I have a question for the surprising number of people who are defending Helen Thomas' comments: Don't you think, given Thomas' record, that if she thought she had said something she could stand behind, she would be standing behind it?
About Jim NaureckasExtra! Magazine Editor Since 1990, Jim Naureckas has been the editor of Extra!, FAIR's bimonthly journal of media criticism. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren't: Rush Limbaugh's Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader: An Extra! Review of Press and Politics in the '90s. He is also the co-manager of FAIR's website. He has worked as an investigative reporter for the newspaper In These Times, where he covered the Iran-Contra scandal, and was managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere, a newsletter on Latin America. Jim was born in Libertyville, Illinois, in 1964, and graduated from Stanford University in 1985 with a bachelor's degree in political science. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR's program director. You can follow Jim on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
Characterizing Helen's remarks as "a call for ethnic cleansing" is not "an opinion I don't agree with" (sheela, June 11th, 2010 at 11:23 pm). It's an attack that flagrantly ignores both context and evidence. There is no chance, zero, that Helen was calling for ethnic cleansing. It's not even in the realm of possibility. Naureckas's charge is the equivalent of lynching a black man because he dared look in the direction of a white woman. It's hate-mongering, it's outrageous and it's abhorrent. This goes far beyond even the most reckless of opinions. It crosses the line into either malice or mental illness.
Look guys FAIR needs to survive. They neither want to lose a sustantial part of their funding nor lose their credibility…..hence their hypocrisy on this issue.
Jim Naureckas's comment inspired many comments (some thoughtful, some not), which may be what he wanted. If it was merely an exercise in prompting a discussion, it wasn't deplorable, but the readers' comments about Helen being treated unfairly by the media are spot on, and it seems that what Jim wrote was as poorly-considered as what Helen said. If you keep your cool and listen to the interview clip, it sounds to me as if the lady was being baited by the guy holding the microphone, who was trying to get her goat. Ima Person quotes the interview, which only lacks the pace and tone that would have made many people (including myself) say to the interviewer "Go F yourself!" (which is what Helen should've said).
Jim Naureckas has demeaned FAIR and he should apologize to Helen as she was so gracious to do do Israel and its overly protective cohort.
Typo at the very end of my 6/12/10 1:30 pm comment. It should read "…to do to Israel…"
I apologize.
Ima Person beautifully put!
In the U.S., there is absolutely no freedom of speech when it comes to Israel! President Carter talks about his hope for peace in Palestine and he is labeled an anti-Semite. He said there is more freedom to discuss Palestine in Israel, than there is here in the U.S. It was clear that Helen's words were taken out of context and were twisted. After a life long career of integrity, and watching the media be sold to the highest bidders, Helen could see the writing on the wall. She spoke her mind on the way out, and she bowed out gracefully. There was certainly nothing to fight for as she was already prepared to walk away from her journalism career. It appears that her peers would not have stood by her side.
I return your question Mr. Naureckas with another question, could you define for me what defines "freedom of the press"?
What a meaningless question about Helen Thomas! When will FAIR begin exploring why Obama and our senators and representatives constantly support Israel even when its faults are clear? For some of them, it is bribery in campaign donations from Israel supporters. For the president, maybe the threat of assassination. The latter reason would be understandable for Helen. Behind the scenes, it it Israel. – G. Beres
I agree with RAM…Israel does exist and who cares who recognizes that with all the firepower and unconditional backing of the US? Does Israel recognize Palestine's "right to exist"??? Not quite. I believe that Helen Thomas walked into a mine field and that she was referring to the settlers that Israel pays to relocate in the occupied territories. What bothers me about this whole thing is that Helen Thomas has been a firebrand…willing to ask Presidents the tough questions throughout her career and it is clear from the Rabbi's site that he is reveling in his success at bringing her career to a screeching halt. Somehow I would have expected a man of God to have some training and experience in reconciliation. Perhaps had her comments intrigued him he might have invited her for tea to discuss their differences of opinion and see where they might have found common ground. Instead he is caught up in the cycle of revenge that is a character flaw of the Middle East, Israel and Arab states alike in my humble opinion. Oh, and by the way, Helen is herself a Semite…maybe what is transpiring is a new Antisemitism …Antiarabsemitism perhaps?
Good Question, Yet A Distraction.
1.
In Helen Thomas's website apology, only the first sentence of the three sentences is an "apology." Despite the history of truth behind the harsh opinion she expressed in the now-famous impromptu interview by a rabbi, she can be believed to "regret" her choice of words.
Furthermore, in direct answer to your (Jim Naureckas's) question: Actually, strength is not a word I use to describe Helen Thomas as a White House journalist. You don't get to stay in the White House press room for a lifetime if you're actually strong. But I think we can say that she would certainly stand behind a well-worded slam against Israel's atrocities along with a well-worded solution. In the interview, she didn't emit a well-worded solution. It was a bad choice of words.
