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When This Western Journalist Reports on Hezbollah

When This Western Journalist Reports on Hezbollah
folder_openSelected Articles access_time6 years ago
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Ali Kourani

Three days ago, Western journalist and Hezbollah ‘connoisseur' Sulome Anderson published another article for Newsweek based on several interviews with ‘Hezbollah commanders', titled "The Next Middle East War? Hezbollah May Risk Everything in All-Out Fight With ‘Israel'". This time, however, the article centered around a trip she took into regime-controlled Syria, and included a video documenting the trip and her interviews.

When This Western Journalist Reports on Hezbollah

Anderson has faced backlash in the past over the authenticity of her sources [her articles are based on interviews she claims to have conducted with numerous Hezbollah commanders]. In response to the question marks surrounding her claims, she has previously said she would post some of the recorded interviews with these sources. While she never published the recorded interviews of the articles that were being questioned, she did however produce a video for her latest one.

Perhaps in a keen attempt to prove the accuracy of her sources [that she does actually interview bona fide Hezbollah commanders], Anderson cobbled together a somewhat bizarre video that demonstrates, at best, she may have been duped into believing those she interviewed are Hezbollah fighters and commanders, or at worst, she is willfully misleading both her Newsweek editors and audience, fully armed with the knowledge that those interviewed are not members of Hezbollah.

Video Fail

The video was shot on the outskirts of the regime-controlled part of the Palestinian al-Yarmouk camp, South of Damascus, currently run by the PFLP-GC. Other Palestinian factions such as Fatah al-Intifada, PPSF, Liwa al-Quds, and Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, all have a presence in the camp. Hezbollah has absolutely zero presence, neither inside the camp nor in its immediate outskirts. If this was not enough to raise question marks for her editors, then the presence of the Fatah al-Intifada logo on the trucks featured in the video, as well as the Palestinian flags, should have been.

Let us assume, for the benefit of the doubt, that Anderson does not read or understand Arabic, and the same applies to her editors, surely all of them would have noticed the Palestinian flag in the video? Do they believe that Hezbollah marks its vehicles, not with its own very distinctive logo, but with the logo of a Syrian-Palestinian group? Additionally, since when do Hezbollah commanders wear caps with Fatah al-Intafada's logos on them?

PFLP-GC sources have since confirmed to me that Anderson was unable to enter the camp, but was escorted, with her American cameraman and Lebanese fixer, to the outskirts by Fatah al-Intifada. There was no mention of Hezbollah members.

The video starts with eight seconds of what appears to be an assault on a military position, with four men apparently leading the assault. Although several close gunshots from an automatic rifle could be heard, none of the fighters in the video are assuming actual firing positions, nor are any of them seen firing at anything. The gunshots sound effect with the accompanying dramatic music were clearly later added to the video, possibly as an attempt to give the audience the impression this is an active frontline. Yet the place where this was shot, as will be illustrated below, is not a direct combat zone, nor were there any clashes ongoing there at the date of shooting the video.

Now we come to the characters featured in the video. The first ‘commander' interviewed speaks with a Syrian accent and has no issue revealing his face. Hezbollah is a Lebanese outfit, and is renowned for being highly secretive. It seems the second and third ‘commanders' are aware of the role they are supposed to play, and refuse to show their faces. But they don't seem to be on the same page when it comes to disguising their voices [one does, while the other doesn't]. Maybe these ‘commanders' are confused about the strict regulations of the party they belong to? Furthermore, taking into consideration any video released by Hezbollah-friendly and affiliated outlets [these outlets have never been granted the unprecedented access Anderson claims to have been given in Syria] are forced to cover/blur the faces of the fighters, did the editors not question why the other Hezbollah ‘fighters' loitering in the background had no issue having their identities revealed on this particular embed?

