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?
Jim Naureckas
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org, and has edited FAIR's print publication Extra! since 1990. He is the co-author of The Way Things Aren’t: Rush Limbaugh’s Reign of Error, and co-editor of The FAIR Reader. He was an investigative reporter for In These Times and managing editor of the Washington Report on the Hemisphere. Born in Libertyville, Illinois, he has a poli sci degree from Stanford. Since 1997 he has been married to Janine Jackson, FAIR’s program director.
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hardindr
Bob Somerby’s thoughts on the episode.
Ima Person
At 89 years old? When emotional strain so effects blood pressure and so easily kills people? When she has already spent a lifetime “comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable?” The woman deserves some peace, not to mention the accolades coming her way. It is for other conscientious people to defend her remarks, which are obviously and easily defendedâ┚¬”Âexcept in the rarefied and bigoted atmosphere of knee-jerk, political correctness where starvation and murder are accepted, but speaking up is taboo.
Anthony
I find it surprising that FAIR, given its near-daily campaign to correct poor reporting regarding James O’Keefe and ACORN–including exhaustive analyzing and parsing of statements made on video–would not look upon the reporting of her comments with a similarly skeptical gaze. Instead, we have almost nothing except the terse conclusion that she was arguing in favour of “ethnic cleansing.”
I will throw Naureckas’s question back at him: what part of Helen Thomas’s record leads you to believe that she would so recklessly engage in anti-semitism? Where is the equivalent of FAIR’s compendium of racist and bigoted remarks uttered by the likes of Don Imus, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh? If one exists, please share it with your readers.
FAIR’s expertise seems to be missing here. Where is the careful reading, the thoughtful commentary, the judicious presentation of facts? Instead, we have an ad-hoc missive about whether her comments–selectively quoted even by FAIR–should be defended.
I wouldn’t defend her comments–but, then, I don’t trust the media’s presentation of them. I’m looking to FAIR to provide clarity.
DaN
I agree with your point Jim, and think that Thomas’ remarks were clearly poorly articulated and unhelpful, but I don’t think it’s true that, just because the person who has said something reprehensible isn’t defending it themselves, there isn’t possibly something there for others to defend.
Thomas, no-doubt, is aware that her career is over, and that defending such a clumsy and insensitive statement won’t do her any favours when the media (and world) has already made its judgement. But I have to say there is something that leaves a bad taste in my mouth about the idea that no-one else therefore has a right to speak in her defence if they see good reason to do so.
I wouldn’t do it, and think that Thomas lost all sense and reason in her off-the-cuff bluntness, really making no argument at all and reducing her possibly more measured thoughts into racist-sounding babble…but, unpacked and restated, there is nothing really all that outrageous about saying Israel should get out of occupied Palestinian territory. Nor is it anti-semetic or racist to deal with the very real question of where, then, those occupying Israelis should go once they have left Palestinian land. Assuming the re-bordered version of Israel is no longer an option for some reason, the answer has to be SOMEWHERE, so why not “Germany”, “Poland”, “America” or “everywhere else” that these illegal settlers originally came from? If one assumes that the occupation of Palestine is illegal, then it follows that illegal settlers have no real right to stay once justice has been restored. If they cannot find a home in a re-settled two-state version of Israel/Palestine then, unless their lives would be in great peril by doing so, they would have to go elsewhere.
Again – Helen Thomas spoke idiotically and incoherently. Personally I don’t think Israelis need to “go back to where they came from” and think that a viable two-state solution can easily exist in which Palestinians and Israelis can learn to respect sovereign borders and find peace without anyone being sent “home” to Germany, Poland, America or anywhere else. But a group such as FAIR should be concerned with making sure that the distortions of the media over this issue (the question of WHAT exactly Thomas said and WHY it is such a problem outside of the usual narratives of pro-Israel media bias that automatically assume any criticism of Israel is bad) instead of endorsing the spurious philosophical position that one cannot defend the comments of those who will not defend them themselves.
DaN
Sorry, I meant to say : “a group such as FAIR should be concerned with making sure that the distortions of the media over this issue (the question of WHAT exactly Thomas said and WHY it is such a problem outside of the usual narratives of pro-Israel media bias that automatically assume any criticism of Israel is bad) are outlined and kept in check, instead of endorsing the spurious philosophical position that one cannot defend the comments of those who will not defend them themselves.”
