remain a living example “that we all adthere to.”

News link from washington post

Juan Cole on Fadlallah

Juan Cole on this double standard

Neocon screeching:
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=175057

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-b...ight-direction

http://www.adl.org/media_watch/tv/CN...der_070610.htm

Pretty creepy that expressing an opinion that isn't even controversial in the Middle East or the rest of the world since that cleric was very well respected gets a reporter with 20 years of experience fired. It's almost as if some people are trying to enforce a manichean vision of the world where mentioning one positive aspect of the State's enemies gets you ostracized.

The mainstream media does not bode well.

[Elvis]

Read Glenn Greenwald's post on this as well. Detailed as usual.

[Cephius]

Sad.

[Zoolander]

Yea pretty outrageous, I can't believe CNN actually caved in. So infuriating, I guess CNN is trying to do whatever they can to grab the ratings back from MSNBC and Fox News.

This to me is an indictment not only on the media but also on the general public and this irrational fear towards everything Islam with pretty much no attempts at all to understand the context or situations in general.

[Zoolander]

This has actually enraged me quite a bit, I know its lolpointless or w/e, but I really feel like writing CNN or something and telling them to fuck themselves and never use the site again. Plenty of other sources for information, I don't need to support them with my traffic (to me its the same thing as a vote or supporting something with your dollars...it all adds up).

I liked foreign policy's quick reaction: Why CNN firing Octavia Nasr was spineless

[FNH]

Had she not mentioned his ties to Hezbollah nothing would have happened.

[Kuya]

The intense hatred of Islam of some is not surprising either. Neocons take Huntington's Clash of Civilizations to heart.

Had she not mentioned his ties to Hezbollah nothing would have happened.

Wouldn't have changed a thing.

[Cyn]

Clearly your opinion is more important than your ability to perform the tasks set before you in terms of employment.

[FNH]

The intense hatred of Islam of some is not surprising either. Neocons take Huntington's Clash of Civilizations to heart.

Wouldn't have changed a thing.

We'll never know, but I think she worded he tweet in a bad way, as such it was misrepresented. twitter is a bad forum for shit like that.

[Elvis]

Nasr explains controversial tweet on Lebanese cleric

My tweet was short: "Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot. #Lebanon"

Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and a provides a good lesson on why 140 characters should not be used to comment on controversial or sensitive issues, especially those dealing with the Middle East.

It was an error of judgment for me to write such a simplistic comment and I'm sorry because it conveyed that I supported Fadlallah's life's work. That's not the case at all.

Here's what I should have conveyed more fully:

I used the words "respect" and "sad" because to me as a Middle Eastern woman, Fadlallah took a contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on woman's rights. He called for the abolition of the tribal system of "honor killing." He called the practice primitive and non-productive. He warned Muslim men that abuse of women was against Islam.

I met Fadlallah in 1990. He was willing to take the risk of meeting with a young Christian journalist from the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation. Fadlallah was at the height of his power. As I was ushered in, I was told that he would not look at me in the eye and to make it quick as there was a long line of dignitaries waiting.

The interview went 45 minutes, during which I asked him about Hezbollah's agenda for an Islamic state in Lebanon. He bluntly told me that was his group's dream but there would be room for other religions. He also joked at the end of the interview that the solution for Lebanon's civil war was to send "all political leaders without exception on a ship away from Lebanon with no option to return."

He challenged me to run the entire interview on LBC without editing. We did.

This does not mean I respected him for what else he did or said. Far from it.

It is no secret that Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah hated with a vengeance the United States government and Israel. He regularly praised the terror attacks that killed Israeli citizens. And as recently as 2008, he said the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust were wildly inflated.

But it was his commitment to Hezbollah's original mission - resisting Israel's occupation of Lebanon - that made him popular and respected among many Lebanese, not just people of his own sect.

In 1983, as Fadlallah found his voice as a spiritual leader, Islamic Jihad - soon to morph into Hezbollah - bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 299 American and French peacekeepers. I lost family members in that terror attack.

