United National Antiwar Coalition Statement – 2018-12-08 00:31:22

Special to Environmentalist Against War

Controversy over CNN’s Firing of Marc Lamont Hill
United National Antiwar Coalition Statement

(December 3, 2018) — Temple University professor and CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill was fired from CNN after giving a powerful speech at the United Nations in support of Palestinian rights. The Nov. 29, 2018, UN meeting was to commemorate the 70th year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The meeting also fell on the 70th anniversary of the Nakba, when 700,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes by the newly declared state of Israel and hundreds of Palestinian towns and villages were emptied and destroyed.

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Hill equated the Palestinian struggle to the struggle for Black liberation in the US and specifically mentioned the solidarity that was expressed between the Palestinian people and the people of Ferguson, Mo., as they protested the cop murder of Michael Brown.

Hill also said that words are not enough and that we must all take action. He said that justice requires a “free Palestine from the river to the sea.” This last statement has been especially criticized by Zionist organizations and individuals as meaning, in their minds, that the Palestinians want genocide of the Jewish people.

But what it calls for is simply freedom for Palestinians in their own land. If Zionists don’t like this statement then we must ask them, “In which area from the river to the sea should the Palestinian people not be free?” Unfortunately, through their actions, their answer has been all of it.

As CNN proclaims itself a bastion of freedom of speech, it denies this freedom to Marc Lamont Hill and all who speak truth to power. They afford freedom of speech only to those who agree with the reactionary politics of the CNN editors and censors.

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