CNN sacks senior Middle East editor

[faceless]

CNN fires journalist for tweeting her praise for Islamic cleric
CNN International has fired one of its senior editors after she published a Twitter message lamenting the death of a Lebanese Shi'ite cleric.

Nasr, a 20-year CNN veteran based in Atlanta, departed from the channel after "a conversation" with Parisa Khosravi, a CNN senior vice president. The channel was reported by the New York Times to have been alerted to the tweet by some supporters of Israel. Fadlallah was also the spiritual leader of Hezbollah when it was formed after Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, though he later distanced himself from its ties with Iran.

A CNN spokesman said: "CNN regrets any offence her Twitter message caused. It did not meet CNN's editorial standards." Nasr is quoted in a BBC report as calling her tweet "an error of judgment". She said she had been referring to Fadlallah's "pioneering" views on women's rights. She said in a blog posting: "Reaction to my tweet was immediate, overwhelming and 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."

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If the tables were turned and she'd shown respect for an Israeli religious leader, the ratty, snide supporters of Israel would have been kissing her arse... bollocks to CNN.

[Colston]

The evil wicked hand of Israel stretches forth like that of Sauron from Mordor....

[luke]

UK envoy's praise for Lebanon cleric draws Israel anger
Israel has criticised Britain's ambassador to Lebanon for eulogising a recently deceased Lebanese cleric said to have inspired Hezbollah.

Frances Guy wrote on her personal blog that Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah was a "decent man" who rated among the people she most admired.

An Israeli spokesman said Ayatollah Fadlallah was "unworthy of praise".

The UK foreign office says it has taken down the blog after "mature consideration".

It said the comments reflected Ms Guy's personal opinion, not official UK policy.

Ayatollah Fadlallah, Lebanon's top Shia Muslim cleric, died on Sunday at the age of 74. Thousands of people attended his funeral in Beirut and tributes poured in from all over the Arab and Islamic worlds.

Two days ago, CNN sacked a veteran Middle East editor who wrote on Twitter that she "respected" the late cleric, saying that her credibility had been compromised.

Controversial figure

Ayatollah Fadlallah was customarily described as the spiritual leader of the militant movement Hezbollah when it was formed in 1982 - a claim both he and the group denied.

Ms Guy, who has been ambassador since 2006, wrote on her blog that Ayatollah Fadlallah was the politician in Lebanon she most enjoyed meeting.

"The world needs more men like him willing to reach out across faiths, acknowledging the reality of the modern world and daring to confront old constraints," she wrote.

Israel's foreign ministry denounced the comments.

"We believe that the spiritual leader of [Hezbollah] is unworthy of any praise or eulogising," a spokesman told the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot.

"If Hezbollah was firing missiles at London and Glasgow, would this leader still be called 'decent'?" he added.

Ayatollah Fadlallah was a controversial figure.

He was revered as one of Shia Islam's highest religious authorities and won support from many Muslims for his anti-American stance and his support for the Islamic revolution in Iran.

He advocated suicide attacks as a means of fighting Israel, and has been linked to the 1983 suicide bombings that killed more 300 American troops at the US marine barracks in Beirut.

But he condemned the 9/11 terror attacks and had relatively progressive views on the role of women in society.

'Personal view'

Hezbollah's military wing is proscribed in the UK as a terrorist organisation.

But Ms Guy, who has met with Hezbollah officials on several occasions, wrote that Ayatollah Fadlallah's passing left Lebanon "a lesser place".

"When you visited him you could be sure of a real debate, a respectful argument and you knew you would leave his presence feeling a better person," she wrote.

"That for me is the real effect of a true man of religion; leaving an impact on everyone he meets, no matter what their faith."

The British foreign office said it had removed the blog post as it did not fully reflect the British government's policy.

"The ambassador expressed a personal view on Sheik Sayyed Fadlallah, describing the man as she knew him," a spokesman told the BBC.

"While we welcomed his progressive views on women's rights and interfaith dialogue, we also had profound disagreements - especially over his statements advocating attacks on Israel," he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/10572025.stm

[faceless]

So now the official Ambassador isn't allowed to express her opinion? I wonder if there are any MPs who'd speak against such undemocratic oppression?

[luke]

this was posted on medialens;

The BBC report on the blog UK envoy's praise for Lebanon cleric draws Israel anger, contains a summary of Fadlallah's alleged crime sheet. Funnily enough it doesn't find room to mention the failed CIA assassination attempt on the cleric in 1985 in which 80 innocent men, women and children died and over 200 were injured.

from wiki;

Assassination attempt
Further information: 1985 Beirut car bombing

As one of the alleged leaders of Hezbollah, a status both he and the group denied[7] he was the target of several assassination attempts, including the allegedly CIA-sponsored and Saudi-funded [8] March 8,1985 Beirut car bombing that killed 80 people.[9][10]