And it was during his time as spiritual leader that so many Westerners were kidnapped and held hostage in Lebanon.

When the Lebanese Civil War ended in 1990 with Syria taking full control of Lebanon, Hezbollah was and remains the only armed militia in Lebanon. Under Syria's influence however, Hezbollah - declared a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union started becoming even more militant, with designs beyond Lebanon's borders to serve agendas for Syria and Iran.

Fadlallah himself was designated a terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department.

In later years, Hezbollah's leadership apparently did not like Fadlallah's vocal criticism of Hezbollah's allegiance to Iran. Nor did they like his assertions that Hezbollah's leaders had been distracted from resistance to Israeli occupation of portions of Lebanon and had turned weapons against their own people.

At first, he was simply pushed to the side, but later wasn't even referred to as a Hezbollah member. Rather, he was referred to as the scholar - the expert on Islam - but nothing more. During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, his honorary title "Sayyed" - indicating that he's a descendant of the prophet - was dropped any time he was mentioned on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and other Hezbollah media outlets.

Through his outspoken Friday sermons and his regularly updated website, Fadlallah had a platform to spread what many considered a more moderate voice of Shia Islam than what was coming out of Iran. Immensely popular in Lebanon among the various religious groups, he also had followers across the region including in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and even as far as Morocco in northern Africa.

Sayyed Fadlallah. Revered across borders yet designated a terrorist. Not the kind of life to be commenting about in a brief tweet. It's something I deeply regret.

[FNH]

Clearly your opinion is more important than your ability to perform the tasks set before you in terms of employment.

Probably the bad publicity, you think there isn't someone else that could do her job?

[Elvis]

People like her can be replaced easy. It was foolish of her to make an abrupt statement about a controversial figure (*Arab/Muslim, mostly anti-Israel moreso than anti-American). She was part of the Establishment for 20 years or something. She should have known better.

[Cyn]

People like her can be replaced easy. It was foolish of her to make an abrupt statement about a controversial figure (*Arab/Muslim, mostly anti-Israel moreso than anti-American). She was part of the Establishment for 20 years or something. She should have known better.

That doesn't mean she should be canned. She explained herself in detail after she did it, should have been the end of it.

[Kuya]

That doesn't mean she should be canned. She explained herself in detail after she did it, should have been the end of it.

You probably already know this, but anything remotely anti-israel in the media or politics is extremely taboo in the US. It should have been the end of it when she explained herself, but we aren't dealing with a normal situation. She expressed a positive sentiment towards a cleric who is alleged to have ties to Hezbollah which is an anti-israel terrorist group.

It says a lot about the atmosphere of politics in the US.

[Elvis]

That doesn't mean she should be canned. She explained herself in detail after she did it, should have been the end of it.

I'm not condoning her firing, just explaining the reality.

[Cyn]

I'm 100% aware of what the reality is. I'm merely expressing my opinion about the absurdity of it.

[Morn]

Unfortunately this idiocy is coming from both sides. A somewhat lesser example is the Imus "nappy headed hoes" fiasco. I'd rather the right and the left stay the fuck away from my 1st amendment rights.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

Brings back fond memories of the David Howard incident.

[Kuya]

Unfortunately this idiocy is coming from both sides. A somewhat lesser example is the Imus "nappy headed hoes" fiasco. I'd rather the right and the left stay the fuck away from my 1st amendment rights.

Ugh. Okay

[kuronosan]

I imagine if, 150 years ago, people said something like:

"Sad to hear of the passing of John Brown.. One of the South's giants I respect a lot. #Carolina"

They'd be praised and cheered. This lady praises someone she respected for standing up against his own religion (which many here don't even fucking get anyway and just go 'Lawl muslim? terrorist derp') and fighting for women's rights and she gets fired because he's a controversial figure.

I guess it's okay to praise terrorists who did positive things that go unheard of because they did something to you, right?

Where's my letter to George Bush... I need some TV time.