Ima Person
Here’s the job FAIR should have done.
Excerpted from: The Ambush of Helen Thomas, by Gary Leupp
â┚¬Ã…“Any comments about Israel? We’re asking everybody today—any comments about Israel?â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“Oooh, any better comments?â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“Remember these people are occupied, and it’s their land, it’s not German, it’s not Poland.â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“So where should they go? What should they do?â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“They could go home. Poland. Germany.â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“Where’s home? You’re saying Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?â┚¬Ã‚Â
â┚¬Ã…“And America and everywhere else.â┚¬Ã‚Â
In this elliptical conversation, the â┚¬Ã…“theyâ┚¬Ã‚ could have been interpreted by Helen, who has just mentioned â┚¬Ã…“occupiedâ┚¬Ã‚ land, as referring to settlers on the West Bank or on the Golan Heights. The topic under discussion is Palestine, which in U.S. journalistic useage is more likely to refer to a future Palestinian state than to the state of Israel in its 1967 borders. But the video is skewed to make it seem as though Thomas said all Jews in Israel and the occupied territories should leave, and go back to places where mass murder occurred.
To those who care about fairness, I suggest that’s unfair. That’s not what Helen Thomas said. She said Israel should leave Palestine. When prompted to say where those referenced should go, she referred to countries with historically large Jewish populations. Lots of Israelis are in fact leaving Israel for those countries. (About 14,000 Israeli Jews left annually between 1990 and 2005. According to a 2007 poll, half of Israeli youth between ages 14 and 18 express the desire to live outside of Israel, which they see as having a bleak future. A huge percentage of Israelis has or plans to inquire about obtaining foreign nationality; many Europeans offer this generously to descendents of citizens who can prove their ancestry. The Berlin synagogue has 12,000 members and is flourishing. There are now maybe 55,000 Jews in Poland, many emigrating from Israel following Poland’s admission to the EU.)
Full story: http://www.counterpunch.org/leupp06082010.html
Glenn
The argument that genetics or ancestry entitles one to return as owners of a land, displacing the present inhabitants is a false argument.
I am an American descendant of German people as recently as 130 years ago. I don’t feel that this should allow me to displace present day German inhabitants.
However, if 2000 years remove confers special privilege to present day Germans of Middle East ancestry, then my claim on property of German inhabitants of Middle East ancestry is stronger by reason of being aged only 130 years.
Substituting groups “A” or “B” for differing nationalities should not destroy a consistent logic. If the logic does not hold then the belief is emotionally based. The same holds for designations of terrorism.
Doug Latimer
Jim, I think folks here have made some good points that I don’t need to repeat. I’ll let what I said in the other thread speak for itself.
I will say that the only just solution, as Ali Abunimah has championed, is to have one egalitarian state which welcomes citizens of any and all nationalities and religions.
That goes for this country, too, doesn’t it?
Big Em
I have to agree with the other posters here, especially ‘Ima Person’ and Anthony at 12:04 & 12:05. I would also add Bob Parry, another veteran liberal/left reporter in his article (www.consortiumnews.com/2010/060810.html). Ms Thomas was a WH reporter who had to listen to decades of BS, who often stood up and spoke truth to power (with a growing sense of futility, I suspect, as virtually no other reporters seemed to dare join her), who had previously left one position on principle, so it was probably just to the point where she undoubtedly felt ‘screw-it, I’m sick of this, I’ve got only a few years to live’. And who knows what kind of management persuasion was used? Compensation ransomed for a ‘polite retirement’?
Jim Naureckas
I find the interpretation of Helen Thomas’ remarks offered here to be quite strained. I could parse her words, but surely the words that she offers on her website (http://helenthomas.org/) require no interpretation: “I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Why would she regret saying that she thinks Israel should leave the Occupied Territories, if that was indeed the meaning of her statement? And why, given that it’s Helen Thomas we’re talking about, would she pretend to regret that statement when she actually doesn’t? To treat her apology as an insincere PR gambit does her a disservice, and sets back her efforts to repair her reputation.
