The New Republic

It was not just Octavia who expressed admiration for the mentor of terrorists. "Britain's foreign office yanked Friday a blog posted by its ambassador to Lebanon that mourned the death of an "admired" Shiite cleric once considered Hezbollah's spiritual leader. Frances Guy wrote that she left the presence of Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died Sunday, feeling a better person. "Lebanon is a lesser place the day after, but his absence will be felt well beyond Lebanon's shores," she said. "The world needs more men like him, willing to reach out across faiths." The comments about Fadlallah, once closely associated with Hezbollah, ruffled diplomatic feathers. Israel, especially, was not happy." http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/07/09/britain.cleric.controversy/index.html

- noga1

July 23, 2010 at 6:49pm

"What I really wanted to talk about today is the Fadlallah nonsense. The turbaned dude, who was born in Iraq to Lebanese parents, died last week. There have been some strange reactions to the death of the cleric, who has few, if any, redeeming qualities. First I heard a CNN editor was sacked for mentioning her admiration for Fadlallah. And then the British ambassador had to apologize for gushing over the guy on her blog. The BBC tries to read more into the silliness: "It could be yet another story about the pitfalls of new media but it is really about the complexity of Middle Eastern politics, the passion it stirs and the nuances that get lost in the debate." The complexity of Middle Eastern politics? Come on! How complicated can it be? The cleric okayed the killings of people he disagreed with. Naturally, the media decide that it's a case of an intolerant United States. Poor editor loses her job for speaking her mind. Yeah, never mind she demonstrated poor judgment. Look, I'm not defending CNN, but journalists are supposed, yes, seek to be objective, and when a woman illlustrates her, um, foolishness, for saying she liked a guy who had little or no respect for her, I can't but question her judgment. Speaking of weak judgment, check out the British ambassador lady who went native when she visited the dude. She even put a scarf on her head. Why? She's not Muslim. When Condoleezza Rice or Hilary Clinton visited Saudi Arabia, they did not cover their heads. They showed respect for themselves and their own traditions when meeting high-ranking Saudis. The British ambassador bowed to the cleric who was nothing more than a troublemaker. Admit it, people. This is nothing more than a case of an opprtunity to trash the West. The reaction to the death of Fadlallah was minimal in Iraq. Sure Maliki attended his funeral, but there was public mourning for a lost Iraq-born hero. Why should Easterners learn from the West when we can continue to wallow in our miserable backward ways? Why learn the good things from another culture when we can continue to stone adulterers and chop off the limbs of thieves and behead those who worship differently." http://iraqpundit.blogspot.com/2010/07/fadlallah-fuss.html

- noga1

July 23, 2010 at 6:54pm

Cook and bottle washer? She was reporting from the front line. Where were you, Mr Peretz, and your gaggle of chicken-hawks. Cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck cluck

- OscarPeck

July 23, 2010 at 6:55pm

"...Christiane Amanpour ... knows just what she is talking about and just how she is slanting her reportage on both Israel and the United States in the Middle East. ..." is so true, an irrational flaw in an otherwise fine journalist. I do wonder how Peretz missed the Octavia Nasr story. Does he never news.google to see what the media is obsessing about at any given moment?

- K2K

July 23, 2010 at 7:17pm

I think Friedman's point was that while the Nasr tweet was dumb (can it even be considered journalism?) the idea that we need to purge our media of anyone who strays outside the corral defined by precisely our opinions and precisely our range of loyalties is even dumber. And in the longer term, more dangerous. This is epistemic closure too -- Hizbollah are a force in Lebanese politics and pretending that they can be defeated by either ignoring them or treating them like one monolithic anonymous "enemy" is a recipe for disaster.

- ironyroad

July 23, 2010 at 9:19pm

ironyroad “Hizbollah are a force in Lebanese politics and pretending that they can be defeated by either ignoring them or treating them like one monolithic anonymous "enemy" is a recipe for disaster.” One can recognize that Hezbollah is a force in Lebanon without praising one of its founding members, especially someone who used suicide bombings which killed many innocent people including women and children. However ignorant of history she is, she is not, or shouldn’t be ignorant of the fact that murdering innocent people is evil. This, I suppose is why she was fired, and it would have been a recipe for disaster for CNN, or any other media outlet, had they not fired her.

- jdyer

July 23, 2010 at 9:30pm

Friedman's op-ed ends this way: "That’s why I prefer to get my news from a CNN reporter who can actually explain why thousands of men and women are mourning an aged Shiite cleric — whom we consider nothing more than a terrorist — than a reporter who doesn’t know at all, or worse, doesn’t dare to say." Would you really prefer the ignorance and the self-censorship, JD? I can't quite believe that.

- ironyroad

July 23, 2010 at 9:44pm

The whole thing reminded me of a 2004 story in which a BBC journalist, Barbara Plett, reported how, watching "the helicopter carrying the frail old man [Yasser Arafat] rose from his ruined compound, I started to cry" . Of course to anyone familiar with Plett's reportage, her steep pro-Palestinian bias was hardly a surprise. But she could always defend herself by pointing to including "balancing" factors in her reports. In this particular instant she was either feeling particularly emotional or felt secure enough to allow her true sentiments to peep through. Is this what happened to Octavia? There is a joke in Hebrew about a life guard in a swimming pool chasing away one of the swimmers for urinating in the pool. “So what? Everyone urinates in the pool”, protests the culprit. “Yes, indeed”, agrees the life guard, "But not from the top of the diving board”. These "journalists" (as our old friend TOC would put it) feel so safe and comfortable in their biases that they feel they can afford to let down their guard.

- noga1

July 23, 2010 at 10:16pm

irony -- yes, I would like the self-censorship. Imagine if Nasr' hadn't been fired: every negative thing she reported on Israel would be evaluated for bias. Why is it so wrong to want -reporters- to keep their traps shut when it comes to their own personal opinion? Were we sooooo much worse off before when we couldn't read their tweets?