On 8 March 1985, a car bomb equivalent to 440 lb (200 kg) of dynamite exploded 9–45 metres[11][12] from his house in Beirut, Lebanon. The blast destroyed a 7 story apartment building, a cinema, killed 80 people and wounded 256. The attack was timed to go off as worshippers were leaving Friday Prayers. Most of the dead were girls and women, who had been leaving the mosque, though the ferocity of the blast "burned babies in their beds," "killed a bride buying her trousseau," and "blew away three children as they walked home from the mosque." It also "devastated the main street of the densely populated" West Beirut suburb.[13][14] but Fadl-Allāh escaped injury. One of his bodyguards at the time was Imad Mughniyeh, who was later assassinated in a car-bombing in February 2008.[15]

According to Bob Woodward, CIA director William Casey was involved in the attack, which he suggests was carried out with funding from Saudi Arabia.[16] Former Lebanese warlord and statesman Elie Hobeika was fingered as one of those likely responsible for the actual operation.[17]

[luke]

Robert Fisk: CNN was wrong about Ayatollah Fadlallah

I might have guessed it. CNN has fired one of its senior Middle East editors, Octavia Nasr, for publishing a twitter – or twatter in this case, I suppose – extolling Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah of Lebanon, calling him "one of Hizbollah's giants whom I respect a lot".

Well, he wasn't Hizbollah's man, but no matter. He was definitely a giant. A man of immense learning and jurisprudence, a believer in women's rights, a hater of "honour crimes", a critic of the theocratic system of government in Iran, a ... Well, I'd better be careful because I might get a phone call from Parisa Khosravi, who goes by the title of CNN's "senior vice president" – what these boss types do or what they get paid for their gutless decisions I have no idea – who said this week that she had "had a conversation" with Nasr (who'd been with the company for 20 years) and "we have decided that she will be leaving the company".

Oh deary, deary. Poor old CNN goes on getting more cowardly by the hour. That's why no one cares about it any more. That can't be said about Fadlallah. The Americans put it about that he had blessed the suicide bomber who struck the US marine base in Beirut in 1983, killing 241 service personnel. Fadlallah always denied this to me and I believe him. Suicide bombers, however insane we regard them, don't need to be blessed; they think they are doing God's duty without any help from a marja like Fadlallah. But anyway, Washington used Saudi money to arrange a car bombing to assassinate Fadlallah in 1985. It missed Fadlallah. But it killed more than 80 innocent people. I do wonder what Ms Khosravi would have thought of that. No comment, I guess.

And now it turns out that the British ambassador to Lebanon, Frances Guy, has written on her personal blog that Fadlallah was a man she respected and most enjoyed meeting in Lebanon. What possesses these personalities to have blogapops all over the place I have no idea. But Ms Guy has incurred the anger of the Israeli foreign ministry, whose spokesman says it would be "interesting" to know what the British Foreign Office thinks of her remarks. Personally, I would be far more "interested" in what the Israeli foreign ministry knows of the British passports its government forged in order to murder a man in Dubai not many months ago.

But it just goes to show that Fadlallah – who was also a poet – can get people's backs up, even in death. When my friend and colleague Terry Anderson was kidnapped in Beirut – at almost seven years underground, he qualified as the longest-held hostage – I went to see Fadlallah, whom Anderson had himself recently interviewed. "He was in my home and he was under my protection," he said to me. "I regard him as my friend." This remark might have been what kept Terry alive: by extraordinary chance, Terry was back in Beirut this week with a party of students, although I always wondered if his visit to the southern suburbs of the city was what got him nobbled.

In those days, we journos called Fadlallah Hizbollah's "spiritual mentor", though that wasn't true. He did support the Lebanese resistance during Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and he was a fierce opponent of US policy in the region – like almost everyone else in the world, including the US, it seems – and he demanded an end of Shia blood-shedding ceremonies at Ashura (when Shias mourn the killing of the Prophet's grandson).

I went to see Fadlallah again with kidnapping much on my mind. I was heading off to Baghdad and sought his guidance on how to avoid being abducted. He listened kindly to me and announced that I should see a close Shia Muslim religious friend of his in the Iraqi capital. This I did. And was escorted to Najaf and Karbala by an associate of the friend who sat in his religious clothes in the front of the car, reading the Koran all the way. "I was very worried for you," Fadlallah's friend said when I returned. So now you tell me, I exclaimed.

But there was a further reason for Fadlallah's help. For every hour I was in the Iraqi holy cities, I had to meet a Shia clergyman, each of them former students of Fadlallah. And each of them would hand me a vast pile of writings and documents – their accumulated sermons over the past 10 or 15 years. To each I promised to pass their papers to Fadlallah. And thus it was that, a month later, a suspicious-looking Fisk turned up in the southern suburbs of Beirut with two massive suitcases. Fadlallah greeted me with a huge smile. He knew what the bags contained. Fisk had been a courier for more jurisprudence than he could imagine. And Fadlallah knew what his colleagues in Najaf and Karbala were talking about.

I couldn't, frankly, care less what senior vice president Khosravi of CNN thinks of this story – though spare me one of her "conversations" – nor do I care what the Israeli foreign ministry thinks. Nor British ambassadors, for that matter. But I do believe that Fadlallah was a very serious and very important man whose constant sermons on the need for spiritual regeneration and kindness did more good than most in a country constantly flooded in a rhetoric bath. Hundreds of thousands attended his funeral in Beirut on Tuesday. I am not surprised.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-cnn-was-wrong-about-ayatollah-fadlallah-2023179.html