Yes Hezbollah got giants and no one can deny it in Lebanon where it is legal official party participating in the Lebanese political life. Despite our sectarian and political difference ,I can't deny the important role of Sheikh Hussein Fadallah played may Allah bless his soul in the Islamic world as he was the most prominent figures of Shiite sect who worked carefully on building bridges between the Sunni and Shiite for the sake of Islam in that hard time. I believe considering him the main cleric or spiritual leader of Hezbollah only is a way to underestimate that man's role in Lebanese public life.
United States and Israel must understand this reality : Hezbollah is an official political party with a real political power in the country , I think all those years and all these wars proved that it is not a militia or a terrorist group as they claim.
I can't believe that for 140 letters tweet , this lady is going to leave CNN after all those years. Of course some will ask me about her neutrality as a journalist and I will answer again that I do not think that what she tweeted was against her neutrality because Fadallah was a very important and respectable personality in Lebanon not at the Southern suburb or the South only.Of course she would have continued in her place if she tweeted : Fadallah to hell !!!
I think it is Octavia's job to keep open channels and speak about every party in Lebanon in respectable neutral way as much as possible so she would not lose an important source of news but this does not matter because after all those years this lady has to lose her job in less that 48 hours because of 140 tweet !!
First it was Helen Thomas and now Octavia Nasr , who else will pay the price of saying what is on his mind !!??
Well..I have to disagree with the comparing her to Helen Thomas!
ReplyDeleteI'm totally supporting Octavia and it's 100% not fair to be let go like that because of a certain PERSONAL tweet..
But she deleted the tweet, wrote a post "explaining" herself and tweeted that she regretted saying it!! Why did she do that??
Helen Thomas كانت قد كلمتها!! And didn't regret speaking out what she believes in!!
Mourning a person who is on US terror list and who is suspected from organizing mass murder of US state citizens. hmmm what actually happened
ReplyDeleteIt is like Al-Ahram journalist mourning for Abdel-Rahman or Ariel Sharon.
Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. It has nothing to do with Lebanese "liberation." Lebanon is free from Israeli occupation; the only occupying powers now are Syria and Iran. In a perfect world, Hezbollah would be shut down.
ReplyDeleteI can pick a thousand reasons to fire Octavia Nasr, as her analysis of the mid-east was meek and at best tenuous, but to fire her over a tweet!!!!!! That is just pathetic, who’s next??? Anderson Cooper for holding hands with his boyfriend in public——sheesh CNN grow a pair!
ReplyDelete@Anon: Just bec Israel calls them so doesnt mean its true. Lebanon is not free from Israel in fact there are still occupied lands that Israel still didnt give back. Also, Israeli soldiers and war planes frequently get into Lebanon, that is no free country by any means.
ReplyDeleteSyrian army has been out for few years now and well when you have a photo of Iranian army plz care to pass it to the media. In a perfect World, Israel wont be allowed to carry on like that, its nuclear and army capabilities will be taken down and then only then there will be no need for military entities like Hizballah bec every country will be respected and allowed to have its own army and sovereignty recognized.
@nightS, the analogy between Helen Thomas and Octavia Nasr is pretty close I think. It didn't occur to Thomas, who must be in her 90s, that someone carrying a tiny cell phone might post a high-quality video of her on the Internet, and so she failed to keep her mouth shut. It didn't occur to Nasr that if you have a private opinion it's better to whisper it in your friend's ear than to Twitter it to millions. We can agree or disagree with the opinions Thomas and Nasr expressed, but we can surely agree they are technologically clueless in discerning which forums are private.
ReplyDeleteOne may agree with the opinions they expressed. That's not my point. In American mainstream polite society, saying the Jews should go back to Germany or praising official State Department designated terrorist organizations is beyond the pale for news media personalities. It is no surprise they lost their jobs. They were incredibly stupid, and deserved to be fired for that reason alone. I don't know protocol in Egypt, but the same thing would happen in any corporate environment in the US. If you make public pronouncements that hurt the reputation of the company that employs you, expect to be fired. There's no controversy at all in such cases. People get fired for that every day.
I assume you mean PC?!?!? As 'polite' does not compute into any calculus.
ReplyDelete1 Your analogy plays into bigoted divisiveness which is not pertinent here and I frankly resent!
2 Your employer firing you over a personal tweet breaches your 1st amendment rights my corporate friend!
Regardless CNN has made a pact with many a Middle East devil; from Taliban mullahs to the fascist hate network aljazeera, ergo negating that 'terrorist list' petty argument/excuse. Octavia is not the sharpest knife in their Atlanta shed, I wanted her out years ago!
They probably wanted to get rid of her and along came the perfect opportunity to bring on a fresh face. CNN have a long record of being spineless from Judy Woodruff (forced retirement to Paula Zahn (Pay cut/resignation)---bottom middle aged women are dispensable in network news! Only a few have the gravitas to prolong their career like Couric.
Welcome to the 'Polite' society of network news!
@paxmachina
ReplyDelete1 Your analogy plays into bigoted divisiveness which is not pertinent here and I frankly resent!
That Helen and Octavia embarrassed their employers is not an analogy, it is the literal truth. It's unfortunate that you resent the truth, because nobody can help you with that.
2 Your employer firing you over a personal tweet breaches your 1st amendment rights my corporate friend!
The tweet turns out not to have been personal after all, doesn't it. Moreover, their 1st amendment rights were not breached in any way shape or form. Octavia and Helen exercised their first amendment rights fully. Neither the federal nor any state govenment tried, jailed, fined or subpoened them for what they said. The right to embarrass your employer without being fired, however, is not in the constitution. I'm sorry you don't like it, but that's how the law works.
Frankly, paxmachina, I'm a little worried that you don't understand that if something is secret, then you'd better not tweet it. Octavia just learned that the hard way. If you are an aficionado of Twitter, you would be well-advised to take Octavia's lesson to heart.
@paxmachina, by the way Katie Couric is usually described as "perky and cute". I have never heard anyone ascribe "gravitas" to her, but there's a first time for everything.
ReplyDelete*Yawn!
ReplyDeleteFrankly we can agree to disagree!
As one can argue both sides of this pathetic incident!
BTW I was talking about your 'nazi' bating on an arab website, which was totally uncalled for!
ReplyDelete@paxmachina, I can understand that "Jews should go back to Germany" could sound like Nazi baiting but I did not intend it to be. It was my paraphrase for what Helen said as best I could remember. OK, I am off to Google...
ReplyDeleteHere is the YouTube video.
And the transcript:
Nesenoff: Any comments on Israel? We're asking everybody today--
Thomas: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.
Nesenoff: Ooh. Any better comments?
Thomas (laughing): Remember, these people are occupied, and it's their land, not German and not Polish.
Nesenoff: So where should they go? What should they do?
Thomas: They should go home.
Nesenoff: Where is home?
Thomas: Poland. Germany.
Nesenoff: So you're saying the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?
Thomas: And America, and everywhere else.
As you point out, paxmachina, this is a Web site frequented by Arabs. Helen's sentiments are shared by many Arabs probably including you and Zeinobia. But in America most people will be offended by it. A news personality who says it publicly destroys their reputation and that of their employer. No offense intended. I disagree with many things I read here but I still love Egyptian Chronicles and learn a lot here.