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Helen Thomas Pays for Crossing a Line Others Trample
By now you’ve heard: pioneering Washington journalist Helen Thomas has, thanks to a viral video interview, been pilloried for offensive comments about Israel and ousted from the press corps’ inner sanctum. Her words were definitely incendiary—Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to Europe and America. But the reaction suggests that the Rabbilive ambush was just a catalyst for a gathering storm of political enmity. She was after all, one of the few hard-nosed reporters (and women) in the briefing room who ruthlessly challenged the White House on foreign policy issues.
To George W. Bush’s former press secretary Ari Fleischer, the comments were tantamount to a call for genocide: “She is advocating religious cleansing,” he told Huffington Post. “How can Hearst stand by her? If a journalist, or a columnist, said the same thing about blacks or Hispanics, they would already have lost their jobs.”
Getting fired for bigoted words? Somehow that fate has not befallen the cabal of right-wing bloviators who have literally built their careers pushing the propaganda war against Latinos, other people of color, gay people, liberals and anyone else they disagree with. They’re not journalists in the formal sense, but their frothing tirades, word-for-word, arguably wield more influence over the corporate news cycle. In contrast to Thomas-gate, though, Limbaugh and friends don’t need to be ambushed and exposed by rogue YouTube muckrakers. They’ve spewed their venom to millions daily on television and radio, backed by advertisers, media executives and an audience that happily blinds itself to political hypocrisy.
At HuffPo, some cooler heads have spoken in Thomas's defense while criticizing her remarks, noting a double standard in how Americans talk about who should “get the hell out.” On moral relativism, Paul Jay of Real News argues:
The obvious comparison is asking all European Americans to "get the hell out", and leave the land to its rightful owners, Native Americans. One could argue Mexican Americans might have an argument to stay in certain parts of the country.The European migration to America isn't such a stretch if one thinks about it. Colonialism makes use of people fleeing religious persecution to populate their new possession . . .
At any rate, we all know what's going on here. The hyper-pro-Israel lobby, in both parties, hasn't much liked the fact that Helen Thomas dares to speak up and question that most sacred of topics, and right from the front row of the White House Press Gallery.
James Zogby of the Arab American Institute puts Thomas's comments in perspective and calls out the right-wingers, embodied in the character assassination of Ari Fleischer, for its far more virulent rhetoric against people of color, gays, and, oops, yes, Jews:
Where was their indignation when Rush Limbaugh was making disgraceful and insulting comments about African Americans, gays, Muslims, and women and then was hosted and toasted at the White House? And did they speak out when Pat Robertson was making bizarre pronouncements connecting the devastation of Katrina or Ariel Sharon's stroke with God's justice? If I thought they understood shame, I would advise them to feel some.
When Dobbs, Beck and company have likened immigration to an illegal invasion of America's god-given dominion, they're just brandishing their patriotism, right? As opposed to the misguided journalists who dare question an actual occupation, perpetuated by the U.S., in another part of the world. Granted, it's hard to tell who's blaming who for what sometimes, as right-wingers tend to employ the same terminology when debating immigration and America's Muslim and Arab adversaries: invaders, terrorists, conquerors, and the occasional fascism reference.
Language is a funny thing. With all her experience in the White House press corps, Thomas should have known what words are off limits. There are some lines you just can't cross in the media... unless you're the one who gets to write the rules.
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Show AllLike all real estate matters it's location, location, location. Why does anyone have to apologize for exploring pragmatic solutions that would make possibly a better life for a people in a less hostile place or situation?
She must be referring to the Jews who were born and lived their entire lives in Israel. Telling them to leave and go back to the countries their parents came from would be like telling Americans to go back to Europe where they came from. She was practical when she apologized and softened her tone by calling for peaceful coexistence.
Not exactly, population of the USA is about 300+ million to Europe's 830 million while Israel is roughly the size of 6 or 7 New Orleans and we seemed to have no trouble telling those folks, "tough luck". There could be incentives for concerned nations to adopt, encourage, and welcome immigration in order to prevent the stress of infinite growth. That before the proverbial levee breaks and sinks the Middle East.
I guess it is preposterous, but when you have two people that want to fight, often the best thing to do is move them apart. Also, it was O.K. to move the Palestinians, wasn't it?
We will all, or our children will all face the conflicts produced between the need for infinite growth to support the "economy" and limited resources. At the present there are still some new and less hostile frontiers.
