08/06/2010 Hearst News Service journalist, Helen Thomas, ‘has resigned’ following comments on Israeli Jews, her employer announced Monday.
“Her decision came after her controversial comments about Israel and the Palestinians were captured on videotape and widely disseminated on the Internet,” the news organization said in a statement on the 89-year-old columnist, who for decades served as a wire service reporter and had a seat of honor in the White House newsroom because of her long tenure dating from the Kennedy era.
During a Jewish heritage celebration at the White House May 27, Rabbi David Nesenoff asked the veteran journalist for comments for Israel. Her response was: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine.” The shocked rabbi then asked Thomas for ‘any better comments’ she replied: “Remember these people (Palestinians) are occupied and it’s their land.” The rabbi then said: “So where should they (Israelis) go?” Thomas replied: “They should go home, to Poland, Germany, America, and everywhere else.”
While some defended her, the US media controlled by the Israel lobby lashed out at the journalist “from Lebanese origins.” “You know her parents were Lebanese, and Lebanese was part of ancient Palestine and that’s the perspective from which she is saying those comments of Jews to go home,” a Fox news broadcaster said.
"She's always said crazy stuff," said National Review Online columnist Jonah Goldberg. "Helen Thomas offered the official Hamas position, as far as I can tell,” he added according to the Washington Post.
Thomas told a Washington Post reporter Friday night that she was "very sorry" and had "made a mistake," but did not address the substance of her comments. By Monday morning -- after her agent had dropped her, Hearst expressed deep regret over her remarks and White House press secretary Robert Gibbs called them "offensive and reprehensible" -- she decided to call it quits. Thomas, said in a statement that her comments "do not reflect my heartfelt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance."
Sam Donaldson, a former White House correspondent for ABC, said Thomas was a "pioneer" for women, "and no one can take that away from Helen." He said her comments likely reflect the view of many people of Arab descent.
Donaldson, 76, who retired last year, was asked whether his friend, who started on the beat in 1960, had stayed too long.
"Her life was her work," Donaldson said. "She didn't have other interests. The thought that she'd give it up never entered her mind."
"It's a tragic ending, but she did the right thing by announcing her resignation," Ari Fleischer, who was Bush's first press secretary, said Monday. He was joined in the effort by former Clinton White House aide Lanny Davis.
A Washington Post article said that in 2002, Thomas asked Fleischer: "Does the president think that the Palestinians have a right to resist 35 years of brutal military occupation and suppression?"
Four years later, Thomas told Fleischer's successor, Tony Snow, that the United States "could have stopped the bombardment of Lebanon" by Israel, but instead had "gone for collective punishment against all of Lebanon and Palestine." Snow tartly thanked her for "the Hezbollah view."
Mark Rabin, a former freelance cameraman for CNN, said that in a 2002 conversation at the White House, Thomas said "thank God for Hezbollah" for driving Israel out of Lebanon, adding that "Israel is the cause for 99 percent of all this terrorism."
The Daily Caller Web site noted that during a 2004 speech to the Al-Hewar Center, a Washington-based Arab organization, Thomas likened Palestinian protesters resisting the "tyrannical occupation" by Israel to "those who resisted the Nazi occupation."
God bless Helen Thomas
Via The Vineyard of the Sakerby Roger Tucker
As everyone knows, Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, has gone into retirement after making some heretical remarks about Israel and Israelis. The current wikipedia entry reads in part as follows:
"On May 27, 2010, outside a White House Jewish heritage event, Rabbi David Nesenoff asked if Thomas had any comments on Israel. Thomas replied, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine... Remember, these people are occupied, and it's their land." She was then asked where the Israelis should go, to which she replied: "they should go home" to "Poland, Germany,... America and everywhere else." Thomas subsequently issued an apology on her personal web site: "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."
She was perhaps the last representative of a proud tradition of American journalism, of calling it like you see it and damn the torpedoes - in a word, of telling the truth. Presidents have either trusted or feared her, depending on their own proclivities for truth telling, hardly a hallmark of politicians of whatever rank. There she always was, up front and center due to her rank as America's premier representative of the press, ready to ask that one piercing question directed at whatever cover-up, hypocrisy or skullduggery the DC suits were up to at the moment. The most recent example was her pointed question to President Obama, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle East that have nuclear weapons, which was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to "speculate". Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama's answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region. Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle East since their last encounter.