For a lot more:
http://equalpartyusa.wordpress.com/
2.
All this focus on an old woman is a purposeful DISTRACTION from the facts of Israel's long, ongoing, history of crimes against all humanity who are not aligned with the Rothschild banker family, who owns Israel.
There it is. Simple truth.
(link on my name)
I wish the fact was mentioned that in this WAR israel is killing at the rate of 300 to 1, while occupying Palistines land.
Well! The Big Media Monopoly finally got their chance after waiting 50 years, to go after the only reporter who had the guts to say it like it is in her tough questioning.
So what else is new? Mis-characterizing and demonizing. Business as usual.
Thanks, Jim, for being such an effective part of the most important movement going.
I am among those who view Helen Thomas in a favorable llight. Read the transcript–the one put out by the Rabbi with whom she had her exchange. Mr. Thomas did not say, as many knee-jerk reactions seem to have taken her, 'Go back to nazi Germany!" She said, "Go back from where they came." and when the Rabbi, quite naturally asked, '". . .and from where would that be?" she replied, " . . .you know . . . from Germany, Poland . . .the United States . . ." Why did the national audience impute to her something
that does not exist? Who is it that entered nazi Germany into her remarks, and having entered it, then
reacted as if it were in the present tense?
It's a shame that there were so many comments calling FAIR in league with the worst of the establishment press and threatening withdrawal of support. FAIR has an admirable record of documenting the omissions and distortions of the corporate media, including the AIPAC echoers. Umbrage to a single remark, forgetting the very good job FAIR has done and still does, is not fair.
in response to Ron
Could it be… THAT IS THE MESSAGE being related here if not consciously… subconsciously? How can anyone simply discount or dismiss an entire history of behavior, when caught up in the trumped up hyperbole of a multi-media manipulation spin cycle? No… its not FAIR… and it isn't a just or balanced response, in either case.
It is our own loss… and to our own detriment when we condemn what is right about us while condoning what is wrong about us ion order to appear PC.
The Holy War against Helen Thomas reflects intense bigotry in our culture against indigenous peoples. FAIR needs to examine its unconscious racism.
" … surprising number of people who are defending Helen Thomas' comments … "? I am one of those people, and what surprises me is the number of supposed lefties who, in articles nominally supportive of Thomas, choose to rationalize what she said, or whine that she was trapped, thereby justifying the ridiculous notion that she said something wrong. That sort of response, along with Naureckas's comments are why I have come to despise the so-called left in this country over the last 40 years. They are cowardly and despicable … and mostly upper middle class and totally out of touch with the Working Class.
"Naureckas's charge is the equivalent of lynching a black man because he dared look in the direction of a white woman. It's hate-mongering, it's outrageous and it's abhorrent."
Uh, no, it's not even remotely the same … and shame on you for invoking the memory of Emmet Till in such a petty and frivolous manner.
"This goes far beyond even the most reckless of opinions. It crosses the line into either malice or mental illness."
Opinion and conjecture, every word of what you said. I may be the only person on this board unafraid to support Jim's right to ask a question, but frankly a lot of the above remarks are a knee-jerk reaction eerily similar to the frothing at the mouth defensiveness that was so popular in the previous administration.
Funny too how there are so many hysterical conspiracy theories bandied about pointing the finger at the boogeyman — sorry, "Zionists" — for a real assasination that has yet to take place.
It's almost as if Karl Rove has decided to work for the "other guys."
More precisely, Naureckas's charge is the equivalent of charging a black man with murder because he dared look in the direction of a white woman. And, yes, it's exactly the same thing.
Bottom line, Helen clearly did not participate in, or advocate, violence against any ethnic group. Naureckas wantonly claimed she did.
In truth, by suggesting that people who came from Germany, Poland, the U.S. and elsewhereâ┚¬”Âand who forcibly removed Palestinians from their homes and land, and who continue to use murder, assassination, starvation and terror in that endeavorâ┚¬”Âshould "go home," she was calling for an end to ethnic cleansing.
As to the so-called question, which I consider simply a cover for yet more condemnation of what Thomas actually said, there are many possible answers. Only Ms. Thomas knows why she capitulated.
She could have been worried that she would be summarily fired by her employer and lose her retirement (which may have happened anyway, though that might turn into a political nightmare for old W.R.'s descendants).
The Hearst empire has never been a shining example of a beacon of truth. It has always had its agenda … the Spanish American War might come to mind. People working in such environments (as well as high-level, political-appointee bureaucrats, and high-level executives in private industry) are frequently, if not almost always, careful of what they say, careful not to cross the line of current political correctness, and quick to apologize when they do. So, it could have been the conditioning of her working environment.
And on and on.
Who knows. I do find the "question" to be deceptive, however.
[...] http://www.fair.org/blog/2010/06/09/a-question-for-defenders-of-go-back-to-poland-and-germany/ . [...]