This month began with the Helen Thomas affair, but I do not want this month to end with her all but forgotten. She spoke on behalf of the Arabs and Muslims when she suggested to a Rabbi armed with a video camera, that the Israelis, not the Jews, should go back from whence they came, and leave Palestine to the Palestinians. I have heard the short exchange many times over, and it goes as follows: Q: We are covering the Jewish Heritage Month. Any comments on Israel? A: Tell them to get the hell out of Palestine. Q: Ooh, any better comments? A: Remember those people are occupied and it's their land not Germany not Poland. Q: So, where should they go? A: Home Q: Where is home? A: Poland, Germany and America and everywhere else. The Palestinians lived there for centuries. Their land is occupied. I say let a million of them return to Russia, and Avigdor Lieberman return to Moldavia and so on. But the issue I want to talk about today is Helen Thomas, and what she said. The conversation with the camera-yielding Rabbi took place on the second of this month. Then not a week later, Helen Thomas resigned from the Hearst Group, where she worked as a columnist and wrote in the newspapers published by the group, after 67 years in the press. She started her career in 1943 with United Press International, and left it in 2000 to join the Hearst Group. She was the most senior White House correspondent, where she reported on ten different U.S presidents beginning with John F. Kennedy in 1960, and was the first woman to become the President of the White House Correspondents Association. But all this and more was lost in a matter of seconds that were the length of the exchange about Israel. One may talk about any subject in the United States, it seems, including the existence of God almighty, but one may never criticize Israel, even as it murders peace activists in international waters. In truth, I believe the two subjects are linked. The American media had reported the news of the Israeli crime reluctantly, and then decided to buy into the incredible Israeli account. But then came Helen Thomas's statement, which the pro-Israeli American media exploited to forfeit its responsibility in reporting the attack on the Peace Flotilla. However, Helen Thomas was not without supporters. Many wrote in support of Thomas, and in an online survey, 92 percent of the readers of the Washington Post said she should not be removed from the White House press room. Moreover, a group of Jews demonstrated in front of the White House, carrying banners that said they were “Jews for Helen Thomas”. Yet, those who expressed their support for Helen Thomas repeated the allegation of her critics that she demanded that the Jews return from whence they came, although the word Jewish was not mentioned in any question or answer, but only in the beginning of the exchange over Israel. Equally important here is the fact that Thomas's defenders emphasized the freedom of speech and Helen Thomas's right to exercise this freedom. However, they agreed here with her critics that her statement was offensive. Personally, I see nothing offensive in her statement. What is offensive instead is when the American press fails to question the Bush administration about its lies that led up to the invasion of Iraq, or when major newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post compete with the administration and publish falsified news stories on their front pages, quoting dubious sources regarding Saddam Hussein, his weapons and the relationship with al-Qaeda. I noticed that it was Ari Fleischer, a Likudnik Jewish American and the White House Spokesman in the Bush administration, who spearheaded the campaign against Helen Thomas. He must have been looking for revenge, as Thomas cornered him and the entire administration with direct questions about Bush's war that most men dared not ask. In 2006, she said that many correspondents bought into the claims of the White House and the Pentagon and took them at face value (she used the word lapped as though they were dogs). George W. Bush ignored Helen Thomas, even though she is the most senior White House correspondent, and did not let her ask the first question in his press conferences. One day in 2006, he obliged but quickly came to regret this, when he signaled her to ask and her question was: “Your decision to invade Iraq has caused the deaths of Americans and Iraqis. Every reason given, publicly at least, has turned out not to be true. What do you have to say?” Nor did she spare Barack Obama, who is a liberal like her, when she asked him last month: “When are you going to get out of Afghanistan? Why are we continuing to kill and die there? What is the real excuse?” She asked him this although Obama had offered her cake and sang for her on her birthday, which falls on the same day as his on the fourth of August. The controversy was a personal vendetta then, and personally, I do not believe that the American media was surprised by the statement given by this Lebanese-American journalist regarding Israel, because her opinion about Israel and the Israelis is known and on the record. I shall continue this topic tomorrow. [email protected]