Big Em, that Robert Parry piece is linked to the word “record” in my post above; I thought it did a good job of laying out the considerable strengths of Thomas’ career. But he begins by saying that she “was right to apologize for a stupid remark she made about Israeli Jews leaving Palestine.” That’s my position as well.
Ed Flaherty
I think a more interesting question is: why does the White House get away with not condemning (thus condoning) Israel’s cold blooded murder of innocent civilians (not to mention their creation of a police state in Gaza where people do not have the basic necessities like food, clean water, medicine, etc.)? If we’re going to condemn someone’s words, I will condemn our government’s support for brutal regimes like Israel. I bet Robert Gibbs was jumping up and down with glee to get the heat off of him around this issue.
Thomas Palm
Jim, maybe Helen Thomas is getting too old to take the battle of trying to explain and defend what she said? It’s interesting how it seems to be more accepted to be critical of Israel within Israel that it is in USA.
As for Jews moving to Germany, here is an interesting story.
http://www.forward.com/articles/4029/
For the last three years more Jews have emigrated to Germany than to Israel, but now Germany is trying to limit the inflow, partly because it irritates Israel that not all Jews move there. Seems Jews aren’t actually that scared of Germany nowadays.
Doug Latimer
Jim, here’s a thought that might clear things up:
I assume you or someone at FAIR has at least a passing acquaintance with her, right?
Even if that’s not the case, still, why not just call her and *ask* her?
Horse’s mouth and all that?
How’s that sound?
And I have to say that your tone here does a disservice to your (and our) cause of media fairness. If we disagree, we disagree, but I think most, if not all, of us who disagree with you have been respectful in doing so.
Reciprocation – it’s a good thing.
Sonny Espinoza
Just wanted to say that as a long time FAIR supporter, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to pull their card on this one. There are plenty of good responses above that still leads me to believe that FAIR lost their balls on this issue.
Ima Person
Jim N. continues to ask the same rhetorical questions after they have been well answered: at 89 years old, Helen’s apology simply expresses her wish to be left in peace.
I don’t think anyone can credibly claim not to understand that, given the mob of political-correctness warriors that formed to chant “anti-Semite” and other hateful epithets at her, as in a modern day public stoning. That display was truly appalling. No doubt an investigation would reveal that many of the stone throwers are on the payrolls of PR firms and other vested interests, much like the infamous inciters of astroturf tea partiers.
I’m reminded of Dan Rather’s 2002 statement that media was afraid to question Bush/Cheney policies for fear of being “necklaced” (having a flaming tire put around your neck) by patriots “run amok.” While network news anchors may be expected to take the heat, 89-year-old columnists are not.
Sadly, this is the type of thing one might expect FAIR to expose, rather than defend.
Jim Naureckas
Isn’t it a little bit condescending to say that we can assume Helen Thomas’ apology is insincere because she’s old?
Alice Garfield
Could it be just plain anti-Semitism? At age 89, all pretenses of objectivity have been removed, and she, like many others, reverts to mindless bigotry.
And FAIR defends her and the supporters of the terrorist state of Gaza.
Mark Kernes
When I heard Thomas’ remark, which (at least to me) seems to imply that “Israel” and “Palestine” are two different entities, I took it to mean that Thomas was calling on Israelis to get out of the Gaza Strip, which they annexed during their war of conquest in the late ’60s. My understanding is that it is THAT area, the area settled by both Israelis and “Palestinians,” that has been talked about for years as the “Palestinian homeland,” and thanks to some international pressure, Israel has even considered letting Palestinians settle there and form their own society and government.
