In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at Helen Thomas’ descent into garden-variety anti-Semitism — a descent that was many years in the making.
99 thoughts on “How Helen Thomas blew herself up”
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In my latest for the Guardian, I take a look at Helen Thomas’ descent into garden-variety anti-Semitism — a descent that was many years in the making.
Comments are closed.
Media Nation 
Dan Kennedy has nothing on Kevin Whalen.
Moreover, the thread is about whether Thomas deserved to be forced to resign and whether what she said was so egregious, she should lose her job, her well stated apology notwithstanding.
@ BP: ***PS: Dan did not “participate” in the mob mentality that brought her down. Near as I can tell, all his public comments occurred after she resigned. ***
So that’s great. Beat up on someone some more after she’s already down. Classy.
@ Dan: *** If you actually read my Guardian commentary, you will see that I have nothing good to say about the Netanyahu government or its attack on the flotilla. ***
Great, you win a cookie. Now when will you condemn the oppressive occupation of Palestine? That’s the more important point.
*** I cannot imagine you would run to anyone’s defense for uttering hate speech ***
That’s an assumption.
*** I don’t see how you can be so animated by this topic except that you don’t believe Israel even has a right to exist ***
Yeah, and by your rationale I must want to destroy Israel too. Let me clarify. I don’t support Israel today because it resembles an apartheid state. Bishop Desmond Tutu agrees with the observation. So at least I’m in good company.
The other thing is only I’m only questioning its right to exist because Israel was created on Palestinian land cleansed of its indigenous population. It is therefore illogical to expect the Palestinians to recognise that this is “right,” or that Israel had a “right” to do this.
*** The Israelis were clearly exhausted by years of terrorism and the condemnation of the world whenever they try to defend themselves. ***
Enforcing Jewish superiority is not defending a nation. Nor is using a plan in place to wipe Palestinians out. That was clear from the beginning and history backs this up.
*** And given that Thomas did not criticize Israel so much as she consigned it to the Third Circle of Hell ***
That’s blowing it way out of proportion. That’s a trick/tool right out of the Israeli lobby’s plan book and quite frankly, that’s weak. Your polemic suits your rhetoric.
***When you slyly invoke the Holocaust with references to Poland and Germany, as Thomas did, you can apologize, but you can’t take it back. ***
Ditto. Except you don’t want to take it back. That’s your call. But reasonable people (and there are plenty) who can forgive. If you can’t, what does that say about you?
Can we end this now? Apparently, it’s starting to attract irrational and overzealous Zionists who hate Thomas and anyone who questions the Israeli occupation. You are the company you keep, Dan.
@Christian: Let me point out a significant discrepancy that you have not clarified in all your many comments and tweets on this subject. The discrepancy arises in two consecutive paragraphs:
“Yeah, and by your rationale I must want to destroy Israel too. Let me clarify. I don’t support Israel today because it resembles an apartheid state. Bishop Desmond Tutu agrees with the observation. So at least I’m in good company.” So you support Israel’s right to exist, maybe within something like the 1967 borders.
“The other thing is only I’m only questioning its right to exist because Israel was created on Palestinian land cleansed of its indigenous population. It is therefore illogical to expect the Palestinians to recognise that this is “right,” or that Israel had a “right” to do this.” So you don’t support Israel’s right to exist, since you define even pre-1967 Israel as “created on Palestinian land cleansed of its indigenous population.”
By the way, it’s generally considered poor form to write a long list of attacks and then close with, “Can we end this now?”
Dan refers to Thomas’ “garden variety” antisemitism, which is to say, her brand of antisemitism is common (a fallacy in terms of argumentation and logic because it assumes the answer) and which is to say perhaps that antisemitism in general is common.
Dan, would you be willing to say in one, two, three, four, etc. sentences what Thomas said that constitutes antisemitism and place it on a scale of offensiveness from 0 to 5 where 0 is not antisemitic and 5 is most egregious? Seriously, would you take a shot at it?
@Neil: I’m not going to get into it point by point. Overall, I would argue that Helen Thomas’ comments were anti-Semitic because of her statement that Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine”; that she then made clear she defines Palestine as the whole enchilada, including pre-1967 Israel, by invoking the Polish and German Jews (among others) who moved there, especially after World War II; and that she was grotesquely and uniquely insensitive in her invocation of Poland and Germany because of their well-known association with the Holocaust. She knew she’d stepped in it, which is why she threw in “America and everywhere else” at the end of her fun little rant.
Wow, usually it takes a good Bronson Arroyo debate to stir up this much chatter. Color me impressed.
@Mike: Looks like Arroyo’s having a pretty good year following a very good 2009. Any idea what Wily Mo Peña’s up to?