- Lymon1

July 23, 2010 at 10:24pm

Lymon, I agree absolutely that the tweet was dumb from a professional point of view as she clearly opened herself to the accusation that she was not maintaining appropriate distance/objectivity as a reporter in a sensitive part of the world. And that deserved a clear sanction. But that's not what the argument is here. The argument is that, because she showed any respect at all for a member of Hizbollah, she deserved to be fired. I argue, somewhat echoing Friedman, that we should be ready and indeed willing to live with people who -- provided they do honest reporting, and I haven't seen any evidence that she did not -- have national and political and ideological preferences that aren't those of the (fairly narrow) American mainstream.

- ironyroad

July 23, 2010 at 10:35pm

ironyroad “Friedman's op-ed ends this way: "That’s why I prefer to get my news from a CNN reporter who can actually explain why thousands of men and women are mourning an aged Shiite cleric — whom we consider nothing more than a terrorist — than a reporter who doesn’t know at all, or worse, doesn’t dare to say." Would you really prefer the ignorance and the self-censorship, JD? I can't quite believe that.” Friedman’s op ed piece, which I had already read, was an over-reaction to a fictitious problem. Why can’t Friedman imagine a reporter explaining “why thousands of men and women are mourning an aged Shiite cleric…” without endorsing the cleric’s world view. Good reporters used to do it all the time. Can you imagine a reporter explaining clearly why millions of Chinese followed their leader without endorsing his point of view? Can you imagine them saying that he was one of "one of China’s giants I respect a lot,” as Octavia Nasr did about Fadlallah? I doubt it. And if a reporter did identify him/herself as a Maoist they wouldn’t have lasted very long in their job. Why is it different when it comes to Hezbollah or Hamas leaders? The problem isn’t as I see it, that she was fired, the problem is that she was hired in the first place. Surely people at CNN must have known her sympathetic view of Hezbollah.

- jdyer

July 23, 2010 at 11:34pm

JD: "Can you imagine a reporter explaining clearly why millions of Chinese followed their leader without endorsing his point of view?" Yes of course, but I can't imagine a reporter doing so well without at least some capacity to narrate the Chinese experience from the inside. Description and true explanation aren't quite the same thing. And we need explanations that are more than cozy affirmations of our own already established opinions. I don't see any evidence (so far) that Nasr was "endorsing" the guy. I'd also be curious about how you'd check out applicants' political opinions before you'd give them a job (schoolfriends? favorite books? dress?). What would you do if Nasr had been queried by you and she had said, "Yes, I know several Hizbollah leaders and I respect a couple of them. And precisely that entry to that milieu, that part of the world, is what will help make me a valuable reporter!"

- ironyroad

July 24, 2010 at 12:22am

ironyroad "I don't see any evidence (so far) that Nasr was "endorsing" the guy." I don't know what you mean by "endorse" but if someone said to me that they respect Marty Peretz a lot, I would take it as an endorsement. Octavia did endorse Fadlallah in her public statement when she said that she considered "one of Hezbollah's giants I respect a lot."

- jdyer

July 24, 2010 at 12:40am

OK. I'll concede endorsement (although I think there's a distinction between respecting X and endorsing X that we shouldn't lose -- I respected John McCain in 2008 but I most certainly did not endorse him). But that's not exactly the crux of my reply, JD.

- ironyroad

July 24, 2010 at 1:22am

I would say, in my humble opinion, that the gold standard of reporting from that particular part of the world belongs to Khaled Abu Toameh, Palestinian affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, who explains personalities, attitudes and conduct of the people he covers without endorsing anyone of them and letting the truth speak for itself.

- NR114746

July 24, 2010 at 1:44am

Perhaps the resistance to Octavia Nasr's summary breakup with CNN comes exactly from the same reason that CNN fired her. In the explanation to her removal her boss said: "However, at this point, we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward." The key word is "credibility". For some posters here credibility means that the reporter maintains an emotional distance from the subjects she covers in order to at least try to bring objective news. For others her credibility lies in the very fact that she does represent a view which is not clear of bias or emotion. That renders her reports and interpretations more "authentic" and therefore more "credible". In my opinion she should not have been fired because as I fully expected the act gave rise to thousands of accusations that CNN gave in to the Israel Lobby's pressure. It would have been better for her to have been reprimanded and learned a lesson and maybe as a result become a better journalist more capable of containing herself when she reports on funerals of genocidal endorsers. I'm also not too worried about Octavia's future prospects. No doubt Al-Jazeera will snap her up where she will have much greater freedom to exercise her "authentic" point of view, or, more likely after a certain cooling-off period she will get her CNN job back What else could her boss mean when she said: "However, at this point, we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward"? That at a later point, maybe her credibility will not be an issue. I saw a few segments where Nasr appeared and she seemed to enjoy a very robust affection and admiration from some of her co-presenters (like Rick Sanchez, who once serenely claimed that in Israel there is no Left). I imagine a small Octavian lobby is getting organized on her behalf even as I write these words.

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 7:53am

" (like Rick Sanchez, who once serenely claimed that in Israel there is no Left). " He is right of course, everybody knows in Israel we have only right hands.

- rmakover@swbell.net-OLD

July 24, 2010 at 8:16am

From the history of Rick Sanchez: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/11/21/cnn-bush-not-snubbed-after-all/ As to the question at the end of the article: "So where does this leave Rick Sanchez? How does a show host recover from having his own network rip apart his reporting as puerile and uninformed? Move to MS-NBC, where those qualities have value?" We know the answer to that. He was given his own CNN two-hour programme called "Rick's List" and is now standing in for the Campbel person who left CNN's 8 o'clock slot two days ago. From which one can deduce that there is no call to worry about Octavia's future. I rather like the ebullient Sanchez (he inserts Spanish sound bytes into his programme and I'm a sucker for Spanish) whose only fault is that he is not terribly intelligent. But as the Coen Brothers proved in their film about the CIA "Burn after reading" intelligence is highly overrated.