Ty dePass
i think it’s fairly clear that Thomas’ critics have gone rabid over an ill-framed, off-the-cuff 30-sec. sound-bite.
my initial reaction to Ms. Thomas’ word-choice was, uh-oh, Israel’s apologists are going to crucify her for not dissembling or kowtowing.
an earlier guest appearance on RealNews provides a more nuanced expression of her position @: http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=4900
this interview provides much-needed context for understanding the roots of the conflict. my only regret is that she didn’t come out & state that Israel is little more than a white settler-state, a usurper – like the US, apartheid So. Africa, Australian-New Zealand – established in w/ the collusion the reigning colonial powers as a foil to burgeoning Arab nationalism. and the Holocaust notwithstanding, the zionists were more than willing to play the role of regional gendarme.
that said, my take on recent events off the coast of Gaza notes two intersecting dilemma (1) Israel can’t reconcile being both a “Jewish state” (of, by, &for) & a truly open & inclusive “democratic state”; and, (2) the Palestinians are haunted by 60+ years as a displaced people – pitied or reviled – depending – but rarely understood or respected.
Vic Anderson
Regardless, I defend to the death her right in this country to say it.
Joseph A. Mustich, JP
Perhaps the Turkish vessel in interanational waters being attacked by the IDF, and the media spin afterwards was just too much for her….? And all of us…..
Additionally, since Turkey is a member of NATO, and if one member is attacked, then all members are attacked, what happened? And now sanctions are put on Iran? Iran?……..We live in a crazy world, onward.
Peace with Justice,
Joe Mustich, Justice of the Peace,
Washington, Connecticut, USA
Robert E
I think Helen Thomas’s words were ill chosen. I think she tried to express something that most of here feel, but did it very poorly. That being said, I think the media storm that has erupted, called Helen Thomas an anti-Semitic bigot, and that we wants to religiously cleanse the middle east, etc, deserves a lot of criticism. Given Helen Thomas’s record, can’t we at least stand up to defend her place in the white house press corp, her place in history, rail against the assaults on her character, and criticize the establishments kid gloved treatment of Israel by calling anyone who speaks out against their actions as anti-Semitic? I think it is clear Helen Thomas did not mean for her words to sound the way they did. It was stupid to suggest that the Israeli citizens should go back to germany or poland especially when I think most are from the Middle east, having been born after the creation of Israel. But lets apply some common sense to our assessment of those comments, and demand that common sense from others in our political leadership and the media.
edward s. herman
First of all, she added America to the list of where people should go back to. Second, she was immediately under such a furious assault that her apology could be regarded as an act of self-defense in a climate that could not stand even a reasonable statement that shouldn’t have called for an apology. People apologize even when they are right, if they are misinterpreted.
henry
Don’t we still defend free speech? Why should she lose her job
because of an utterance?
Reader
Tbis politically correct (when it comes to Israel and related issues) exposes an Achilles heel in the journalism of FAIR. It would be far better to have used this space to ask why the Obama White House waxed much more indignant over Thomas’s comment than over the Israeli assault and murder on the humanitarian flotilla. Her remark was taped many days before it was put on national tv, apparently timed to divert attention from the flotilla. Her words may have stung, but they didn’t do what the Israeli pirates did, when they killed and wounded the volunteers bringing supplies and hope to the imprisoned people of Gaza.
So far, no one has observed that many Jews have gone back to Europe, especially to Germany. Her point seems to have been to emphasize the fact that the Palestinians are being evicted from their native land and replaced with residents who are foreign to it. However ill-stated her remarks, this point is well taken.
James Heartland
Here it is: Almost everyone I know has said Helen’s remarks were a terrible mistake, but that the spirit of what she said is felt and appreciated very much. The Israelis have already suffered enough, yes, they have, but the Palestinians, my God when is enough enough? Who can fail to draw the comparison between Gaza and the Warsaw ghetto?
The point is, that in the eyes of the world, Israel has become the very thing Israel hated and feared. Their behavior and self-righteousness are deplorable. If it were anyone other than Israel, would we be hesitating, even for an instant in our condemnation? We must look carefully at the history of the establishment of Israel, from both sides, who installed them, how it was done, before chastising a Helen Thomas, who I greatly admire. Many mistakes have been made. It’s time for peace, without compromise.
Barry
I don’t defend her words. I think they are appalling. But I question whether she should be forced out of her job because of them.
Richard
How dare anyone criticize Israel?
Ima Person
I just discovered this statement by Jim Naureckas, under “Sarah Palin’s Incomprehensible Press Criticism,” 06/07/2010:
“As for Thomas’ statement itself, the message was all too clear: It was a call for ethnic cleansing…”
This is the last straw for me. On the heels of FAIR’s crucifiction of those who expose slavers and child molesters comes this absurd, abhorrent attack on one of our most esteemed journalists for daring to make even the mildest of comments against Israeli genocide.