In preparation for my bar-mitzvah I attended Hebrew School at a place called Temple Emeth in Brookline, MA. Emeth is Hebrew for truth, and I was young enough, 11-12, to be curious what that meant. What I mostly discovered was an ancient cult dedicated to telling old wives tales meant to frighten and cajole its adherents into becoming and remaining loyal members of the tribe. The "truth" indeed. But I do remember that some of the old texts frequently mentioned something called "righteousness," which was somehow supposed to be the bedrock of the whole thing. Of course, no one actually believed in God. The "enlightened" Jews of Europe threw out that retro concept generations ago. Their new faith was Zionism, which can be summed up with the words, "God does not exist, but he gave us the Land." In replacing the old faith with the new, that old notion of "righteousness" conveniently disappeared - the baby got thrown out with the bathwater. What did remain was the actual faith of the Pharisees going back to biblical times, the worship of the Golden Calf, the belief in and absolute devotion to money and power.
She has seen it all, and if there's anyone who knows what the truth is, it is Helen Thomas. She saw the pressure and treachery applied by the Zionist mafia that led to the birth of Israel as an American protectorate in the Middle East. She saw her country that she so loved fall prey to a ruthless fifth column that has turned America into an obedient puppet of what a French diplomat once called "that shitty little state." She watched as the Chicago Jewish political mafia picked out and groomed a nobody for the Presidency, the perfect Uncle Tom with a silken tongue who would smoothly carry out Massa's orders
Who knows what the "rabbi" said to set her off, but whatever it was, she could no longer contain what she (and hundreds of millions of others who have not been duped or seduced by the Zionists) have felt all along, so she said what is so obvious - a bunch of genocidal settler-colonialist Eastern European fascists have no business being in Palestine in any other capacity than as tourists and should just get the hell out.
God bless Helen Thomas.
As everyone knows, Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the Washington Press Corps, has gone into retirement after making some heretical remarks about Israel and Israelis. The current wikipedia entry reads in part as follows:
"On May 27, 2010, outside a White House Jewish heritage event, Rabbi David Nesenoff asked if Thomas had any comments on Israel. Thomas replied, "Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine... Remember, these people are occupied, and it's their land." She was then asked where the Israelis should go, to which she replied: "they should go home" to "Poland, Germany,... America and everywhere else." Thomas subsequently issued an apology on her personal web site: "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."
She was perhaps the last representative of a proud tradition of American journalism, of calling it like you see it and damn the torpedoes - in a word, of telling the truth. Presidents have either trusted or feared her, depending on their own proclivities for truth telling, hardly a hallmark of politicians of whatever rank. There she always was, up front and center due to her rank as America's premier representative of the press, ready to ask that one piercing question directed at whatever cover-up, hypocrisy or skullduggery the DC suits were up to at the moment. The most recent example was her pointed question to President Obama, asking President Obama to name all the countries in the Middle East that have nuclear weapons, which was avoided by the President, who claimed to not want to "speculate". Thomas claims that knowledge of Israeli nukes is very public in DC and Obama's answer shows a lack of credibility. She explains the importance of this question for U.S. policy in the region. Finally, she confides that she has not been called on by the President since that day, but that if she does, she will ask him whether or not he has found any more information about nukes in the Middle East since their last encounter.
In preparation for my bar-mitzvah I attended Hebrew School at a place called Temple Emeth in Brookline, MA. Emeth is Hebrew for truth, and I was young enough, 11-12, to be curious what that meant. What I mostly discovered was an ancient cult dedicated to telling old wives tales meant to frighten and cajole its adherents into becoming and remaining loyal members of the tribe. The "truth" indeed. But I do remember that some of the old texts frequently mentioned something called "righteousness," which was somehow supposed to be the bedrock of the whole thing. Of course, no one actually believed in God. The "enlightened" Jews of Europe threw out that retro concept generations ago. Their new faith was Zionism, which can be summed up with the words, "God does not exist, but he gave us the Land." In replacing the old faith with the new, that old notion of "righteousness" conveniently disappeared - the baby got thrown out with the bathwater. What did remain was the actual faith of the Pharisees going back to biblical times, the worship of the Golden Calf, the belief in and absolute devotion to money and power.
She has seen it all, and if there's anyone who knows what the truth is, it is Helen Thomas. She saw the pressure and treachery applied by the Zionist mafia that led to the birth of Israel as an American protectorate in the Middle East. She saw her country that she so loved fall prey to a ruthless fifth column that has turned America into an obedient puppet of what a French diplomat once called "that shitty little state." She watched as the Chicago Jewish political mafia picked out and groomed a nobody for the Presidency, the perfect Uncle Tom with a silken tongue who would smoothly carry out Massa's orders
Who knows what the "rabbi" said to set her off, but whatever it was, she could no longer contain what she (and hundreds of millions of others who have not been duped or seduced by the Zionists) have felt all along, so she said what is so obvious - a bunch of genocidal settler-colonialist Eastern European fascists have no business being in Palestine in any other capacity than as tourists and should just get the hell out.
God bless Helen Thomas.
River to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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