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 10:06am

ironyroad “OK. I'll concede endorsement (although I think there's a distinction between respecting X and endorsing X that we shouldn't lose –“ Well, the subtlety was lost on Octavia when she mourned his death. “I respected John McCain in 2008 but I most certainly did not endorse him). But that's not exactly the crux of my reply, JD.” I was going to vote for him till he endorsed Palin as his VP. I then lost trust in his judgment and stopped respecting his political stance. His recent behavior as a candidate in Arizona didn’t do much to change my mind about him. He behaved honorably, perhaps heroically as a prisoner of war, and I respect him for that. You can respect someone for what he does and you can respect someone for who he is. Octavia’s comment made it clear that she respected Fadlallah for the kind of cleric he was and for what he did as a cleric. That is a total endorsement of a man’s life; a life that included the use of suicide to murder innocents. She is a disgrace to her journalistic profession. She disgraced herself worse than McCain did when he chose Sarah plain as his VP candidate. McCain choice was ignorant her endorsement was malicious.

- jdyer

July 24, 2010 at 10:57am

I don't see how a comparison can be drawn between Nasr and McCain. She is a journalist. He is a politician. A more plausible comparison would be between her and Helen Thomas, or Barbara Plett. A politician is biased in favour of certain agenda from the very beginning. a journalist is supposed to be unbiased and uninclined to any agenda. At least to appear to be so. Nasr must have felt very much in her comfort zone to allow that not so Freudian slip to escape from her keyboard.

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 11:10am

She may have been -- and I think the most surprising people are often unsure/confused/wrong about these things -- under the impression that a tweet is something like a comment made off-duty to a bunch of friends and acquaintances in a bar. In a sense, all journalists who work in mainstream media have the job of maintaining a professional neutrality in public while, one presumes, having their own opinions of events and people, possibly strong ones. If you start using twitter, then the big danger is that you make a private opinion known that will be taken as a statement made in a professional capacity (or as good as). I'm somewhat surprised at a journalist making that kind of error, as I said, but no false step is too simple for someone to make it, somewhere. At the same time, I wonder to what degree she was selected for her job precisely because of her national-ethnic-cultural background and the kind of access it may have enabled. My guess is, a large one. And was that wrong . . . ?

- ironyroad

July 24, 2010 at 3:50pm

"I wonder to what degree she was selected for her job precisely because of her national-ethnic-cultural background and the kind of access it may have enabled. My guess is, a large one. And was that wrong . . . ?" The only question worth considering when one is hired for the task of reporter is the kind of critical acumen he or she brings to their job. Was she, is she, capable of independent critical judgment with regards to the news material before her; or is she so in love with a certain theological perspective that it clouds her judgment. Or, to put it differently did she, does she, believe that objective reporting is more important than the cause she would like to espouse (whatever that cause is)?

- jdyer

July 24, 2010 at 4:53pm

Was it or wasn't it a breach of journalistic ethics? If Fadlala is the highest spiritual leader of Hezbola who preached to believers that it is Allah's wish that Jews be murdered, and Nasr respects this man and openly declares her respect, then what are we to make of her ethics, journalistic or otherwise? Do you really want you news about Hizzbula delivered to you by someone who respects their spiritual leader? Is there any added value to the news she delivers if it is done from a place of respect, no matter how misplaced that respect is? Is the news any more true because she respects Fadlala? And why this consistent need to whitewash such infractions?

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 6:25pm

This case involving a British judge has some relevance to the question that is on my mind: At what point does the personal inclination of a public servant pass from the merely tolerable to miscarriage of justice? And how far is Nasr's violation of HER ethics from the more formal and possibly more gaugeable violation of a judicial ethics? http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/07/british-judge-faces-anti-semitism-probe/index.shtml

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 6:37pm

Perhaps Hitler is not quite the right analogy in terms of orders of sizes. How about "Sad to hear of the passing of haj Amin al-Husseini... … One of Arab Nationalism's giants I respect a lot." ?

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 7:19pm

In Friedman's piece, he discusses some reasons as to why she respected him (three paras are from TF, last comment is mine): "Augustus Richard Norton, of Boston University, a Shiite expert, said this about Fadlallah, whom he knew: “He argued that women should have equal opportunities to men and be well educated. He even argued that women have a right to hit their husband back because it was not appropriate for a spouse to be beaten by their husbands. He was not afraid to speak about sexuality, and he even once gave [a mosque sermon] about sexual urges and female masturbation. It was common to find young people who followed his writings all over the region.” Indeed, Nasr later explained that her tweet about Fadlallah was because he took a “contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on women’s rights.” Michael Tomasky, the editor of “Democracy: A Journal of Ideas,” pointed out an essay by the liberal secular Shiite Lebanese journalist Hanin Ghaddar — on the Web site Now Lebanon — recalling how Fadlallah intervened with her conservative father to allow her to live alone in Beirut, telling her father in a letter that he “had no right to tell me what to do, as I was an independent and sane and adult woman.” Given that women's rights are often a flashpoint in discussions here on TNR -- e.g. regarding Afghanistan -- then a senior cleric who appears to be enlightened on that issue might well be worth taking a second look at.

- ironyroad

July 24, 2010 at 7:36pm

Two paras from TF, I meant.