I have a moral issue with being a subscriber. I won’t be able to renew. It’s too bad, because some good reporting has come out of FAIR over the years. But, FAIR’s judgement and credibility has fallen below minimum standards. Who can believe anything they publish, after this?
btw, I second the comments by edward s. herman and Reader.
John Browne
How many of “us” were even alive when the Zionists began trying to “wipe Palestine off the map”? Helen was a very-aware 20-something… and has seen this as an adult for the entire run of Zionist hubris & self-righteous posturing. If I had that load in MY mind, and didn’t bother to weigh the leading questions of the interviewer, I might have said the same thing… & only regretted how it came out.
What she said in her “apology” was quite revealing… both for what WAS there, & what WASN’T: “They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.â┚¬Ã‚Â
Amen to that. ^..^
Charles Jencks
I think fair should have known better, it was not a battle that needed to be fought. Is Fair or some of the people involved of the Israel right or wrong persuasion? That would be really incongruent with my perception of the values I thought I shared with Fair and that I thought Fair championed. Israel does not inhabit some moral high ground unattainable by other human beings. Far from it.
And who knows what all sentiments & nuances & qualifications her statement carried with it? Dare we mention people we have seen in person and on film who we defiantly would not want for neighbors based on their self declared right to hate & take. It is way past time the world grew up into adults capable of acknowledging ugly facts and uncomfortable truths
Kat
Thanks for linking Gary Leupp’s story on Counterpunch: “The Ambush of Helen Thomas.”
That’s the clearest representation of the backstory as I’ve seen anywhere.
Rob Wheeler
What is so appalling about Helen Thomas’ words? She is right. Given how the Israeli’s have treated the Palestinians and how they are destablizing the whole region, it would be best if they would just leave. Unfortunately, they have brought this upon themselves. And why not then go back to where they came from when or wherever else they might desire and be welcomed. Let us then continue to do whatever we can to create peace on earth.
Rob Wheeler
bilho
Full disclosure Jim Naureckas. I love your work, mostly, but ethnic cleansing? I think that’s out of line. Of course, who am I? I’m a pacifist.
Graeme
“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?”
Not necessarily, given the context of her statement and the reaction to it. There are some historical issues you simply can’t raise in this society, as this lesson clearly demonstrates. I’m glad there are so many people defending Thomas, but there comes a time when people realize the actual argument they intended to put forward will inevitably be obscured and lost in the resulting frenzy, so it’s not worth it to continue. That’s what I think happened here, not necessarily that Thomas no longer believes what she said.
That said, I don’t think Thomas’ apparent argument, that all the European and American Jews who colonized Palestine should go back to Europe and the US, is at all workable, nor that her sentiments were expressed particularly eloquently or intelligently. But jumping from this to characterizing them as anti-Semitic or “a call for ethnic cleansing” is propaganda. Would you describe someone who expresses a belief that all European North Americans or Australians should “go back” to Europe to be racist, whatever you might think of its practicality or sensitivity?
William H. Slavick
Like virtually everyone in this country, Helen Thomas very likely did not know that Poles killed 1500 Jews who returned there after the war or that Gen. Patton mistreated Jews in his perview, etc. So she did not choose to defend her newly discovered ignorance. That ignorance aside, she was observing that Israel is, like the U.S., a colonial state, created by ethnic cleansing the indigenous population. The altogether just solution where such colonization creates conflict is for the colonials to go home, as they have in many parts of the world since World War II.
Tom Hendricks
There is a bigger issue here. We have lost freedom of speech if everyone that speaks something that is not politically correct gets fired. Freedom of speech is about the exchange of ideas that are not popular. Those are the ones that should be protected. Yes this seemed outrageous to most, but who among us has not said something that was not PC? What kind of country will we have when everyone is cowed into silence for fear of loosing their job over a stupid or unkind remark?
Jim Naureckas
Look, if George Will declared that he thought Israelis should go back to Poland and Germany, I would think he was clearly making reference to the Holocaust, and I would find that appalling. If he subsequently apologized and stepped down from his column, I would think that he was doing the right thing.