Therefore I return to my original point, why should anyone have to apologize for a pragmatic observation?
You're right about moving 2 people apart when they keep fighting and can't stop but this one is different. When she said Jews, it was assumed all Jews including the ones who didn't want this oppression going on. Thats a lot of people to move. Then there has to be standard on which of them to move based on level hatred or something I don't know. Moving people out as pragmatic? Not sure that will work.
Good point. But what an impasse to date...
peace under a caterpillar tractor or F-22?
Nope.
Down here in South Florida we have a weekly Sasha Show alternative media radio hour on Fridays. Our local argument about the Freedom Flotilla included a person who backed up her pro-Israeli view with a video news report from Israel featuring an anchor named Mr. Simmons.
I viewed Mr. Simmons presentation with my own eyes as recommended but had to use my own ears as well. Strange how words can penetrate the other through the ear. A weapon of excellent power.
But Mr. Simmons made an error with me particularly when he set the Israeli response into a defensive posture, saying that the pacifists' weapons (including the photoshopped picture of the madman Muslim holding a curved blade in the stabbing position) were proof that the activists were trying to "goad" Israel into a response.
A more egregious error for me was the claim Mr. Simmons makes that Rachel Corrie "came to Gaza to protect the tunnels used to smuggle weapons to Hamas." Rachel, as student at Evergreen University in Washington, went to Gaza just as Mairead Corrigan-Maguire is now doing--solely out of compassion for the abused Palestinians with whom she shared floor space, food, and friendship. She stood before the dozer to prevent her friends' home from being leveled. She too was murdered.
Read her published paper made into a play--forbidden on American stages and excluded from American schools.
So, Mr. Simmons made two fatal errors in attempting to convince me that the people on board the flotilla were not peaceful activists.
He says, "They are part of the IHH, which is a radical Turkish Islamist organisation which has been investigated by Western governments and by the Turkish government itself in the past for their links with terrorist organizations."
He says "the goal of these activists was to damage Israel in the world's eyes using the media" instead of a bomb belt. How easily he seems to read the hearts of these good people.
He [mis]reads them as the writer of _The Passover Plot_ reads the crucifixion of Jesus. He did it to trip us Jews up. His fanatical followers became cannibals after his death so His body couldn't be found. Just so, the Flotilla participants engineered the incident and some even died during it on purpose to make Israel look bad.
Ms. Thomas' remarks touch an exposed sore spot in the Israeli psyche. With such strenuous efforts expended to
embrace always being-the-victim, the ultimate effect is to "allow" whatever errors of judgment and words Jews make. Ms. Thomas, from my point of view, wasn't seriously proposing relocation or "wiping Israel off the map." She was, in her way, saying "be grateful for what you have, already. Stop persecuting your neighbors and be happy they cannot aim their small rockets accurately."
Wikipedia reports that, "The number of settlers killed by Palestinians far exceeds the number of Palestinians killed by settlers. Between the beginning of the Second Intifada and the end of 2008, 237 Israeli settlers were killed by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, while 45 Palestinians were killed by Israeli settlers in those areas.[98]" However other sources report the reverse is true: "124 Israeli children have been killed by Palestinians and 1,441 Palestinian children have been killed by Israelis and 1,072 Israelis and at least 6,348 Palestinians have been killed since September 29, 2000."
Other statistics are very telling. Whoever is right, Ms. Thomas has decidedly taken a position different from "mainstream media." Most of us CD readers don't put much stock in mainstream media.
dwyerj1, Just for the sake of accuracy, i have seen "My Name Is Rachel Corrie" more than once, in the u.s. On two different stages. I am aware of the fact that it was originally banned from opening in nyc and needed to be premiered in London.
But your points are well taken, of course.
Peace.
Helen said what needed to be said and what many on the Left agree with.
The problem is that anytime one of us comes under a media attack the Liberals get weak knees and allow the abuse to continue. It happened to Phil Donahue when he opposed the war. He was immediately taken off air and those who should have supported him stood around pretending to oppose Shock and Awe. It happened to Ward Churchill when he explained that 9/11 was BLOWBACK.