DK@2:22
Fair enough and thank you for that.
I would say her reference to Germany and Poland had more to do with the fact that many Israeli settlers in the 40s and early 50s came from those countries and that, in her opinion, those countries are their home more than Palestine is their home.
I think its a stretch to attribute hostile intentions when she cited Poland & Germany. Nonetheless, as you point out, she realized the in artfulness of her answer and so cited “America and everywhere else” because Israeli citizens have come from all over the world to live in Israel and on the West Bank and formerly in Gaza.
If her citing Poland and Germany was insensitive because its brings up the holocaust, then why is it not also insensitive when people of all stripes say “We must never forget the holocaust lest it happen again?” Context perhaps? I just cant imagine Helen Thomas citing Poland and Germany to inflict pain and that is what you’re claiming. There are no death camps in Poland and Germany now, wanting Israelis to return to those lands poses no threat to life of limb. It’s simply an argument about the rightful owners of Palestine. That is all.
I understand how even that argument – go back to where you came from – is hostile to Israel but it does not amount to antisemitism, which is hating Jews becuase they’re Jews.
I also think its fair to conclude that in her opinion Palestine is the rightful home of Palestinians. I can see how that opinion is clearly anti-Zionist but not how it is clearly antisemitic.
Did she refer to blacks as nappy-heeded hoes? Or Jews using equal contempt for stereotyped characteristics meant to demean and belittle? No.
How little it takes to lose ones job when talking about Israel in the USA.
@Neil: Since @Christian loves to bring up Gandhi and Tutu, let me cite Martin Luther King Jr.: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism.” Not always. But usually.
You can own choosing the King quote on its own merit. Christian had little to do with your choice.
When people criticize official actions of the Israeli state, they mean official actions of the Israeli state. Oftentimes, defenders of Israel call these critics antisemites, without merit.
In the case of Helen Thomas, her words were not so clear that her intent was obvious and yet the punishment meant the end of her career …but only on the heels of the accusation: Antisemite.
She was advocating for the land rights of Palestinians, and chided Jewish transplants from elsewhere as the interlopers, an extreme view in the context of the western world which granted the land to Israel in ’48 but not extreme in the context of the middle east in the countries surrounding Israel such as Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt. If, for a moment, I thought she was advocating the Hamas position, I would agree with you but I know her to be anti-war and anti-violence. Her statement is only about land rights and not about Jews. Only by virtue of an uncompelling argument is Helen Thomas antisemetic.
Fleischer thought so too, that’s why he characterized her words as “religious-cleansing” an outrageous and inaccurate mischaracterization of what she said. Why would Ari want to fan the flames? Was he acting in his capacity as a PR representative? If so, who was he working for?
How little it takes to lose ones job when talking about Israel in the USA.
@Neil: I think you have to keep in mind that she didn’t really have a job. Hearst was paying her merely for symbolic reasons. If she had been a productive columnist (probably beyond her abilities at 89, and this time I am not being critical of her, just acknowledging reality), I doubt very much she would have been forced out.
@Neil Sagan says: How little it takes to lose ones job when talking about Israel in the USA.
Have there been others?
None come readily to mind.
@Dan: It’s probably the steroids. (ha ha)
I’m going to regret getting back into this, but I only want to respond to Dan’s MLK Jr. quote which a lot of people like to use.
Fadi Kiblawi & Will Youmans wrote the following in The Electronic Intifada, January 19, 2004
For more on the story click here.
Nice try Dan, but no dice.
@Christian: Congressman John Lewis says you’re wrong. And he’s got lots of other good stuff from King, too. Here’s a taste:
@Christian: Whether or not the quote was used in a “hoax” letter, the most rudimentary of Internet searching reveals the quote originated in a 1969 article in Encounter Magazine by Dr. Seymour Martin Lipset.
In fact, even Tim Wise acknowledges as much, facts which you conveniently left out of your post. He said:
“In 1968, according to Seymour Martin Lipset, King was in Boston and attended a dinner in Cambridge along with Lipset himself and a number of black students. After the dinner, a young man apparently made a fairly harsh remark attacking Zionists as people, to which King responded: “Don’t talk like that. When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking Anti-Semitism.” Assuming this quote to be genuine, it is still far from the ideological endorsement of Zionism as theory or practice that was evidenced in the phony letter.”
http://tinyurl.com/2agefoj
The fact you conveniently left out these facts, leaving only the “hoax” letter as the sole source of the quote, reveals much.
Christian – Would it be too much to ask of you to tell things straight?
Here’s a link to the CAMERA statement. They write:
@Christian: Looks like you were right on the mark when you wrote that you were going to regret getting back into this.