Attention should also be paid to the translations accompanying the video; they are sloppily done and riddled with mistakes. Here, for example, the guy says verbatim "Here there were bases for Jabhat an-Nusra, Daesh and Jaysh al-Islam, and big battles took place between them and us", whereas the Newsweek translation mentions no bases, and replaces Jaysh al-Islam with Ahrar ash-Sham, which the fighter doesn't mention once. Maybe Newsweek and Anderson don't see a difference between these groups, but for the sake of accurate reporting, this is unprofessional.

The second fighter starts his sentence with, word-for-word, "Around two-three days ago", not specifying any day of the week or date, whereas the Newsweek translation falsely starts the sentence with "On Tuesday".

Next is the clothing. From the eagle-eyed online Hezbollah observer to the intrepid reporter who covers every movement made by the party, to party supporters themselves, they are all familiar with and well versed on the fatigues and the uniform by which Hezbollah fighters have to adhere to, according to party regulation. Therefore, Anderson, who claims to be familiar with the party and its commanders, should have noticed when the fighters accompanying her to this ‘frontline' showed up wearing sneakers, colored T-shirts and shiny accessories.

These should have been clear signs for her that maybe the people she embedded with are not who she thought they were. Or maybe she knew, but carried on anyway.

Then there is the question of how Anderson entered into Syria?-?accompanied by her American cameraman and Lebanese fixer?-?in the first place. Foreign journalists, as in most countries around the world, are required to apply for a visa to be able to enter Syria legally and report. Lebanese journalists are also required to apply for a permit to report legally from inside Syria. Sources in Damascus have told me they have no record of Anderson receiving a visa to report from inside Syria. This implies Anderson and her team were illegally smuggled across the border into Syria then back into Lebanon, breaching Articles 6 and 16 of Order ?319 of the 1962 Lebanese Law Regulating the Status of Foreign Nationals, which explicitly state that "No foreign national may enter or leave Lebanon unless he or she passes one of the posts of the Sûreté Générale and on condition that he or she has the regulatory documents and visas as well as a passport...", and according to Article 32 of the same law, Anderson and her cameraman could be facing up to three years in jail.

Factual Inaccuracies

During the first few seconds of her video, Anderson tells us "Hezbollah has been fighting in the Syrian civil war on the side of President Bashar al-Assad since 2013". Yet in the second paragraph of her article, she informs us that "Since 2012, Hezbollah... has been fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against rebel and extremist groups". 2012, or 2013? Should we believe Video Newsweek or Article Newsweek?

Anderson also tells us US airstrikes prompted Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, "to warn of retaliatory strikes if America continues to infringe upon the territory it holds in the country." This is completely incorrect. She literally made this up. Sayyed Nasrallah never warned of any "retaliatory strikes" against the US. The citation she uses comes from the Lebanese website NaharNet from June 7th [Nasrallah had spoken on the 25th of May, 14 days prior to the airstrike and cited article, and on the 24th of June, 17 days after the cited article Anderson is basing her claim on] which in turn copied the story from AP, claiming "Hizbullah-Linked Media Threaten Strikes on US in Syria over ‘Red Lines'"...

The reality behind this is a series of six tweets posted by Hezbollah's military news Twitter account on June 7th, quoting the commander of "Syria's Allies Joint Command Room", which represents all of Syria, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, not just the latter alone. Nowhere in the joint room commander's statements is there a reference to a threat to attack the US. This somehow ended up being Sayyed Nasrallah threatening the US, according to Anderson and her editors.

Anderson then informed us that one of the Hezbollah commanders she interviewed bears the rank of "Lieutenant". There is no lieutenant ranking in Hezbollah. Hezbollah is not a conventional army, and these ranks with their military significances do not exist among its troops. [There are no officers, corporals or major generals either]...

...What this article demonstrates is that time and again Western standards on reporting in this region are sub-par, resulting in the publishing of inaccurate, misinformed, dishonest and unprofessional work. Journalists have a responsibility to their audience to be truthful, honest and factual. Anderson has either been misled into believing the people she interviews are members of Hezbollah, or she's deliberately misleading her audience into believing they are Hezbollah members when she knows they are not. But at this point, all of her previous work should be called into question too.

Source: Medium.com, Edited by website team

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