To me, the difference between that hypothetical case and the actual case is that I should be very surprised to find Will doing the right thing, whereas Helen Thomas’ response I find to be very much in keeping with the overall integrity of her career.
Ed, if you ever find yourself saying something that you deeply regret, and issue a statement telling us so, I’m going to take you at your word, and not imagine that you bowed to the pressure of corporate media disapproval.
sheela
“I don’t think anyone can credibly claim not to understand that, given the mob of political-correctness warriors that formed to chant “anti-Semite” and other hateful epithets at her, as in a modern day public stoning. ”
So… it’s ok to suggest that an entire group of people “go back to where they came from,” but to open one’s mouth and dare to suggest such a statement might be anti-Semitic amounts to a “public stoning”? Wow.
“This is the last straw for me. On the heels of FAIR’s crucifiction of those who expose slavers and child molesters comes this absurd, abhorrent attack on one of our most esteemed journalists for daring to make even the mildest of comments against Israeli genocide.
I have a moral issue with being a subscriber. I won’t be able to renew.”
Double-wow. So you’re basically using the same tactics as the MSM when someone voices an opinion you don’t agree with?
Sounds like your last name should really be “hypocrite.”
While I agree with DaN and most other reasonable people on the necessity of a two-state solution, and while I am a frequent critic of the Israeli government and tend to take umbrage at the general one-sidedness of the MSM media, if FAIR is to maintain crediblity it needs more Jim Naureckas’s who are unafraid to bump the sacred cows and call ’em as they see ’em — even when “they” are the ones who are usually on our side.
I will continue to support FAIR as long as they live up to their name and stay impartial. And kudos to Jim for forcing us to look at ourselves and see that the Left, too, has its flaws.
Kellis
So, how many would be upset if native Americans called for all of European ancestry to go back to Spain or France or England or Germany. The argument has usually been that we “defeated”the Indians, and made this country (and Canada and Mexico) a better place.
Israel holds one percent of the middle east, and Arabs hold the other 99 percent. Israel, in 1948, just took back what had once been their’s. Israel was attacked by all of her neighbors in 1967, and she prevailed. Had Israel wanted to wipe out Palestine, that was the perfect time to do it. Why didn’t Egypt or Jordan or Lebanon take some of the Palestinians? Why are there still Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon? Why haven’t the Arabs assimilated some of these people into other countries? Why have the Arab nations poured more money into arms for the Palestinians than they have for food and medicine? The Palestinians have been the perfect patsies for the Arabs to use as an excuse to keep peace at bay, and the Israelis, without a thought at the whole picture, have played their part.
upyours
she apologised because shes old. israel can go and get well and truley… stuffed! im ant-semetic, just as im anti-american, and im proud to be, it would be immoral to be otherwise
Babette Grunow
When I saw the comments by Helen Thomas on that video, I cringed because I knew she would be in for a virtual lynching. I wondered who it was who asked her the question and if she was set up–kind of like the attacks on ACORN. I still think that would be good for someone to investigate.
I think she was showing her age but not just in the way most people would think. Most people form their political opinions when they are fairly young–early 20’s which for her would have been in the 1940’s around the time that Jews were coming to Palestine/Israel territory after WWII and settling. She may still be very much influenced by memories of the NAKBA–the disaster of Palestinians being murdered and chased from their villages, hundreds of villages in an effort at ethnic cleansing and colonization by Zionists. She has seen the world turn a blind eye as one disaster after another has befallen the Palestinians. The right of return for Palestinians is ignored, shoved aside even in the peace talks. And meanwhile, Israel pays to recruit Jews from Russia, Poland, South America, the US and wherever to come as settlers to Israel and the Palestinian territories, creating larger and larger settlements.
I can see how she could say just go back! Now it may not be polite, or politik. And it might not really be feasible–we wouldn’t think of seriously asking Europeans to leave North America so that the original inhabitants could have their land back, nor did all white South Africans leave for England and Holland etc. once a settlement had been reached to end Apartheid there. It wasn’t feasible and most of them had been born there by that time, setting down roots. And so have many Jewish Israelis. It would have been more feasible in 1948 (and Helen Thomas as she gets older might be thinking in terms of how she thought in the 1940’s).