- ironyroad

July 24, 2010 at 7:38pm

ironyroad "Augustus Richard Norton, of Boston University, a Shiite expert, said this about Fadlallah, whom he knew: “He argued that women should have equal opportunities to men and be well educated.” He also said that: “In an interview with Al-Manar TV on March 21, 2008 (as translated by the MEMRI), Fadlallah stated that: "The Hebrew state is preparing to celebrate its 60th anniversary – 60 years since it plundered Palestine – in a festival, which will be attended by the countries of the world, most of which still support the Jewish state and consider the resistance movement to be terrorism. This is what led German Chancellor Merkel to visit that plundering country, which extorted and continues to extort Germany, using as a pretext the German Hitlerist-Nazi past, and the placing of the Jews in a holocaust. Zionism has inflated the number of victims in this holocaust beyond imagination. They say there were six million Jews – not six million, not three million, or anything like that... But the world accepted this [figure], and it does not allow anyone to discuss this." Fadlallah has made statements in favour of suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. In a 2002 interview with The Daily Telegraph Fadlallah said: "I was not the one who launched the idea of so-called suicide bombings, but I have certainly argued in favour of them.... [the Palestinians] are in a state of war with Israel. They are not aiming to kill civilians but, in war, civilians do get killed... There is no other way for the Palestinians to push back those mountains, apart from martyrdom operations.” Following the Mercaz HaRav massacre, Fadlallah called the attack "heroic" Western sources also cite his favour for suicide bombings against Israeli citizens. Fadlallah explained the religious basis for suicide attacks in an interview with the The Daily Star In September 2009, Fadlallah issued a fatwa banning normalization of ties with Israel.[32] He also objected to any territorial settlement, saying "The entire land of Palestine within its historical borders is one Arab-Islamic country and no one has right to spare on[e] inch of it."[32]Another English translation (from the arabic in Al Akhbar) has been given in The Daily Middle East Reporter (Beirut, Lebanon)" The above is from wikipedia and I would guess that the reality is much worse. He is not complex when it comes to Israel or to Jews. He was simply a murderer who called for the murder of Jews.

- jdyer

July 24, 2010 at 8:00pm

Irony, why are you so invested in defending Fadlallah as a quasi liberal?

- jdyer

July 24, 2010 at 8:01pm

Maybe people are so used to Arab-Muslim antisemitic incitement that they no longer hear it. It has become a sort of background noise. Fadlalah's Holocaust denialism, his genocidal aspirations for Israel's Jews - those are familiar melodies they are so conventional they are practically invisible. Now a Muslim cleric advocating for women's rights, that's a new thing, a new phenomenon, worthy of fostering and cultivating. So what if same cleric is also antisemitic? Nothing new in that, nothing to raise an eyebrow or get too exercised about. Jews are used to it and non-Jews, all the more so. So many liberals exonerate Farrakhan because he was good for his community, never mind the underlying structure of hatred upon which that "good" is built. This is how a fence is erected around Jews to separate and isolate them from the rest of humanity, with the unwitting compliance of truly good and honorable liberals.

- noga1

July 24, 2010 at 8:22pm

I think CNN's concern was Nasr as Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs no longer had the impartiality that an Editor needs in deciding which stories are newsworthy, and the potential for undue influence on the reporters assigned to such stories. Maybe CNN was already getting complaints about their coverage and other issues where Nasr's tweet was the last straw. People get fired in America for many reasons, and often, for no reason. Anyway, I just wanted to add my vote in agreement by copying: 07/24/2010 - 1:44am EDT | NR114746 I would say, in my humble opinion, that the gold standard of reporting from that particular part of the world belongs to Khaled Abu Toameh, Palestinian affairs correspondent for the Jerusalem Post, who explains personalities, attitudes and conduct of the people he covers without endorsing anyone of them and letting the truth speak for itself. [in so far as one can aspire to find the truth - am just finishing David Grann on the subjectivity of learned curators versus science in art authentication. 16,000 words. Just when you think, after 7,599 words, that the mystery of the surprise Leonardo da Vinci pastel and the garage sale Jackson Pollock (I know, who cares about a drip Pollock, but this is actually a mystery story) are solved by science.] Grann writes: "...Reporters work, in many ways, like authenticators. We encounter people, form intuitions about them, and then attempt to verify these impressions. I began to review Biro’s story; I spoke again with people I had already interviewed, and tracked down other associates. A woman who had once known him well told me, “Look deeper into his past. Look at his family business.” As I probed further, I discovered an underpainting that I had never imagined. ..." [which is why the story was barely half complete. David Grann deserves credit for digging through the layers of truth, which is what all reporters should aspire to. Even on CNN. Considering all the hours they have to fill, they could aspire to explaining complexity.] Grann's article "The Mark of a Masterpiece: The man who keeps finding famous fingerprints on uncelebrated works of art" is available online, as is John Cassidy on Volcker and Financial Reform. Alas, Jonathan Franzen on "Emptying the Skies: Songbird Slaughter in the Mediterranean" in the current issue is not. Songbird GENOCIDE is more apt. And, no, it is not about Israel, it is mostly about EU members Cyprus, Malta, and Italy. roasted robins for dinner? ugh.

- K2K

July 24, 2010 at 9:04pm

"...An international tribunal was established under United Nations auspices [in the Netherlands], ...a consensus has emerged in Lebanon — presumably, through leaks — that the tribunal will soon indict members of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement, for playing a role in the killing [2005 Beirut car bombing of then PM Rafik Hariri]. ...In a July 16 speech, Mr. Nasrallah cast the tribunal as part of an Israeli plot. ..." from Robert F. Worth's News Analysis "Hezbollah Looks for a Shield From Indictments’ Sting" in today's NYT. The idea of a United Nations tribunal as an Israeli plot. Priceless. I guess Hezbollah has officially graduated to "militant Shiite movement"

- K2K

July 24, 2010 at 9:40pm

Another fine example of a discussion that ends up with people implying that I said X (Hizbollah cleric was an ok guy) when in fact I not only did not say X but said Y (not necessarily a great idea to fire journalists who have connections to people and places we need to know about even if (a) said people are enemies/opponents and (b) the journalist broadcasts a dumb tweet). A very different matter. But why, oh why? Will I ever find the answer in this world of menacing shadows and hostile echoes?