Now is a time to come to the aide of Helen, Phil, and Ward. How about a prime time program called THE HELEN, WARD, AND PHIL SHOW. It would be the ONLY prime-time program that aired views that some of us here share. We have NO representation in the media and now that Helen is gone the WH briefings are just another dog and pony show.
don't fret , when the oil runs out in the Middle East,
no one will care about an Arab or a Jew..
including our Jewish lawmakers
sierra7
The reaction to Helen Thomas's (right on) remarks about Israel and the White House's mouthpiece's (Gibbs) reaction only make me more ashamed of my government.
Gibbs should apologize to Helen; not the way it happened.
Helen is/was basically correct, of course.
And the rest of the namby pamby "press" (secretariat) corps just sit on their $$$$$$$$ hands.....what cowards!!!!!!
Helen's "crime” was she spoke. She had access to be reported on and she spoke. That's why she 'retired'. When have you heard of an America media person speaking their mind without prior approval?
The Israeli government has remembered the practices of the Nazis to use on their neighbors. Its final act, when finally forced to stop, will be to nuke its neighbors. It is a country at least as insane as Germany in the thirties and forties.
The media "cabal" has just been waiting to find some reason to shut up Helen Thomas. She is the only "journalist" who asks hard questions the Administration and the rest of the Press Corps don't want to be asked. True, her remarks were incendiary and unfortunate--though somewhat true--and she did apologize for her unfortunate candor. But it is my estimation that they were just waiting for a chance to boot her out--god forbid they should have to answer some of the questions no one else dared to ask. Sounds like a fortunate happenstance to shut up someone who speaks the truth--in this country which no longer has real journalists nor true freedom of the press.
What's important is not what Thomas said, but the way she said it. She knew better than most, as she said it, that Israel is here to stay. And, in a cooler head, she probably doesn't want Israel to leave anyway.
But, she couldn't afford a cooler head, and that is why what she said is so important, because she said what everybody is thinking. Polite society is fed up with modern Israel's paranoia and cowboy attitude. People, like Thomas, who ordinarily couldn't care less about that part of the world are suddenly livid over this humanitarian flotilla seizing, and they are not letting it go. What Thomas expressed was everybodies collective anger over Israel, and she was right to express it.
In expressing her frustration, Thomas told Israel, 'catch a clue'. As such, she did us all a favor. Israel would do well to follow her advice, but, as with the modern rightwingers in America, I sense Israel may instead double down on the crazy.
"While I am a sever critic of Iran's president, I do agree with his premise that since Nazi Germany killed > 6 million Jews in the holocaust, a piece of Germany should have been used to create a country for Jewish refugees. Since Palestinians had nothing to do with the holocaust, they shouldn't be made to pay for it."
That's why we needed "liberal war hawk" Paul Berman to tell us that, really, they really did do it in "Terror and Liberalism"--in which he coined the term "Islamofascism"-- in the run-up to the Iraq war.
Remember that one? Remember how No Decent Person was permitted to question the justice of pre-emptive Holy War on Arabs in the middle east?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Berman
http://www.thenation.com/article/liberal-hawk-down
There is NO END to Paul Berman's Holy War.
a piece of Germany should have been used to create a country for Jewish refugees. Since Palestinians had nothing to do with the holocaust, they shouldn't be made to pay for it."
This is exactly the idea behind the statement of IranianPresident Mahmoud Ahamadinejad that has been construed by the infotainment hacks to claim he called for the extermination of the Jews who live in Israel.
I think its rather clear that the truly offensive part of her rant was that she didn't just say the Jews should go back to Europe and America; she specifically said Germany and Poland, which could be interpreted as "Go back to Auschwitz". Michelle seems to have conveniently neglected that part.
That's silly. There's no reason to think she meant that.
"They could go home…Poland. Germany. And America. And everywhere else. Why push people out of there who have lived there for centuries?"
Nice spin and lies. What I find alarming is that even the left thinks she should have apologized for these comments. When you read what she said, she is 100% correct. In the here and now, Israel is engaging in slaughters and protracted genocide. Anyone who doesn't stand against these policies is morally bankrupt.
Genocide? Is that why the Palestinian population is among the fastest growing in the world? Have you ever read a dictionary?
Well, so much for stephen Colbert, whom i usually think is rather witty and usually appreciate.
He just bashed Helen Thomas. And to top it off. He had the israel embassador to the u.s. and allowed him to brazenly spin away on how the attack was necessary to ward off the terrorists bringing weapons into Gaza.
