l'affaire Octavia Nasr

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.