- ironyroad

July 25, 2010 at 1:29am

You shouldn't blame your interlocutors ironyroad for being slightly ill-at-ease with the way your opinion has evolved in this thread. You began by saying: "the idea that we need to purge our media of anyone who strays outside the corral defined by precisely our opinions and precisely our range of loyalties is even dumber." OK. Went on to say: "we should be ready and indeed willing to live with people who ...have national and political and ideological preferences that aren't those of the (fairly narrow) American mainstream." Still no problem. "I don't see any evidence (so far) that Nasr was "endorsing" the guy." Shaky judgment as in the next comment you admit: "OK. I'll concede endorsement " Once you accepted that the tweet was an endorsement (of sorts) of the guy you turned into another lane of argument: "She may have been -- and I think the most surprising people are often unsure/confused/wrong about these things -- under the impression that a tweet is something like a comment made off-duty to a bunch of friends and acquaintances in a bar." That's just a lame excuse for her careless irresponsibility. When challenged yout went still into another lane: "Given that women's rights are often a flashpoint in discussions here on TNR -- e.g. regarding Afghanistan -- then a senior cleric who appears to be enlightened on that issue might well be worth taking a second look at." which was an awkward attempt (in my eyes) to cleanse the uncleansable 9at least as far as I'm concerned). When alerted to the way your comment could be interpreted, you complained: "Another fine example of a discussion that ends up with people implying that I said X (Hizbollah cleric was an ok guy) when in fact I not only did not say X but said Y (not necessarily a great idea to fire journalists who have connections to people and places we need to know about even if (a) said people are enemies/opponents and (b) the journalist broadcasts a dumb tweet). A very different matter." From the tangled web of your arguments here I come away thinking that you really decry the fact that Nasr was fired over this incident even though you are not yet quite sure why. FWIIW, I don't decry the firing nor do I support it but my reason for that is not that I don't realize the severity of what her tweet reveals. I do realize it and I know for a fact that the incident will be deployed as another "proof" against the power of the "Jewish Lobby".

- noga1

July 25, 2010 at 7:37am

ironyroad “Another fine example of a discussion that ends up with people implying that I said X (Hizbollah cleric was an ok guy) when in fact I not only did not say X but said Y (not necessarily a great idea to fire journalists who have connections to people and places we need to know about even if (a) said people are enemies/opponents and (b) the journalist broadcasts a dumb tweet). A very different matter.” Nonsense, Irony: You pointed out, indirectly, through quotation, that Fadlallah was pro feminist, as if that changed anything about his deadly views on other issues. As for Octavia, sorry, but nothing a journalists or a politician do or say relating to their jobs is private. This is especially true in the age of the twitter. In some countries, like Iran, opposition movements use the twitter to make public statements that their government otherwise forbid. This device isn’t a private diary; it’s a public message board. It is part of the media. Octavia should have been fired for being too dumb to know that. I don’t mind good unbiased reporters telling me what I don’t necessarily like but I don’t wish people with strong biased opinions delivering the news, or commenting upon it. That was the problem with much of the reporting by reporters from the early Soviet Union. They created an image that not easily eradictaed and a result millions of people were killed before people knew what was going on there.

- jdyer

July 25, 2010 at 11:08am

Noga, there's no mystery. I agree with Tom Friedman's take on the incident and I was largely reiterating what he said. Please refer to his piece (linked by Marty) if there's any obscurity on my part. I didn't alter the focus of my argument at all, but I did try to keep it intact as it was the victim of attempts to misread it. I'm not the only one responsible for the development of the thread, you know -- you and others are too, so in a moment of honesty you might look also to your and their comments for confusions and red herrings. By the way, in all this, is anyone accusing Nasr of fraudulent or unsourced or even unduly biased reporting in her career? Marty implies such, but doesn't provide any evidence or examples, and backs off in his very next sentence. JD: "You pointed out, indirectly, through quotation, that Fadlallah was pro feminist, as if that changed anything about his deadly views on other issues." Now I'm getting a little annoyed. Are you trying to wind me up or something? I quoted the guy as an explanation as to why Nasr (according to her own claim) appears to have respected him. If you believe that that doesn't change anything about "his deadly views on other issues," isn't that something you need to take up with Nasr rather than me? I'm not the one who said it and I'm inclined to agree with you there, in fact. FWIW, my broader sense of it is that firing Nasr is a way of giving her a cop-out on that -- as a reporter she should be pushed to thinking about that very issue you raise. And for pete's sake, stop bringing everything but the kitchen sink into it too! The Soviet Union is irrelevant. I'm beginning to think we need a set of basic rules on this board, which cover what are appropriate and what are inappropriate rhetorical gambits and responses. Certainly quoting out of context should be there, but also axioms such as: analogy doesn't automatically mean equivalence, absence of criticism of X doesn't mean agreement with X, and quotation for the purposes of explanation doesn't mean endorsement of the content of the quote. Disputation 101 in a way, but . . .

- ironyroad

July 25, 2010 at 12:19pm

But a bit hysterical and overwrought, no? On that other issue, malahat, I take your point but I just want to ask whether it was the CNN senior editor "advocating" in that capactity or Octavia Nasr the individual who goes home after work and has preferences, loyalties, eccentricities, and contradictory/inconsistent feelings and ideas, but who is of course connected to Octavia Nasr the journalist. As I noted, there's a pecular lack of evidence or examples in Marty's original post that Nasr was guilty of bad journalism, and he doesn't even try to make that stick.

- ironyroad

July 25, 2010 at 1:42pm

ironyroad “JD, Now I'm getting a little annoyed. Are you trying to wind me up or something? I quoted the guy as an explanation as to why Nasr (according to her own claim) appears to have respected him. If you believe that that doesn't change anything about "his deadly views on other issues," isn't that something you need to take up with Nasr rather than me? I'm not the one who said it and I'm inclined to agree with you there, in fact. FWIW, my broader sense of it is that firing Nasr is a way of giving her a cop-out on that -- as a reporter she should be pushed to thinking about that very issue you raise.” Your annoyance is annoying me, Irony. I didn’t think you quoted Freidman just for show. You agree with Freidman who doesn’t think that Octavia should have been fired. I think she should have; let’s leave it at that.

