Octavia Nasr and the Lobby

 CNN fired the inoffensive Nasr because she foolishly sent out one of the idiotically simplistic messages that "Twitter" was designed to propagate.  Anyone who uses that platform is asking for some incident like this.  She is a Lebanese Christian.  In Lebanon Hizbullah is a major player in politics as well as a terrorist organization.  In that context it is not so surprising that she would describe Fadlallah as a "giant."  In the very small milieu of Lebanese politics he was a giant.  The hasbara got her. Several of them pointed out her tweet.  The lobby bitched to CNN and they fired her as part of the general decline and inevitable eventual death of the network. This dismissal is just another symptom of disintegration and evolution into a wholly "owned" subsidiary of AIPAC/Israel, but then, why should CNN be different from the rest of the MSM.

We should note that Nasr did not say anything negative about Israel.  We are way past the issue of "defamation" now.  What we see in this incident is the ambition to control the content of people's minds.  pl

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2010/07/the-policing-of-the-discourse.html

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/08/media

Comments

[Fred]

CNN has been on the decline since founder Ted Turner sold off his ownership stake.

Off topic but what's your take on this from the CS Monitor.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2010/0707/Israeli-soldiers-Rock-the-Casbah-in-Hebron-and-cause-a-stir-video

"The video clip, at just under two minutes and titled "Rock the Casbah in Hebron," begins as six soldiers turn onto a deserted street in a two-by-three formation amid the morning muzzein call to prayer. Suddenly they stop and kneel as if readying for an assault.
Then the song "Tik Tok" begins to play as if coming from a mosque's loudspeakers. …"

Yes, when the faithful are called to prayer….
So not only do that have a dance routine to a song with lyrics like 'start the day with a bottle of jack' but they seem to have forgotten (or perhaps know only too well) the lyrics to the Clash song 'Rock the Casbah'. Doesn't anyone in Isreal have basic consideration for other religions?

[The beaver]

Another article on her dismissal by Greenwald in Salon:
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/07/08/media/index.html

The network -- which has employed a former AIPAC official, Wolf Blitzer, as its primary news anchor for the last 15 years -- justified its actions by claiming that Nasr's "credibility" had been "compromised." Within this episode lies several important lessons about media "objectivity" and how the scope of permissible views is enforced.

[Patrick Lang]

Fred

There are still some Israelis who have a modicum of respect for non-Jews. pl

[Fred]

Col,

For Israel's sake I hope so.

[EGrise]

Particularly alarming to me is that Nasr was a long-time, faithful employee who was respected and largely inoffensive politically (as far as I can tell), but one "mistake" and she's out the door. No chance to make her case on CNN, and CNN's management did not stand behind her to even a token degree; she was jettisoned overboard not when the waters became choppy but rather as soon as CNN got a bad weather forecast.

The implications are wide ranging and depressing, to say the least.

[J]

It's all about 'controlling' any/all 'criticisms' of Israel, least the American public wake up to how much $$$ wise and freedom wise that Israel has and continues to take the American public to the cleaners with each passing day. They are also scared shit-less that the American public will wake up and see just how 'bought by a foreign power' that the U.S. government has become. Any criticisms of Israel is a 'punishable offense'. Why do you think Israel-firster Sen. Joe Lieberman put up his Internet 'lock-down' bill like what China has, he's scared shit-less Americans waking up and questioning the high probability of treasonous-to-the-U.S. actions by Lieberman and other Israeli-firsters in the Congress. Just imagine how much sensitive U.S. Classified that the Senator and other Israel-firsters and their staffs in the Congress have passed on to the hostile-to-the-U.S. Intelligence Apparatus known as Israel's Mossad.

[[email protected]]

This is very scary, but it helps me to see the value of the Internet where, so far, we can still see a multitude of views in our attempts to make sense out of what is really happening in this world.

