Home > Hezbollah Denounces Evrensel Interview of Nasrallah as a Fake

Hezbollah Denounces Evrensel Interview of Nasrallah as a Fake

by Open-Publishing - Friday 1 September 2006
5 comments

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Hezbollah Denounces Evrensel Interv...

The Interview That Wasn’t

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Hussain Rahhal, Hezbollah’s press liaison, has issued a written statement:

"Our secretary general Nasrallah has not given any interviews to any Turkish or other non-Lebanese journalist during the month of August. In the face of this imaginary interview that is untruthful, and hence does damage to journalism, credibility and objectivity, Hezbollah reserves its right to take legal action against those who have published it."

This is in reference to an interview purporting to be of Hezbollah’s leader,Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah, by a Turkish collective in Beirut. It was published in Evrensel, a socialist Turkish daily, on August 12 and 13, causing some stir in the Turkish press. It was translated into English and posted on least one left site, Marxmail, one of whose readers forwarded it to CounterPunch. We ran excerpts from it on August 17.

In an item last weekend I noted charges that the interview was fraudulent, also interesting and important observations about radical components in the Shi’a tradition, which might buttress arguments for the interview’s genuineness. I hope this particular fakery won’t discredit those insights, which are important for the left.

Hezbollah’s denunciation is categorical, and should be taken as the last word, though if there are any significant or interesting updates we’ll let CounterPunchers know. I do find Hezbollah’s threat of legal action somewhat comical. Will they also try to drag Rupert Murdoch and Ted Turner and other barons of the First World press into the World Court for misrepresentation? Wasn’t that the hope of the proposed New World Information Order, twenty-five or so years ago?

Forum posts

  • Here are a few quotations of Nasrallah that are not fake:

    In the New Yorker, 14/10/02:
    “If we searched the entire world for a person more cowardly, despicable, weak and feeble in psyche, mind, ideology and religion, we would not find anyone like the Jew. Notice, I do not say the Israeli.”

    In the Lebanese paper Daily Star, 23/10/02:
    “If they (Jews) all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

    On Al-Jazeera, 03/02/06:
    "For example, a few years ago, a great French philosopher, Roger Garaudy, wrote a scientific book. He did not offend, curse, or insult anyone. He wrote a scientific research of an academic nature, in which he discussed the alleged Jewish Holocaust in Germany. He proved that this Holocaust is a myth.”

    • Why should we believe these quotes any faster than the fake Turkish interview?

    • I don’t know much about speeches of Nasrallah. But I read all the transcripts of the speeches of Irans president Ahmadinejad and he never made any of those remarks which have been published by the American, UK and some Yellow Press in Germany.
      The press should be ashamed of itself, nowadays it is a criminal act to enforce lies.

    • You’re absolutely right. The speeches of Iran’s president have been deliberately mistranslated into English. You say "it is a criminal act to enforce lies." It SHOULD be, but it seems to be the opposite of how the media are acting.

    • Yes, especially the translations coming out of MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute, based in Washington D.C.) are to be suspect. They have a free translation service that peruses Near East papers and stories that you mail them and they will translate and transcribe it. The are not honest in their effort.

      The organization is header by Meyrev Wurmser who is extremely right-wing pro-Israel woman (and part of AEI and PNAC) and an ex-Mossad agent.

      Can you say, "agenda".