Jews for Helen Thomas
Here they are, in front of the White House, led by Code Pink's Medea Benjamin.
They segue in three minutes from the sympathetic to the questionable to outright spin.
The sympathetic: Benjamin's appeal to remember Thomas not for the "30-second soundbite" that ended her career and instead for "the probing of the lies that led us into the war in Iraq or the questioning of civilian casualties in Afghanistan."
That's an argument that works: Thomas stood out since the Iraq war for asking discomfiting questions when other journalists were holding back. Jamie McIntyre says she speechified instead of asked tough questions that would have elicited revelations. He resents the implication that the press rolled over. Too bad. The evidence that Saddam was bluffing was in place as early as 2002. Hans Blix -- among others -- made the case in early 2003, before the war. It didn't become a storyline until early 2004. Almost no one (there were notable exceptions, but they were exceptions) bought it until President Bush's handpicked inspector said so. That's kind of the definition of "rolling over."
Thomas stood out. Maybe she speechified, but she was getting facts out on national TV when she speechified. It is indeed regrettable that this record was subsumed to her ugly call on Israeli Jews to "go home" to Poland and Germany.
The questionable: Thomas' "50-plus year record of a very probing journalist," a "legendary journalist at the top of her field."
What is this based on? She was (and I am) a wire service hack. All honor to her. But she was ensconced in the establishment before UPI spiraled into irrelevance; what did she break? She acknowledges cozying up to the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, when other journalists were risking lives and careers to expose the Vietnam debacle. The truth is, she had a late life reinvention as an outsider. Good for her. But let's not go overboard.
The spin: "She was suggesting, really, that the Israeli occupation of Palestine should come to an end;" and "what she meant to say ... Israel should not be an occupier."
Please. She was talking about Jews generally, not West Bank settlers particularly. She said they should "go home." The rabbi asked where that is. She didn't say "Israel." She said Germany and Poland.
"What she meant to say" couldn't have been clearer.
Share
9 Comments
Comments RSS Feed Reader Comments
We Jews are well known for our intelectual accomplishments which obviously entile the necessity for brains; likewise, we have more than our share of insanity. Here’s a most obvious example.
For a Jew to stand up and emphasize the positive about Helen Thomas is like the Italian sympathizer in World War II exclaiming that Mussolini wasn’t so bad because he had “the trains running on time.” Now we can see that the “scrutiny” for the invasion of Iraq that Thomas forced at presidential press conferences was more likely borne of some kind of pro-Arabism than it was out of conscience as an American.
For a Jew who cares at all about Israel to advocate for Helen Thomas is an intellectual perversion.
We are indeed a very strange people. After such an unbelievable anti-semitic statement there are Jews willing to defend this hate monger. These are pathetic apologists.
Rabbi Glazer is right. We are indeed a very strange people. We get very upset when Helen Thomas suggests that the Israeli Jews go back to where they came from. Yet many of us have no problem with the expulsion of 700,000 Palestinians from their homes when Israel refused to let the refugees return, or with expropriation of Arab lands within the Green Line after 1948 for Jewish settlemetn.
Even today, some of us contemplate a solution involving a transfer of Palestinian citizens of Israel against their will out of Israel for security and demographic reasons. Heck, many of us don’t even believe that the Palestinians have a right to a state in their native homeland or a right to a military that defends the state.
I look forward to the day when a Fox News commentator who denies that the Palestinians have a right to a state, or suggests that Jordan is Palestine, or advises the Palestinians to leave Israel, is booted out as unceremoniously as was Helen Thomas.
Leave a Comment
To leave a comment, you must first be logged in to JTA. If you are not registered, please click here.
Already a JTA member?
Need to know? Get JTA's free e-newsletters!
Ed Beck
06/16/10 11:58 AM
I am all for freedom of speech and the freedom to be wrong and suffer the consequences of being wrong. Helen Thomas was free to say whatever was on her mind and did, which carried the responsibility and consequences of being held accountable for her being wrong. Freedom of speech, like all things democractic has checks and balances. She enjoyed a front row seat in the White House for all the fine and wonderful “speechifying” and probing questions she asked for a long time. If policitians and other leaders can be brought down for wrong-headed comments, so can journalists. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Thank you, Helen for your contributions to democracy...all of them. Happy retirement.