I feel even more sick now than i have. Stephen Colbert. Now i have to boycott his show. And he has provided many a laugh over the past few years. I really did enjoy his wit and creativity.
Damn! It was entirely repulsive.
Exactly right! Colbert's ignorance matches that of the infotainment hacks that pose as journalists in the corporate media. Neither he nor they know the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-semitism. The Israeli propaganda machine portrays Jews as 100% Zionist, a stereotyping not unlike that which forms the basis for all racism and bigotry.
Mike Marqusee's book If I Am Not For Myself : Journey Of An Anti-Zionist Jew explains the difference in great and moving detail.
Indeed. I am a nonzionist jew, so well i know.
I am writing to the show, as a jew (not that it makes a bit of difference), but i will tell him that i am repulsed my this pretense that israel represents ME!
rita
Not entirely: He did say that that Palestinians should go back where they came from and made the ambassador feel uncomfortable trying to get him to agree with this statement. That one statement says a lot.
Tom Edgar
Helen Thomas always spoke the truth and never retracted. So what threat or inducement made her do so this time?
The land WAS stolen from Palestinians,then given to foreigners of the Judaic Religion to compensate for atrocities committed by European Christians. So the Muslim Palestinians had to pay.
It is that simple. Ninety percent of Israelis today are either foreign immigrants or their offspring. Whilst the legitimate land owners have been expelled, and removed to a ghetto.
This is exactly right. The United States used the opportunity to not offer safe haven in the US but to utilize the situation to place a state, a government and a standing army in an area it looked to dominate after the war. Israel is an occupier and the land is Palestinian before the war, then and now. America has lost what it thought was control over a puppet state it sought to control in order to permanently infuse it's influence in the middle east and we find ourselves just a subject to Israel's clandestine operations as any other nation. Israel moves anywhere in the world without concern for international law or the image it has in the international community. Israel has long ago been as compensated as realistically possible for the damages done it's people during those terrible years. The atrocities committed upon them aren't to be overlooked or compared to atrocities suffered by any other group of people ; and there are others that have suffered in this world, blacks in the US, Hutus upon Tutsis, Turks upon Armenians etc etc etc. Helen Thomas spoke what many in the US and throughout the world think, enough is enough, get out of Palestine and go anywhere you like in this world but, these people, the Palestinians deserve the land that is theirs and a state that is theirs, period. Thank you Helen
thomas was right about the substance of the matter but impulsive in the way she phrased her policy prescription, creating room for intentional obfuscation that many "kingdom" fanatics have taken ample advantage of.
israel must be re-founded under a neutral name as a non-confessional "protected" democracy where the UN guarantees equal social and political rights to everybody, without "biblically justified" invidious privileges for anybody.
stolen palestinian houses and usurped land must be returned to legitimate owners or to their descendants, and the thuggish colonial powers who misused arab land to "atone” for nazi crimes against the jews (go figure!) and allowed the massive massacres and rapes that terrorist jewish ethnic cleansers used to "give birth to the young jewish state"TM must pay economic reparations to the palestinians.
and for those jews who cannot imagine living in a state where other ethnic groups have fully equal rights, germany and france --the two countries most involved in carrying out the holocaust-- should found say in alsace-lorraine a UN-protected, *racially pure*, nuclear-armed jewish state (bye bye UN chart!), with the other holocaust enablers italy, hungary, poland, etc, helping pay for the initial costs incurred by the "settlers" returning from the middle east (but diaspora jews would be allowed to settle in either state; wanna bet which place will they choose?).
until now germany has “atoned” for nazi crimes by throwing mountains of cash at israel and financing and building big-ticket weapon systems for israel which needs them to bully and brutalize the arab world. this does not make much sense since arabs had certainly much less to do with the holocaust than say the average american or european antisemite of that time.
Netanyahoo approves of Israeli expansion of the "settlements" in Palestinian territory. Israel has no intention of entering into any serious negotiations toward a two-state solution and has no problem with an eternal pretense at seeking same.
George Mitchell can talk with each side until hell freezes over. Nothing will come of it.
Abbas was on Charlie Rose last night. A pimpleton. What is there to negotiate with an oppressor when you have no chips?
Re-open the Allenby bridge.
-30-
The Israeli agents masquerading as democratic congressmen and senators of the United States routinely spout racist garbage about arabs, muslims and Palestinians so this typical neocon thuggery in action.
