CNN fires Marc Lamont Hill after author’s support for Palestinians’ rights

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Author Marc Lamont Hill, an advocate for freedom of Palestinian lands under Israeli occupation, is no more with Cable News Network as political commentator after his critique of Tel Aviv’s policies violating human rights.

“Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN,” a spokesperson for the global news network said.

The channel’s decision to part ways with Lamont, a professor of Media Studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, follows the expert’s speech to UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People.

In his speech, Hill also reportedly called for a “single secular democratic state for everyone.”

The CNN spokesperson did not expand on the reason for severing ties with Hill, but media reports suggested the channel saw Hill’s criticism of Israeli state as anti-Semitic.

“We must advocate and promote non-violence,” Hill said according to CNN. He also added that “we cannot endorse a narrow politics of respectability that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in the face of state violence and ethnic cleansing.”

In a series of tweets, Hill denied having made any inciteful statements, although he said he remains a critic of Israeli policies and supports Palestinians’ right to self-determination.

Groups including the Anti-Defamation League’s have expressed disagreement with Hill’s comments.

Some critics said the author’s comments freedom of a “free Palestine from the river to the sea,” reflect Hamas’s thinking about annihilation of the Israeli state. But Hill strongly rejected the interpretation.

But several experts criticized CNN for the decision and defended Hill’s comments, and called the controversy over his speech as “manufactured.”