- jdyer

July 25, 2010 at 5:10pm

I have to agree with jackson. Not to belabour the point ironyroad but when you said the following: "Given that women's rights are often a flashpoint in discussions here on TNR -- e.g. regarding Afghanistan -- then a senior cleric who appears to be enlightened on that issue might well be worth taking a second look at." the impression was that you were no longer trying to explain Nasr but rather channeling your own view. But as the sentence is rendered in passive voice I guess you could claim it as a general observation not necessarily your own. As for "But a bit hysterical and overwrought, no?"; If the description this refers to was meant to apply to something happening here on these boards then i would say this is quite an understatement. As for Nasr's being fired, as I said I think it is something of a missed opportunity. She should have been allowed to remain based on the principle that a lesson has been learned and her understanding deepened as a result of this experience which hopefully would have made her a better journalist. As it is, I suspect that in whatever new job she will find herself (probably al-jazeera) she will be even more explicit in her bias. Human beings who are not terribly wise often react this way to being punished for something they don't feel deserved and from the kind of behaviour that she revealed she does not seem to be terribly wise.

- noga1

July 25, 2010 at 5:33pm

Noga, "hysterical and overwrought" was a self-critical reference to my metaphor, after malahat had said something nice about it. I agree in general with your last paragraph and I don't know why you keep misunderstanding me elsewhere. Again, I note the absence of any evidence that would suggest her journalistic or editorial work was inadequate or corrupt. JD, you have a perfect right to express the opinion that Nasr should have been fired; what you don't have the right to do is take an explanatory (not "just for show") quote from me and then act as if I fully endorse the content/implication of the quote. Whenever you do that, I'll be annoyed. Apparently you will too, but I can live with that. I gesture here at my comment earlier on my suggestions for basic debate etiquette: "quotation for the purposes of explanation doesn't mean endorsement of the content of the quote."

- ironyroad

July 25, 2010 at 5:54pm

"Noga, "hysterical and overwrought" was a self-critical reference to my metaphor, after malahat had said something nice about it." Yes, I realize that but I was referring to the metaphor itself and the fact that "hysterical and overwrought" did not do it the justice it deserved. To be perfectly blunt about it, if at any point in our conversations you feel this place to be a "world of menacing shadows and hostile echoes." then I feel strongly that the only time I need to respond to your comments is either in agreement or not at all. Otherwise you might construe any prolonged discussion to be a sort of a nightmarish scenario. Not too long ago you more or less accused me of stalking you (something about a gray cloud of spiteful innuendo following you around). Now you were complaining about "menacing shadows and hostile echoes." I don't know what to make of such language or such images being provoked by any comments of mine. It's pretty alarming.

- noga1

July 25, 2010 at 6:09pm

Yes, malahat I understand that as well. But I could only express in my own name how it made me feel as presumably I was included in that description. And there was that earlier "gray cloud" metaphor ...

- noga1

July 25, 2010 at 6:46pm

I think I was being consciously melodramatic, as malahat says, not to say baroque. Noga, that was from a different context, I don't think I said "stalking," but I did say "one-stop shopping". It was borne out of observing that you had specifically picked out me to confront over an issue where two other posters had said practically identical things, but received no such criticism (and it wasn't even a consolidated criticism for efficiency's sake -- you flatly ignored the other comments as if I was the only culprit).

- ironyroad

July 25, 2010 at 6:53pm

Octavia Nasr isn't the only one in the media with Hezbollah sympathies: "Stone for a brain" http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2010/07/stone-for-a-brain.html "There's an interview with Oliver Stone in today's Sunday Times, and therefore behind the paywall. Those of you without a sub will just have to take my word for it that he comes across as a not very likeable sort of chap; and my impression is that this is also the impression of his interviewer Camilla Long, although I may be wrong about that. Oliver Stone doesn't seem like a man I would want to count among my friends. Despite this, I will put such personal impressions and inclinations to one side, and try to judge him in a detached way on the basis of his quoted words. And on this basis I would say that his opinions are contemptible and brutish. Here are just two or three of them: He describes America's attitude to Iran as "horrible". "Iran isn't necessarily the good guy" - his incongruously dark eyebrows shoot up - "but we don't know the full story!" Ahhh, those hidden facts which might throw a different light on the repression of Iranian oppositionists, on the rapes and the tortures. The 10-part documentary [which Stone is planning] will address Stalin and Hitler "in context", he says. "Hitler was a Frankenstein but there was also a Dr Frankenstein. German industrialists, the Americans and the British. He had a lot of support." He also seeks to put his atrocities in proportion: "Hitler did far more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people, 25 or 30m." Why such a focus on the Holocaust then? "The Jewish domination of the media," he says. "There's a major lobby in the United States. They are hard workers. They stay on top of every comment, the most powerful lobby in Washington. Israel has f***** up United States foreign policy for years." No one who has taken any close interest in the history of the Second World War could be unfamiliar with the extent of Russian suffering and death under German occupation. So 'more damage to the Russians than the Jewish people' is a purely apologetic trope, since at that level of human catastrophe the insistence on maintaining a sense of proportion about five to six million Jewish dead is a plain attempt to diminish. And what follows that is then standard anti-Semitism: the Jews control the media and they work hard at it; and this is what accounts for the focus on the Holocaust (rather than any features of the genocide itself). As I said, and without regard to Stone's personal qualities: contemptible and brutish." Here is another example of progressive antisemitism! This could have been posted on the "progressive" Catholic thread also.

- jdyer

July 25, 2010 at 8:05pm

http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=14&x_article=1896 "...We might never know exactly whether or how Nasr's views contributed to skewing CNN's Mideast coverage, since her work was mostly behind the scenes. Not so with CNN's Senior International Correspondent Ben Wedeman. As with Nasr, a post on the Cairo-based correspondent's Twitter page raises serious questions about his objectivity. But in this case, the journalist's contributions to CNN seem to answer those questions in a way that should deeply trouble the network, as they suggest that his biases excessively influence his reporting. ..." July 21, 2010 by Gilead Ini "Bias by CNN Correspondent Ben Wedeman More than Just a Tweet" [the examples are all documented]

