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Racist Ben Norton fan of Hezbollah butchers and fascist tyrant Assad

Reader comment on item: Hezbollah and Hamas in Decline

Submitted by Vivianne, Berkeley CA (Brazil), Sep 23, 2020 at 09:52

DISTORTER RACIST BEN NORTON

After August-2020 explosion of chemicals in Beirut
[[https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2020/08/12/Hezbollah-was-taking-Beirut-ammonium-nitrate-to-produce-weapons-Source
Hezbollah was taking Beirut ammonium nitrate to produce weapons: Source "explosion at Beirut port, the result of nearly 3,000 tons of improperly stored ammonium nitrate detonating. The explosion killed nearly 200 people, injured 6,500 and damaged tens of thousands of buildings in the capital, Beirut." [https://www.ynetnews.com/article/HkMqUdDrP ] So chemical Assad Syria's defender, and fan of Hezbollah [example in 2017: https://bennorton.com/jacobin-elia-el-khan-lebanon-syria- ] Racist Ben Norton "accused" Arabs who denounce Islamic Republic of Iran's linked racist lethal [https://m.jpost.com/international/analysis-hezbollahs-lethal-anti-semitism/amp Exposing Hezbollah's Lethal Antisemitism. Jerusalem Post Nov.12.2012] Hezbollah Islamists as "sell outs". ["Some People Are So Antisemitic, They Support Hezbollah" - The Algemeiner, August 14, 2020.
https://www.algemeiner.com/2020/08/14/some-people-are-so-antisemitic-they-support-hezbollah/ ]

But Ben Norton, a pseudo-journalist who works for Max Blumenthal's Grayzone site, is incensed at the Haddad tweet:
A white Westerner who considers himself a liberal is saying that Lebanese people who disagree with his rabid hate of Israel are "sellouts" for hating Hezbollah more. This is a typical, racist attitude — that the only Arabs allowed to have an opinion are those whose opinions match a leftist white man.

On Oct 4 2019 on twitter, he called Honk Kong protesters "fascists". On Sep 13 2020, he tweeted: "NATO is and has always been the Nazi Arming and Transporting Organization."

He tweeted in January 3, 2020:
"ISIS.. after the US gave birth to it. The US empire is the world's actual no. 1 bad guy."
In June 25, 2019 in a tweet, he implied he doesn't know about uniqueness of the Holocaust. To which user Kaveh replied "Gentiles don't count." Without objection, from Ben.

Coda Media called him out for disinformation in a July 2020 article that he denies "the scale of China's Uyghur oppression." [https://www.codastory.com/disinformation/grayzone-xinjiang-denialism/]

Accused of being a bigot by Arab pundits such blogger Alhamra showing Ben Norton's shifting statements:

"Activists he slammed for using bogus evidence and leftists he derided as 'tankies' suddenly became his new best friends as he sucked up to them and pretended he was really with them all along. Norton even resorted to Alt-Right Muslim-bashing anti-terror rhetoric to smear the cause and the people he once defended from such racist attacks."

[https://medium.com/@_alhamra/benjamin-norton-sheds-positions-and-causes-like-a-snake-sheds-skin-1c23d0b76612].

Ben Norton seems to be a distorter and dishonest reporter, falsely posing as a "true progressive" as Arab Lebanese author Gilbert Achcar wrote:

Recently, however, Grayzone devoted to the job of smearing me a very long piece written by Ben Norton, one of their collaborators. Blumenthal, the founder of Grayzone, ....Since Ben Norton too may be mistaken for a genuine left-wing reporter, I decided to make an exception this time and take the trouble to show how the Grayzone piece fully belongs to the Stalinist school of falsification. This is for the sake of any reader who may have come across that scurrilous piece and believed in good faith that it was motivated by left-wing values. The lies in the Grayzone piece start blatantly from the onset, in the worst sensationalist tradition...

[https://newpol.org/on-gutter-journalism-and-purported-anti-imperialism/ On Gutter Journalism and Purported "Anti-Imperialism". By: Gilbert Achcar October 10, 2019]

Ben Norton endorsed and retweed a Han supremacist's outrageous justification for the Chinese regime's genocide of Uyghur Muslims, which includes putting them in concentration camps where they engage in forced labor for companies like Apple and Amazon...
Here is just a small sample of the pro-race war, sexist, homophobic, and pro-Holocaust views expressed by the user Ben Norton repeatedly promoted to his followers... https://fashbusters.wordpress.com/2020/08/26/grayzone-max-blumenthal-boosts-fascists-right-winers/] p>

Already in February 2016, he was challenged on his "facts": [https://icps.gwu.edu/editorials "The Selective Skepticism of Salon's Ben Norton "factually challenged piece in Salon, Ben Norton displays a dazzling skepticism of information from Israeli sources alongside a great acceptance of unfounded anti-Israel conspiracy theories.]

Norton was fired from Salon in 2016 [Dec 1, 2016 Ben Norton on Twitter: "Salon has let me go." http://twitter.com/benjaminnorton/status/804313961529221120].

From Haaretz exposing those helping Trump cozing up to Assad and Putin and demonize Syrian Arabs:

Blumenthal, along with his colleagues and frequent Russia Today contributors Gareth Porter, Benjamin Norton & Rania Khalek have spent the best part of the last 18 months publishing smear attacks against NGOs, medics, journalists, first responders and Syrian civil society groups. Blumenthal's appearance on Fox wasn't an anomaly, for the editor of the 'Grayzone Project', supposedly dedicated to "combatting Islamophobia", has long been at the forefront of a group of Western bloggers, pundits and academics promoting pro-Kremlin propaganda and regurgitating widely debunked Islamophobic conspiracy theories about Syrians.
[https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/as-trump-shores-up-assad-regime-u-s-hard-left-cheers-him-on-1.5431962]
Submitting....

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Reader comments (5) on this item

Title Commenter Date Thread
Beirut Aug-4-2020 blast: Hezbollah use of civilians and its threats, thugs [2019 words]OmarOct 15, 2021 11:08275745
Racist Ben Norton fan of Hezbollah butchers and fascist tyrant Assad [742 words]Vivianne, Berkeley CASep 23, 2020 09:52260543
Great Read!! [21 words]The_SaxonDec 27, 2011 06:54192064
4Well as an Iranian this is good news to me [88 words]KouroshDec 24, 2011 00:57191994
Stay Alert [33 words]Jay1Dec 23, 2011 10:22191986

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