Mick Hartley

We've already seen some of the eulogies that Nasrallah's, um, untimely death has prompted in the Western media. Siam Goorwich at the JC has more:

In Saturday’s FT, it was noted that the ‘charismatic’ Nasrallah – who was eliminated on Friday by an Israeli strike on Hezbollah’s subterranean headquarters in Beirut – was described as ‘courteous, perceptive and funny’ by those who met him in recent years. For readers who are still unsure what to make of the man, the following paragraph rather charmingly reveals: ‘a life-long speech impediment, which left him unable to pronounce his Rs, was widely viewed as disarming.’ Cute. (And surely the perfect plotline for a follow up to 2010’s box office hit The King’s Speech. The Terrorist’s Tongue, anyone?)

Over in Sunday’s Observer, Nasrallah was remembered as ‘politically astute’ and ‘adored by supporters’. Later in the piece, he is praised for his ‘dignified response’ to the death of his son, Mohammed Hadi, who was killed fighting the IDF in 1997. Not mentioned is the fact that Nasrallah rejected the Israeli offer to return his son’s body in exchange for the body parts of Israelis killed by Hezbollah, stating: “Keep it. We have many more men like Hadi ready to offer themselves to the struggle.” So dignified! What a dad!

This insight was also strangely absent from the Washington Post’s farewell, where they tell readers that Nasrallah was seen as ‘a father figure, a moral compass and a political guide,’ by his followers. Adding: ‘He was lauded as the man who empowered Lebanon’s once downtrodden and impoverished Shiite communit.

’Not to be outdone, the New York Times claims that he, ‘maintained that there should be one Palestine with equality for Muslims, Jews and Christians’ – dizzyingly at odds with Hezbollah’s stated aims of destroying Israel, allegiance to Iran’s supreme leader and establishing Islamist supremacy across the middle east….

Obviously simpering terrorist sympathising in the western media is nothing new, but in a sea of bad takes since Hamas’ atrocities of October 7, glowing obituaries for Nasrallah still stand out as a low point. While it’s true that everyone has some good in them, singing the praises of a man who was responsible for the subjugation and death of hundreds of thousands of people, is completely deranged, and shows a lack of moral backbone and understanding of the horrors he inspired, rather than a fair and thoughtful disposition. Worst of all, it is an insult to everyone who suffered at his hands – whose names have, and will, fade into obscurity, while his is praised, and his cruelty re-written to suit the tastes of contemporary, progressive paletes.

So often, less is more – and that is definitely the case when it comes to memorialising this monster. In fact, I think his obituary needed only seven words: yimakh shemo, may his memory be erased.