@Dan, I’m hoping at some point you will reply to the comments and question raised by Charles Pierce earlier today. That would be an interesting discussion.
@Melissa: Charlie’s a friend, but I don’t really see anything to respond to. We disagree on this — vociferously — and have discussed it at greater length on his Facebook page. I’ll say this about “blood libel”: Thomas’ words come pretty damn close to the classic definition. Even if an Israeli commando deliberately took someone out, assassination-style (hardly unusual in such situations), that does not remotely add up to the “deliberate massacre” that Thomas accused the Israeli government of carrying out.
Let’s not forget that the Israelis landed on five boats in the flotilla without incident.
@Neil: I agree that “anti-Semite” and “racist” are so toxic that they should only be used in the most egregious, obvious cases.
What Helen Thomas said – the whole of it, most definitely including her twice invoking Poland and Germany, and then only tossing in America as an afterthought – was a once-in-a-decade expression of pure anti-Semitism.
It’s nice to see someone above it all and this gentleman delivers it right on the money.
The title of this article and the quote below sums up the issue best.
Dan, you’re a smart guy and I’ve admired you over the years, but you’re mischaracterizing and misinforming people about Thomas and the plight of Palestinians. Palestinians are people of peace and Thomas never got a chance to clarify what she really meant. This “ambush Rabbi” was not interested putting her words into context, nor was he interested in helping people learn more about the issues. It was Fox News gotcha-esque journalism and a cowardly attempt to make someone he disagreed with look bad. Whether you agree or disagree with Thomas, his actions were unhelpful and they did not serve the public interest at all. It was a lose-lose situation for everyone.
Happy now?
@Christian said: Jews can be safe in all countries and do not need a religious state to protect themselves
History shows anything but.
Christian Avard – Your endorsement of a highly simplistic distillation of the history of this region “…Jews from European countries have been occupying a land that already had inhabitants, Palestinians” manages to be both laughable and offensive at the same time.
Has anyone seen the unedited version of the of the video released by by the Israeli government? Has anyone seen any of the videos shot by any of the people whose cameras, cellphones, etc. were confisticated?
I’m reminded of the Wikileaks video, only two months ago, when DK wrote “I think it’s only right that all of us hold off before offering any judgments on the astonishing video published by WikiLeaks . . . . What this calls for is further investigation.”
Let’s see all of the evidence before we judge that “even if an Israeli commando deliberately took someone out, assassination-style (hardly unusual in such situations), that does not remotely add up to the ‘deliberate massacre’. . . .”.
“hardly unusual in such situations”. What situations are those, Dan?
This thread is beginning to look like a race to victim status.
I am surprised that her age or medical condition has been mentioned. Is there any sign of memory deficits?
Uzi Dayan, Former Deputy Chief-of-Staff of the IDF, Threatens to Kill NATO Member Prime Minister:
The aptly named Uzi Dayan, the former Deputy Chief-of-Staff of the IDF stated yesterday, in response to the possibility of the Turkish Prime Minister accompanying a June Gaza relief flotilla :
So, our “greatest ally in the Middle East,” the country that within the past two weeks has placed dozens of nuclear-armed cruise missiles in waters of the Persian Gulf within a few miles of some of the most valuable vessels in the U.S. Navy, is prepared to declare war against one of NATO’s longest standing members.
Jason Ditz, writing about Dayan’s statement, observed:
The Israelis are acting more provocatively by the day. Investigative journalist Max Blumenthal, who is now in Israel, may be uncovering more lies right now. Max, perhaps more than any other individual, is tearing apart the IDF’s blatantly untrue narrative of the seizing of the Memorial Day relief convoy. Max is also urging American colleges and communities to more seriously consider seeking BDS moves against the apartheid state.
link
Filmmaker and activist Iara Lee was one of the few Americans on-board the Mavi Marmara. Her equipment was confiscated but she managed to smuggle out an hour’s worth of footage.
link to video
Helen Thomas is not the only person who claims the IDF came to kill. Should Iara Lee be fired for being antisemitic? Maybe we should wait and ask Ari Fleischer.
Gaza Freedom Flotilla Participants
http://vimeo.com/12188461
source.
What What Helen Thomas said, and what she meant, in a 1 minute video clip, should be examined alongside the public record of what she has said, and written, about the Arab-Israeli conflict over the course of her long career in journalism.
There has been an appalling rush to judgment here; a judgment that those few recent off-hand, isolated remarks on Palestine are indicative of a core antisemitism. Yet, no credible authority can claim that there is any other corroborating evidence of antisemitism in her 50+ years of reportage and commentary — if there were, Helen Thomas’s career would have ended long before June 07/10.
