Saturday, August 03, 2013

Anne Barnard reprots on Nasrallah's speech

First, how could you take seriously her report on Nasrallah speech when the speech was delivered in a language that she does not understand and when the full translation of the speech was not even available when she wrote that commentary?  To be sure, she relies on the Lebanese pro-March 14 staff who surround her, but come on.  Would you rely on my analysis of speeches by Chinese leaders, when I don't know Chinese, even if I were to write the analysis from China, as if the location adds wisdom to the analysis?  Look what she said:  "declared that his Shiite followers would not bend in the face of rising anti-Shiite sentiment among those who oppose his support for the Syrian government."  What on earth is that?  I don't even know what she means and don't know what she was told but he made no such point in the speech (I will write about the speech for Al-Akhbar English).  He talked about the anti-Shi`ite campaign not in the context of Syria but in the context of Palestine. He did not even talk about Syria yesterday.  Then Anne Barnard says:  "Speaking on Al Quds Day, also known as Jerusalem Day."  Ha ha ha and ha. Don't you like "also known" as Jerusalem Day? She does not even know that Jerusalem Day is English for Quds Day.  How ignorant can a foreign correspondent be, damn it?  She adds:  "Mr. Nasrallah...also invoked the Palestinian cause to shore up his party’s legitimacy inside Lebanon."  Invoked?? The speech was all about Palestine, Ms. Barnad, and don't take my word for it, ask your March 14 staff.  Then she adds:  "the controversy has threatened Hezbollah’s political dominance, helped to bring down the government". What? The controversy brought down the government? Hizbullah brought down the government.  She then thinks that she (or her March 14 staff) caught Nasrallah in a sectarian moment:  "But on Friday, he declared, to cheers, “Many times I speak as a nationalist, as a Muslim, but I’m going to speak as a Shiite.”"  Did your staff report to you the rest of the statement? Did they report to you that the next part of the sentence was that he was speaking as a Shi`ite to tell the Shi`ites to not abandon Palestine despite all pressures? Was the second part of the statement not necessary to report?  She then adds:  "
Mr. Nasrallah has sought to justify Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria — which has helped Mr. Assad reclaim some areas long held by rebels — by arguing that the Syrian revolution was instigated by Israel and its Western allies.  “They are trying push the people to focus on another enemy, inventing other wars,” he said."  That was the context of those remarks but why do I bother with you, this is like teaching an elephant to play the piano.  But I must confess that her service to Israeli propaganda in the last part of the lousy article was quite hilarious, and inserted for no known reason:  "Israel, which Mr. Nasrallah called “a cancer” that must be eradicated, has said it is not interfering in Syria’s conflict."