I think it certainly is worth questioning why Israel keeps paying to bring people from all over the world to Israel if they are Jewish but won’t even consider allowing Palestinian the right to return–even in some cases to visit family homes, or areas that homes were. It seems discriminatory.
Jonik
Even as an “Anglo” (Polish-Irish) I’d support Mexico taking back the parts of the dis-United States that were stolen from Mexico (especially Arizona)—as long as they refused GM wheat flour for tortillas, cut off NAFTA, and didn’t demand “tips” from visitors crossing the Utah-Mexico border.
Most, well, many, people probably knew right away what Helen Thomas meant….that the white, Euro-Anglo-Caucasian people who are so much part of the Israeli military and “settlement” (how wholesome…just like our “pioneers”) entities ought NOT be out there illegally occupying and destroying other people’s ancestral lands. How many of those Euro Anglo Caucasians have an iota of DNA that traces them back to 2000 years ago Israel? Or are we saying that they stole this borderless “country” of Israel Fair And Square, just like the US did with Indians and Mexicans and in Hawaii and the Philippines and Panama and Guam and so forth?
Israelis didn’t have a single thought of assimilating with their ancestral Arab neighbors since day-one in 1948.
And they didn’t seem to be upset that they weren’t exactly wanted in the anti-Semitic West. Then they began decades of service TO the anti-Semitic West. Go figure.
If they have a trace of DNA to legitimize return, two millennia later, to the Holy Land, it becomes sort of like those with 1/79 th, or less, American Indian blood working to claim former Indian land in the US—for casino purposes. Such noble goals people have.
What we got is Fort Israel, like the US Calvary forts of the 1800’s, smack in the middle of “Indian territory” with the job of repressing, and stealing the land from, darker-skinned, non-human savages. Fort Israel is about oil and control over any nations in the area that even think of competing in business with the USA. Israeli people don’t get paid for this service…just the military.
In any case, to beat up on Helen Thomas for, perhaps, lack of clarity…or failure to Obey The Laws of Politically Correct Speech (corporate version, that is) is sad to see.
Maybe later she’ll make clear what’s obvious to all but those who shudder at the idea of displeasing a genocidal Israeli….or their allies in so scary, omnipotent, US mainstream media. One does not disgrace the memory of the Holocaust by complaining bitterly about the Israeli military…though many fall for that syndrome. Hell, many people out here around the world abhor the Israeli military conducting a Holocaust on the Palestinians. Is there an Arabic word for “holocaust”?
If Palestinians turn around some day and begin perpetrating atrocities on Israeli citizens, assuredly, hosts of people globally would condemn that. It’s about WHAT is being done, not who’s doing it OR to whom it’s being done.
NB to some: Semitism or the Jewish religion has no more to do with International-Law-Violating Israeli Military Government Authoritarian gangsters than Christianity has to do with the globally terroristic USA. In any case, neither country’s establishments give a flying fig about the tenets of their loudly and repeatedly proclaimed religions.
If there was a mainstream religion based on Hypocrisy, we’d probably be doing quite well as all the “faithful” break their religious duties and act honestly.
Bob Walton
Re: henry Says: “Don’t we still defend free speech? Why should she lose her job
because of an utterance?”
Free speech is about the government not forbidding a person from making a political statement and we defend it. However, “free speech” does not promise the speaker plauadits and accolades of acceptance or freedom from public brickbats and other negative consequences that follow rejection.
John Ragland
Where else but in America can you pillory the career of an old woman for the mere crime of having the audacity to speak her mind? The purge of the screeching castrati of our fourth estate is now nearly complete â┚¬“ any reporter who dared consider the improbable narrative that always justifies all that Israel is and does is now surely too cowed openly question the official talking points of the post-WW2 European Diaspora.
Helen Thomas’ brief outburst was little more than an opportunistic diversion from the unwelcome attention Israel was continuing to receive (deservedly) for its savage flotilla fiasco. Had it not been Helen it would certainly have been someone/something else. These master propagandists know their American benefactors well enough to know that our attention span is embarrassingly short, to the point of collective wallowing in the myopic bliss that comes with our willful, fundamentalism-fueled ignorance.