Michael Savage is the biggest hypocrite of all. One night he's castigating an Israeli fighter for boarding the ship and shooting at the activists, saying the ship was in international waters and the people on board were not armed.
The next night, he reverses his stance and castigates callers and others for condemning the action.
If you don't agree with everything he says (and even if you do), he rudely talks over the callers in an attempt to "educate" them. What a pompous jerk!
One of his Zionist buddies must have gotten to him, is all I can think. Maybe he should become a citizen of Irael.
Could we send a thank to Ms. Thomas for bringing us the news for decades? I would like to express my gratitude and hate how her career ended.
What happened to free speech in the good old USA?
And when is it that an American is unable to criticize a foreign country?
Helen Thomas said no wrong. It is her right to speak her mind, and freely air her opinions. This is not Stalin's Soviet Union. Or is it?
And what did she say that is factually wrong?
Of course, our media quickly converted "Israelis" out of Palestine to "Jews" out of Palestine in order to bring in the anti-semitic line.
Are we denying that the indigenous Palestinian people were ethnically cleansed? Was this ethnic cleansing not premeditated as outlined by Israeli historians in Plan D?
Today, the vast majority of settlers in the occupied West Bank- Palestine- are Americans and Europeans What gives these settlers the right to evict the natives and move in? Cannot we tell them to get the hell out and return to Brooklyn and Germany and Russia? Does not the 4th Geneva Convention state that "an occupier is not allowed to move native populations out of their land, or settlers into the occupied lands"?
US Politicians are literally terrified from AIPAC, the American Israel Political Action Committee. And Obama cannot move with Rahm Emanuel breathing down his throat. And Mr. Emanual is an Israeli who served in the Israeli Army in 1991 but never served in the US Army.
So to play it safe, let us deny that Israelis ethnically cleansed the Palestinians in 1948 and continue to do to this day.
And we need to pretend that Israel has no nuclear bombs ...
And we need to understand that the inhumane siege the Gaza is not a Warsaw Ghetto ... It is benign ...
Folks, Helen Thomas did no wrong.
Let's defend her right to free speech!
thomas was right about the substance of the matter but impulsive in the way she phrased her policy prescription, creating room for intentional obfuscation that many "kingdom" fanatics have taken ample advantage of.
the only solution consonant with modern enlightenment values is that israel be re-founded under a neutral name as a non-confessional "protected" democracy where the UN guarantees equal social and political rights to everybody, without "biblically justified" invidious privileges for anybody.
stolen palestinian houses and usurped land must be returned to legitimate owners or to their descendants, and the thuggish colonial powers who misused arab land to "atone” for nazi crimes against the jews (go figure!) and allowed the massive massacres and rapes that terrorist jewish ethnic cleansers used to "give birth to the young jewish state"TM must pay economic reparations to the palestinians.
and for those jews who cannot imagine living in a state where other ethnic groups have fully equal rights, germany and france --the two countries most involved in carrying out the holocaust-- should found say in alsace-lorraine a UN-protected, *racially pure*, nuclear-armed jewish state (bye bye UN chart!), with the other holocaust enablers italy, hungary, poland, etc, helping pay for the initial costs incurred by the "settlers" returning from the middle east (but diaspora jews would be allowed to settle in either state; wanna bet which place they will choose?).
until now germany has “atoned” for nazi crimes by throwing mountains of cash at israel and financing and building big-ticket weapon systems for israel which needs them to bully and brutalize the arab world. this does not make much sense since arabs had certainly much less to do with the holocaust than say the average american or european antisemite of that time.
the israeli's operatives world wide condemmed ms thomas for exercising her second ammendment right under the US constitution.that showed the kind of a stragle hold these israelis have on the US. even olbermenn of MSNBC COUNTDOWN is in israel trap. i kind guessed long time ago that these so-called libral talk shows operatives are allowed to say anything they wish on all subjects provided they defend israel. it is the red light to them, cross it and you are out. i would like to ask olbermann and the others who attacked ms thomas: why didn't they say anything to the israeli sympathysers when they repeatedly called for the expulsion of the palestinians from their homeland, palestine, and plant them in jordan? knowing full well that they are the semites? why do they throw a tantrum when thomas called for the non-semites khazar(monguls) jewish converts to go back to their countries of origin from which they are planted in palestine?