[Charles]

Maybe it isn't a AIPAC-led conspiracy. Maybe "respect[ing]" (her word) the spiritual leader of a terror organization is just so morally repulsive that it calls her judgment into question. These guys get paid to provide informed, intelligent opinions, but what we repeatedly find from her ilk (like Helen Thomas) is that they have little appreciation for the realities of the situation and a skewed moral compass.

GK Chesterton said that we don't disagree about what is evil, we disagree about how much of what is evil is excusable. I guess being a "giant" in a movement whose tactics are built around killing innocent civilians earns respect from those who find it excusable.

[Cieran]

Her words showed an ecumenical reverence on the passing of a respected religious leader.

The first word that popped into my head to describe her comments was "Christian", i.e., generous in spirit. So she got fired from CNN for generously expressing due reverence in the spirit of Christianity?

The thought police may want to re-think their own line of thought on this one...

[frank durkee]

Perhaps a bit more of "Let those who are without sin cast the first stone" from Jesus to those about to stone thewoman caught in adultery would improve all of us and our news coverage.

[eakens]

Damn brits....

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3917128,00.html

[MRW.]

Charles, maybe you should research just who Fadlallah was. Glenn Greenwald's article today can give you a precis, if you dont want to exercise yourself too much. Someone above gave the link. But you might need some vapors.

Helen Thomas and her ilk? "little appreciation for the realities of the situation?" Wow. Just wow.

Hezbollah/Hisbollah is not "a movement whose tactics are built around killing innocent civilians." Do you read?

[MRW.]

Fred, here's the rest of the story on that video. Check out the second youtube at this link, which is heart-breaking and appalling. The reason there are no people on the street the IDF are dancing on is because the settlers welded the Palestinian steel doors shut so they can't get out:
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/07/viral-idf-dancing-video-unwittingly-reveals-reality-in-hebron.html

[Al Spafford]

Prof Cole in his Informed Comment blog today makes an interesting observation. The "tweet" by Nasr offering a few positive words brought a swift termination from the CNN network--a bit of over reactive "McCarthyism". In the total view of the MidEast muck, Fadlallah was one who supported suicide bombings against Israel, but also deplored 9/11 attack, Morocco bombings, and advocated for women's rights. It was for those positive aspects of Fadlallah's life that Nasr's remarks were directed--for that she is fired. It seems there can never be a bit of good mixed in with a bit of bad--the "Axis of Evil" thinking strikes again.

[Cynthia]

I think this all-out war on critics of Zionism -- from Juan Cole and Norman Finkelstein in academics to Helen Thomas and Octavia Nasr in the press -- is rooted in the fact that nearly half of the billionaires in the US are Jewish, many of which are Zionists. And since our nation's wealth is becoming increasingly top-heavy with Zionists, thanks mostly to our political elites for letting the Goldmans of the World get away with robbing us blind, I predict that we'll see more and more victims of Zionist censorship.

This just reaffirms my suspicions that censorship is among all the evils that's rooted in money.

[Lysander]

Col Lang,

"There are still some Israelis who have a modicum of respect for non-Jews."

I'm sure you are correct, but that sounds like very faint praise, indeed.

Anyway. My opinion on the matter is similar to that of Asad Abu Khalil, AKA the "Angry Arab"

"The dismissal of Octavia Nasr proves this: 1) no matter how much you grovel and how much you insult Arabs and Muslims in the US, as Nasr has largely due to her ignorance of Middle East and Islamic affairs, it will never be enough. Unless you advocate the Likudnik positions as Fouad Ajami has, you will be suspect of you are of Arab origin; 2) Israeli orientalists rule supreme in US popular media. We may know that Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah has no position whatsoever in Hizbullah, but US media still insist that he is Hizbullah's leader. 3) Octavia Nasr does not deserve our support or tears. She has played a lousy job inside CNN. Of course, she is first and foremost unqualified but she has started her "journalistic" work at LBC TV when it was a mere tool of the Lebanese Forces during the war years. I discussed this once with CNN's Bernard Shaw and he expressed surprise and said that at CNN they thought that LBC TV stands for a state-run TV named Lebanese Broadcasting Company. The CNN's Middle East correspondents did not think highly of Nasr and some expressed that privately to me. 4) In the US, you may only expressed sympathy and admiration for Jewish and Christian religious figures. Muslim religious figures are all a bunch of terrorists, Sunnis and Shi`ites alike, regardless of views."