In the unflattering glare of the flotilla fallout, speaking the truth will set you free. These hypocritical bigots, these fascist apologists of apartheid, these raging racist rapists of Lebanon’s greener pastures, and Gaza and Golan and Jenin and Jerusalem â┚¬“ they have finally â┚¬Ã…“emancipatedâ┚¬Ã‚ the indomitable Helen Thomas. So here’s a toast to Miss Helen (as they say down here in the South); may you use your new-found liberty well and may the days you have left be a constant consternation to the bastards who tried to silence you.
Mike
Well, I never thought I would say this, but, Screw you FAIR. The issue with Thomas has nothing to do with ethnic cleansing and to suggest that leaves me questioning everything I came to believe FAIR represents. It is clear to me now that FAIR cannot be trusted in it’s fundamental mission. This will be my final interaction with your organization. I have been with FAIR from the beginning, but I will not support this kind of overt bias that betrays a fundamental harmony with the corporate lying press and the mainstream cesspool political status quo. Ciao!
Richard
Of course the defense of Israel’s right to exist is a cornerstone of US mideast policy in perpetuity. The founding of a Jewish state in the Holy Land was inevitable, but is the humiliation of generations of Palestinians also inevitable? Shouldn’t ” the only democracy in the region” have a greater moral imagination than that evinced by requiting violence with 10x violence? Why are Israeli lives somehow more valuable than Arab lives?
As a resident of greater New York I can’t understand why some many Jews would prefer the middle-east to being my neighbor.
martin
Jim N. persists in being obtuse, both in the ridiculous question he posed and his overall insensitivity to the integrity of the remarks that have been directed his way. What is “fair” about being so above the fray that he comes up with nonsensical allusions to George Will performing some unimaginable feat of telling the truth? My Lebanese father-in-law was a conservative Republican, but if mildly pressed, he stated the same view Helen Thomas is now being pilloried for by liberal “critics” like our blogger Jim N. here. Zionism was wrong then, it is wrong now, and to try to sort the enduring horror using superficial chastisements of wronged heroines is nursery-school level foolishness.
RAM
Unfortunately for poor Helen Thomas, you could see this coming. The Israeli propaganda machine in this country is something to behold, aided and abetted as it is by the politically correct crowd and the unfailingly genuflecting media (FAIR obviously belongs to both camps). The comment itself is pretty innocuous, and to conflate it into advocating ethnic cleansing is ridiculous and downright laughable. The reaction from just about everywhere was swift and predictable. She was abandoned by everyone, and I imagine that her resignation was essentially a “quit or be fired” situation. I interpret her apology as simply the reflexive action of an old lady who has been set upon from every direction by a pack of jackals.
On a different score, I’m sick of hearing about “Israel’s right to exist” not being recognized by someone as a justification for Israel’s chronically bad behavior. Israel DOES exist, and its power is backed up by its own nuclear arsenal, a massive military, and the U.S. Who CARES if so and so doesn’t recognize Israel’s right to exist? Moreover, whose right to exist does Israel recognize? Obviously they don’t recognize non-Israeli Palestine’s right to exist. How about Lebanon’s right to exist, after they bombed the hell out of that country? I wonder if THAT might have factored into Helen Thomas’ comments.
Ima Person
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.
slytot
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.
Ron Christensen
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.
Ron Christensen
Typo at the very end of my 6/12/10 1:30 pm comment. It should read “…to do to Israel…”
I apologize.
Karen
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”?
george beres
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
capecodder
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?
James Laffrey
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)
macbags
I wish the fact was mentioned that in this WAR israel is killing at the rate of 300 to 1, while occupying Palistines land.
Liz M Schwartz
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.
John M. Giannone
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?
Ron Christensen
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.
Cosmicrose
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.
libhomo
The Holy War against Helen Thomas reflects intense bigotry in our culture against indigenous peoples. FAIR needs to examine its unconscious racism.
Harvey Reading
” … 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.
sheela
“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.”
Ima Person
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.
Harvey Reading
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.