CNN Fires Marc Lamont Hill Over Controversial Anti-Israel Comments
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by Algemeiner Staff
Marc Lamont Hill. Photo: Wayne Riley / Wikimedia Commons.
CNN fired contributor Marc Lamont Hill on Thursday amid a swirling controversy over anti-Israel comments he made the previous day at a United Nations event.
The cable news channel’s firing of the 39-year-old Hill — who is professor of media studies and urban education at Temple University — was first reported by the Mediaite news site.
“Marc Lamont Hill is no longer under contract with CNN,” Mediaite quoted a CNN spokesperson as saying.
Temple University told The Algemeiner in a statement, “Marc Lamont Hill has been quoted extensively over the last 24 hours. Marc Lamont Hill does not represent Temple University and his views are his own. However, we acknowledge that he has a constitutionally protected right to express his opinion as a private citizen.”
Israel’s Consul General in New York, Ambassador Dani Dayan, welcomed the news of Hill’s dismissal. “I welcome CNN’s decision today to end Marc Lamont Hill’s association with their network,” he said in a statement. He also called for “Americans to stand strong against the dangerous anti-Semitic idea that Jews cannot legitimately live as a free people in their homeland. Anti-Semitism and dangerous political extremism cannot be allowed to become mainstream.”
In his remarks on Wednesday, Hill called for a “free Palestine from the river to the sea” — implying the elimination of Israel.
Hill also endorsed the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, and said, “We must promote nonviolence at every opportunity, but cannot endorse narrow politics that shames Palestinians for resisting, for refusing to do nothing in ethnic cleansing.”
With a long history of anti-Israel statements, Hill most recently drew condemnation from Jewish groups over his continued support of antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.
Two years ago, as reported by The Algemeiner, Hill urged his Twitter followers to support the crowdfunding campaign of a Palestinian terrorist who carried out a bombing in Jerusalem nearly five decades ago.