- K2K

July 25, 2010 at 8:12pm

Dan Abrams disagrees with Friedman: "I totally disagree with Friedman here. You have to make a choice — either journalists can express opinions about the people and subjects they cover or they can’t. I happen to believe that it would be far more honest and enlightening if journalists admitted their biases when they have strong feelings about issues they cover. That would allow the reader to judge what that should mean. But that is not the way CNN or The New York Times for that matter, operate. They claim that much of their value comes from dispassionate reporting with no bias towards one side or the other. So when a journalist who covers the middle east expresses admiration for the leader of a group that is at least partially a terror organization, its not just a small matter. He may have done other amazing things including being more progressive than others of his ilk, but can you imagine what would happen to an American journalist expressing admiration for an Al Quaeda leader who had other, better, attributes? When you work at a media entity like CNN (or the New York Times) and you don’t get that words matter — all of them– then that in and of itself, should be a fireable offense. Friedman claims the standard as follows: “A journalist should lose his or her job for misreporting, for misquoting, for fabricating, for plagiarizing, for systemic bias — but not for a message like this one.” Really? Misreporting? or Misquoting? So a journalist, according to Friedman should lose his or her job for what may have been a mistake but not for what is clearly a heartfelt bias towards one of the key figures in the most contentious issue that she covers? I think what he meant to say is that journalists ought to have more latitude to express opinions in this new media age. I agree. But then the standard has to be changed for everyone not just for her, and even then, I am not sure she can keep covering this story." http://www.mediaite.com/online/dan-abrams-takes-on-tom-friedman-over-octavia-nasrs-firing/

- noga1

July 26, 2010 at 7:05am

"Questions for ‘The New York Times’ " By ANDREA LEVIN [executive director and president of CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America] 07/26/2010 22:32 Jerusalem Post "Can their reports on Israel be trusted? The New York Times has hired a new public editor, Arthur Brisbane, to be an “advocate” for readers and to uphold “the highest standards in journalism.” Let’s hope he means it because a backlog of complaints about the publication’s coverage of Israel and the Middle East awaits him. Among unresolved matters is one evidently too hot for editors to handle. It concerns Jerusalem bureau chief Ethan Bronner’s statements on MSNBC revealing a strikingly jaundiced view of Israelis generally. He claimed in a March 8 broadcast that unfavorable views of Barack Obama on the part of the Israeli electorate reflected not just dismay over the policies of the president, but also collective public “prejudice” and “racism.” The incendiary charge is belied empirically by poll data showing Israelis had actually favored Obama over John McCain in the 2008 election, and until the late spring of 2009 continued to approve quite enthusiastically of the young American president, with 60 percent expressing favorable opinion toward him. Attitudes shifted when his policies roused concerns – not, obviously, because Israelis suddenly noticed his race. Yet Times editors have stonewalled in setting the record straight. (According to the Times’ own standards, its writers are not to make statements in other media outlets that couldn’t also appropriately appear in the paper.) Equally notable in this matter is Bronner’s double standard. While dubbing Israelis racists, he has avoided applying the term to bigoted Arab attacks against the Jewish state. A Nexis search finds not a single case in which he directly labeled Palestinians or Arabs racists – notwithstanding the many documented examples of anti-Semitic media, political and religious statements from Arab sources. IN A sea of similar cases, a February 28 screed by Hamas’s deputy minister of religious endowments aired on Al-Aksa TV just days before Bronner labeled Israelis racists. The Muslim cleric declared: [The Jews] want to present themselves to the world as if they have rights, but, in fact, they are foreign bacteria – a microbe unparalleled in the world. It’s not me who says this. The Koran itself says that they have no parallel: “You shall find the strongest men in enmity to the believers to be the Jews.” May He annihilate this filthy people who have neither religion nor conscience.I condemn whoever believes in normalizing relations with them, whoever supports sitting down with them, and whoever believes that they are human beings. They are not human beings. They are not people. They have no religion, no conscience, and no moral values."(Translation by Middle East Media Research Institute.) The question is: Can a reporter who falsely imputes bigoted sentiment to the Israeli population, while ignoring ferocious prejudice on the part of the Arabs, be trusted on any subject related to the Jewish state? There are other questions for the public editor, including those about the Times’ heavy reliance on radical NGOs for quotes and story ideas focused on biased criticism of Israel, and the paper’s portrayal of these sources as objective and credible. Thus, reporters frequently cite – to name but a few – Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and Gisha. As Haaretz’s military correspondent observed regarding Breaking the Silence, “Any organization whose Web site includes the claim by members to expose the ‘corruption which permeates the military system’ is not a neutral observer.” Indicative of the disregard for fairness and objectivity, Israeli soldier “testimonies” posted on its Web site alleging various infractions are anonymous and include no dates or specifics, making investigation – and refutation – impossible. B’Tselem, created to “change Israeli policy in the occupied territories” and to monitor treatment of Palestinians there, has categorized terrorists such as Abdul Salaam Sadek Hassouneh, who murdered six at a bat mitzva celebration in 2002, as “civilians” killed by Israel. Similar distortions minimizing violence against Israelis color much of B’Tselem’s work. Gisha pursues legal measures against Israel, charging “segregation,” and signs ads alleging it is an apartheid regime. Its reports minimize or ignore entirely the threats against Israel. Yet the Times invokes these groups’ claims as worthy and valid. The same whitewashing of extremist sources occurs in other ways readers will likely never notice. A story on May 7 by Bronner deceptively cited “Nancy Kricorian, a New York City novelist and poet who visited here for the first time as part of the Palestinian [writers’] festival.” The “novelist and poet,” who was quoted as “infuriated” at “military checkpoints and the separation barrier,” was presented as an apolitical literary soul newly encountering Middle East realities. Actually, Kricorian is the New York coordinator of the far-left Code Pink organization and promotes stridently anti-Israel political positions, including the organization’s “Stolen Beauty” boycott campaign against the Ahava company, creator and marketer of Dead Sea beauty products. Brisbane will do the public and the paper a service to address squarely the increasingly tainted Times coverage, including urging an apology by Bronner for his smearing of Israelis, requiring candid identification of radical (and factually questionable) sources being cited and encouraging prominent coverage of the virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric of Israel’s neighbors that undermines hopes for peace." The writer is executive director and president of CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. [copied entirely from]: http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=182698