What Thomas’s record does reveal is a resolute, long-standing critique of Israeli political leadership and its U.S. enablers. More particularly, the ongoing encroachment of Israeli settlements into the Palestinian territories (condemned by the UN); the Israeli Defense Forces’s increasingly brutal treatment of the Palestinian civilian population (condemned by the UN); the inhumanity of the Israeli blockade preventing food and basic necessities of life from entering Gaza (condemned by the UN); and of course most recently, the IDF raid on the Gaza Humanitarian Aid Flotilla, which resulted in dozens of injuries to the people on the flotilla — and nine deaths, including one American citizen, shot at close-range, four times in the head and once in the chest (condemned by the UN).
The political establishment, and the mainstream press — the servile Fourth Estate — have wanted Helen Thomas’s head on a platter for as long as she’s had a head on her shoulders. On May 27/10, an heretofore unknown individual, Rabbi David Nessenoff, stuck a flip-cam into Helen Thomas’s face and asked her if she “had any comments about Israel”. What the good rabbi captured on video, in 1:58 minutes, was not particularly remarkable, within the context of what Helen Thomas has been saying, albeit in more diplomatic terms, for her entire life as a journalist. But, Rabbi Nessenoff tucked it away for a rainy day nonetheless — evidently, the foreseeable rainy day of May 31, when Israel had forecast the use of military force against the Gaza Humanitarian Aid Flotilla.
On Tuesday June 1st, Thomas confronted White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs for the administration’s unwillingness to condemn the homicidal actions of the IDF. On Wednesday June 3rd, Rabbi Nessenoff carpeid the rainy diem and posted a 1:03 minute clip of his ‘interview’ with Helen Thomas on his website. (Apparently, the Rabbi felt that the interview, in its 1:58 minute entirety, was not sufficiently damning to Thomas — whose manner is quite jovial and kind in the deleted portion.) Still, the video failed to sell itself — even within the incendiary context of world-wide uproar over the IDF raid. According to mid-level right-wing blogger Jeff Dunetz, Nessenoff contacted him on the morning of June 4th, asking for assistance with getting some publicity for the video that was still refusing to go viral. Dunetz applied himself mightily. He posted the video clip and his commentary on his own website The LId; he enlisted the assistance of high-level right-wing blogger Andrew Breitbart; and he sent out a slew of tweets and emails. Dunetz gloated in the afterglow:
[Within five hours] the video was posted on the Big sites on the net. By the end of the day it was on radio and TV and the calls for Thomas’ head were all over the place.
Dunetz wisely failed to give credit to former GW Bush White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, who is widely reported to have shopped the story to numerous entities over the June 4th weekend. Firedoglake adroitly discusses Ari’s role and his motives in this story, from June 8th: Who hired Ari Fleischer to take out “antisemite” Helen Thomas?
The Firedoglake story correctly surmises that Helen Thomas’s recent remarks are reflective of ” anti-ZIONISM” — the presumed divine right of Israelis to occupy increasingly larger swathes of Palestine. American public opinion may be turning — in the wake of IDF violence against the Gaza flotilla; and the subsequent firing of its most vocal critic. Last night, Stephen Colbert interviewed the unsurprisingly belligerent Israeli Ambassador to the UN. At one point, Stephen ironically suggested that the Arab-Israeli conflict would be resolved if all the Palestinians “went back to where they came from”. For a moment reality was turned on its head. The audience, and the ambassador went silent as the tomb, as they collectively grasped that the Palestinians “came from” the place that became the state of Israel in 1948. Nobody is saying the clock can, or should, be turned all the way back; but there has been an undeniable wake-up call to the plight of the Palestinian people.
Peace.
Sara Says: June 11th, 2010 at 6:43 pm
1000 killed…accorded to B’Tselem, there have been 490 Israeli civilians killed by Palestinians since 2000. Not 1000.
And 932 Palestinian minors (children) killed by Israeli forces. Twice as many Palestinian kids have been killed by Israel as all Israelis killed by Palestinians. http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp That does not include the Gaza War…which not only killed numerous children, but also maimed them, burned them, etc.
When we look at total Palestinians killed, the number is much greater. Nearly 5000 (4,791) killed by Israeli forces. That only goes through mid-2008 too. Does not include the Gaza War which added around 1500 more to the tally.
BTW, the population of Israel is 7.3 million. The population of the Gaza Strip is 1.6 million. Population of West Bank? 2.5 million. So the Palestinians, have roughly half the population, yet have suffered around 10x the deaths… not to mention all of the other suffering from being occupied/prisoners.