Fadlallah As Liberal Darling

The Daily Star‘s Michael Young and the Weekly Standard‘s Lee Smith are making similar points on the western media’s perception of Ayatollah Fadlallah and Hezbollah.

Young:

Fadlallah was a fascinating individual, worthy of study and, at times, esteem. But in reading the passages used to describe him, you get a powerful sense that the accolades were really directed at an imagined Fadlallah, the product of the authors’ yearning to conjure up a tolerant Islam in clerical garb.

Smith:

The Western press delights in rattling the bourgeois sensibilities of its audience by showing the multifaceted aspects of Hezbollah–it’s not just a militia with an appetite for slaughtering Jews, it’s also a social welfare outfit that provides educational opportunities [..] This infatuation with Hezbollah has been going on for years

Perhaps, but in the end, Octavia Nasr was fired and Seymour Hersh kept his job. 
 
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