On Wednesday, November 28th, CNN commentator, Marc Lamont Hill, gave a speech at the United Nations in which he reaffirmed his support for the boycott, divestment, and sanctions against the state of Israel, and a one state solution that established a secular, democratic state in Israel-Palestine. CNN fired Marc Lamont Hill within 24 hours of that speech. Hill falls in a line of over 50 years of corporate media silencing Black people who stood in solidarity with Palestine, such as Malcolm X, Nelson Mandela, SNCC, and the Movement for Black Lives.

Over the past week, activists in the West Bank have staged multiple protests in support of Dr. Marc Lamont Hill after he was fired from CNN for a speech he gave at the United Nations in which he criticized the Israeli occupation and the abuse of Palestinian rights. Mondoweiss spoke to Munther Amira, Coordinator of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, about his support for Dr. Hill and why he believes it is important for Palestinians to stand in solidarity with the activist.

CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill was fired last week after he advocated Palestinian rights “from the river to the sea”. Of course that has been Israeli policy from the days of Ben-Gurion, in defiance of the indigenous population, and no one advocating Israeli sovereignty in those boundaries ever loses their job, Jonathan Ofir explains.

Robert Herbst responds to CNN’s firing of Marc Lamont Hill: “Hill’s provocative call for freedom for Palestinians in the whole of historic Palestine (or Greater Israel), in a single state guaranteeing rights for both peoples, did not mention Jews or Israelis, leaving him vulnerable to the false attack that he was advocating eliminating Jews from the Holy Land.”

The firing of Marc Lamont Hill by CNN for espousing Palestinian human rights shows the historical commitment by western institutions to Zionism as the answer to Jewish insecurity in the west. But now Zionism is in crisis, and Hill sought to bear witness to the actual conditions in Israel/Palestine– and was labeled an anti-Semite.

Nada Elia says that one of the more encouraging aspects of the BDS victories over 2018 was that most were accomplished by local individuals, groups, and coalitions with no direct involvement from the “leaders” of the BDS movement. These victories illustrate that the years of political discussion that were catalyzed by the 2005 Palestinian call for BDS against Israel are bearing fruit.

The demands for Marc Lamont Hill’s head from supporters of Israel that evidently led to his firing by CNN as well as expressions of solidarity from Palestinian supporters show that the end of the two-state-solution is bringing about open ideological conflict in the U.S. establishment, with supporters of Palestinians being accused of anti-Semitism, much as they are in the U.K.  

CNN fires commentator Marc Lamont Hill for saying Palestine should be free “from river to sea,” but it allowed Israeli official Michael Oren to tell former AIPAC aide Wolf Blitzer to say that Palestinians fabricated video that children were killed by Israeli soldiers, even as an executive at CNN’s parent company was writing speeches for Benjamin Netanyahu, no problem.