I don't know much about Nasr's past in Lebanon. There was a civil war and she supported her side, which is for better or worse what most people do. Other than that, it pretty much nails it.

[Patrick Lang]

Lysander

I had dinner with her once. My impression was that she was very accommodating to the people who have now had her fired. pl

[Charles]

MRW, He said "There is no other way for the Palestinians to push back those mountains, apart from martyrdom operations" in defense of suicide bombings against civilians. Hezbollah took that to another level in 2006 rocketing non-military targets in Northern Israel. If you find that excusable, your call. I do not.

[Cloned Poster]

Opinion/blog

If we did not have internet, the luduknits would have gased Gazan's a few years ago.

[JP]

Pat, It's a good thing the Israeli "machine" has not registered your presence and the forthrightness of your opinions on various issues. If they had, despite your clearly demonstrated knowledge of the language and culture of the Middle East, and your overall expertise in politico-military affairs, you would be frozen out of any influential position at State or the Pentagon, and you would be on the outside looking in. Uh, oops, wait a minute. . .

[Patrick Lang]

JP

If you look around you will find that almost all the real ME experts have been frozen out of government. pl

[JohnH]

Add CNN to the list of hopelessly compromised (where they've been for a long time.)

The "journal of record," the NY Times has been compromised since I can remember (and my life spans more than a quarter of this nation's).
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_FxCl-zDjIOQ/TDEZ_kL18mI/AAAAAAAAEnM/zxa8umU6kEg/s1600/fiction.jpg

The Times could not express anything at all about Furkan Dogan, the Turkish-American who was executed aboard the Mavi Marmara. The only mention came in a piece about Turks' reaction to the deaths.

Let's all be grateful to the internet, and the blogosphere, and access to foreign news sites!

[Walrus]

"Didn't any of you get the message when Helen Thomas was fired?

Are you slow on the uptake?

How many more of you have to get fired before you get the message?"

Greenwald will be fired from Salon at some stage. Phil Weiss will be neutralised somehow.

Sic Semper Tyrannis and other websites will be strangled by their ISP's through relaxation of "net neutrality" standards and Liebermans "Kill Switch" legislation.

Other commentators will be silenced by Liebermans "Citizenship stripping" legislation. A simple determination by the State Department that you are "Involved" in supporting a terrorist group will do it. The Supreme Court has already ruled that even talking to a designated terrorist group about humanitarian aid will get you charged.

http://www.securitymanagement.com/news/supreme-court-rules-humanitarian-aid-terrorist-organizations-illegal-007274

The calculation of how much it costs to buy the American Legislature was made years ago.

One Hundred Senators. Two hundred million per election campaign. Say we want Sixty Senators. Say Fifteen percent of the cost buys you the Senator, that's $1.8 billion to buy the Senate.

Cheap.

You have lost your Republic. We are watching the end game.

[Cynthia]

I'd like to see AIPAC and other Israel First organizations sic their thought police on journalists from RT, previously known as Russia Today, and Aljazeera in order to have them fired for, in Glenn Greenwald's words, "breaching neoconservative orthodoxy." But I doubt this is likely to happen given that these two news outlets don't serve as cheerleaders and propagandists for the neocon-driven war machine. The same thing can't be said about most, if not all, of the mainstream news outlets here in the US.

[Fred]

Walrus,

You can save some cash, one doesn't need to buy the entire Senate. It only takes one to hold up unemployement extensions or administration appointees. Too bad the Democrats hadn't figured that out in the prior 8 years. We might not be stuck in Iraq; then again, being in the Senate beats unemployment.