- K2K

July 26, 2010 at 4:16pm

I remember reading this May 7 NYT Bronner story, and remember wondering at the time how Bronner had found Nancy Kricorian for this quote because it seemed biassed (to me) to highlight only someone who was "infuriated", so am copying this part of Andrea Levin's article from my previous post while I let it sink in that Ms. Kricorian is also the New York coordinator for Code Pink: "...A story on May 7 by Bronner deceptively cited “Nancy Kricorian, a New York City novelist and poet who visited here for the first time as part of the Palestinian [writers’] festival.” The “novelist and poet,” who was quoted as “infuriated” at “military checkpoints and the separation barrier,” was presented as an apolitical literary soul newly encountering Middle East realities. Actually, Kricorian is the New York coordinator of the far-left Code Pink organization and promotes stridently anti-Israel political positions, ..." [I would add that it must be nice for Kricorian to be married to Oscar-winner and co-founder of Focus Features, James Schamus. Which maybe explains the odd (to me) view of American-Jewish life depicted in "A Serious Man", not that I intend to watch it a second time, which is how I usually feel after a Focus Features film for some reason, that once was enough, even for the really good ones]

- K2K

July 26, 2010 at 4:43pm

"Friedman claims the standard as follows: “A journalist should lose his or her job for misreporting, for misquoting, for fabricating, for plagiarizing, for systemic bias — but not for a message like this one.” Really? Misreporting? or Misquoting? So a journalist, according to Friedman should lose his or her job for what may have been a mistake but not for what is clearly a heartfelt bias towards one of the key figures in the most contentious issue that she covers?" Noga, I can't say for absolutely sure, but I really think it's obvious that Friedman meant deliberate misreporting or misquoting here, not an accidental mistake. Abrams argument is a bit shaky if not disingenuous. Again, I'm not trying to say that there are no good arguments for the firing of Nasr as it took place. There are, and they have been given a wide airing here. What I am trying to say is something I imagined would be pretty unobjectionable, to wit, that it might be worth some thought about the closing down of current affairs input because the agent of input is bringing information that we don't want to hear. In this case, the cleric and Hizbollah leader indicted by our side for fomenting hatred, condoning murder etc is admired and respected by large numbers of people in his neck of the woods (including a CNN editor) for what appear to be his comparatively enlightened and even rather challenging views on women's rights, something that we claim is an important issue for us.

- ironyroad

July 26, 2010 at 5:33pm

malahat: we know Nasr admired Fadlallah from her tweet. I agree with you on the main reasons why his views on the status of women are tertiary at best. anyway, it would appear that wikileak-mania has hit everyone in the U.S. except me because I guess I read enough news sources to not be surprised by Assange's news-cycle-coup. He said he was going to do this to Raffi Khatchadourian in his profile of June 7, "No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency" http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/06/07/100607fa_fact_khatchadourian

- K2K

July 26, 2010 at 8:59pm

The indispensible McDonaghon takes on Andrew S. " Andrew Sullivan Exonerates Himself of Antisemite" by Eamonn McDonaghon http:// blog.z-word.com/2010/07/andrew-sullivan-exonorates-himself-of-antisemitism/

- jdyer

July 26, 2010 at 9:53pm

A few days ago I said that the Paper Marty linked to routinely publishes anti semitic articles under the cover of their being crtiticism of Israel. McDonaghon has been writing about this for ages: "Spiteful Drivel In El País, Number 7731" by Eamonn McDonaghon http://blog.z-word.com/2010/07/spiteful-drivel-in-el-pais-number-7731/

- jdyer

July 26, 2010 at 9:56pm

The indispensible McDonaghon takes on Andrew S. " Andrew Sullivan Exonerates Himself of Antisemite" by Eamonn McDonaghon blog.z-word.com/2010/07/andrew-sullivan-exonorates-himself-of-antisemitism/

- jdyer

July 26, 2010 at 9:57pm

malahat: "I wasn't questioning whether Nasr et al in the region admired and respected Fadlallah, but rather on what basis Irony would attribute those sentiments to Fadlallah's relatively liberal stance on the status of women." Apparently, she said so. In her own capacity, at least, not for "et al."

- ironyroad

July 26, 2010 at 10:21pm

It's Eamonn McDonagh. Not McDonaghon.

- noga1

July 26, 2010 at 10:53pm

Yea, it McDonagh. In the process of copy and paste, since there is no space between the "on" and the last name, I ended up posting them together.

- jdyer

July 26, 2010 at 11:27pm

malahat, -- no problem. It's referenced in Friedman's piece toward the end, but without any link or exact source. But it is in quotes, so I assumed TF didn't invent it.

- ironyroad

July 27, 2010 at 12:15am

It appears here, malahat, in the letter of explanation she published after she was let go: http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2010/07/06/nasr-explains-controversial-tweet-on-lebanese-cleric/ I have to say it is a much much more honest account of the man than Robert Fisk's which you can google if you wish to read. Fisk, as is his malicious dishonest wont, completely washes Fadlala's record and denies that there ever was any connection between him and Hizbala or that his support for suicide terrorism was anything at all to be denigrated. I wish someone would let him go, indefatigable inciter and liar that he is. If you wish, you can read this account from an Arab blogger about Fadlala's 2009 fatwa against Israel. I mean for those who want their news more middleasternly reliable: http://www.arabdemocracy.com/2009/09/fadlallahs-fatwa-on-israel-unhelpful.html

- noga1

July 27, 2010 at 8:32am

First they accuse then they apologize: Is Stone tupid or just pathetic? "Oliver Stone apologises for claim Hitler was a 'scapegoat' in World War Two 'who did more damage to Russia than Jews'" By Daniel Bates This has become a genre all to itself: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1298023/Oliver-Stone-apologises-claim-Hitler-scapegoat.html and the apology is as pathetic as the original claims and hard to believe. Stone says: 'Jews don't control the media,' to which an antisemite would reply: 'well they got to you too, didn't they.'

- jdyer

July 27, 2010 at 11:17am

Same here, malahat.

- jdyer

July 27, 2010 at 12:17pm