Helen Thomas: Go to the Back of the Room

“The WHCA should sanction Thomas by sending her back to the cheap seats. This would accurately reflect her current status as a journalist while preserving her First Amendment right to be as obnoxious as she wants.”

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I say send her to the Gaza Strip and let her have a front row seat in reporting on the Hamas Government. That is where she belongs.

Interesting that at the (Politico-natch) link the only person who agreed with you wouldn’t give his or name.
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She says something stupid, Drudge runs with it and she apologizes.
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It’s not like she was caught and continued lying about it.
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ahem.
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That would be easy to forgive.

She should have made her apology from Auschwitz, to put her remarks and the apology into their true context.

“So it’s not unprecedented for journalists with odious views to have access to the press room. What is unprecedented is for such a journalist to have a front-row center seat.”
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So no “odious” journalist has ever had a “front-row center seat”?
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1) How do know this?
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2) Do you plan on doing anything to prove this?
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3) Why do you think anybody would believe you?

When suggesting destinations for Jews, Helen might want to mention the areas that are off-limnits to Jews, such as almost all Arab/Muslim nations. Probably two-million or more Jews living in Israel today are immigrants or descendants of immigrants who were expelled or driven by violence from neighboring Arab/Muslim countries after 1948, when the UN partitioned the remaining 22% of Palestine (the other 78% had already been given to the Arabs/Palestinians for a state called Trans-Jordan, now Jordan). All told, more than 650,000 Jewish people were forced to leave the Arab countries for fear of losing their life. Their lands and bank accounts were quickly confiscated. Everyone talks about the poor Palestinians in the refugee camps, but no one mentions the Jews displaced by Arab oppression.

Hey, yeah, what about that Gannon fellow? Where did he sit?

Oh, and
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4) Who decides who is “odious”? What are the criteria?
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5) The facts about what Helen Thomas said are damning enough. Why do feel like you have to embellish your story with assertions you know you can’t prove?

I agree with you Joe, but here is a vexing problem that needs an answer:
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Shouldn’t Avigdor Lieberman be accorded the same honors?

Take your ethnic cleansing rationalizations and:
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1. Go to jail.
2. Do not pass Go.
3. Do not collect $200.

See, this is aggravating. If she’d kept her criticism reasonable, it would have helped garner attention to our strange, unwavering support of Israel.
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But now every time someone criticizes Israel they’re going to get associated with Thomas’ comments (apology or not).
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All it ends up doing is strengthening the taboo.

And if I were Jewish, no doubt you would also say to me, “Do not to go to the Middle East, that’s only for Arabs and Muslims!”

If this was a conservative, there would be calls for a hanging. But we will have days of hand wringing by the left: some will make a pathetic attempt to condemn but stop short of sending that old hag to the old journalists home, the rest will make excuses and point to what about…..

Just another affirmation that the only thing the intolerant left tolerates is bigotry from one of their own.

What Helen Thomas said was wrong, but it may have something to do with her age. Research may show that “aging leads to increased prejudice and social inappropriateness”. Google William von Hippel, “Aging, Executive Functioning, and Social Control”

It’s too bad Helen Thomas’s words didn’t magically turn into bullets and kill nine innocent people, because that would have been totally forgivable as self defense.

Thomas has been embarrassing herself for over a decade, but since she was so anti-Bush for much of that time, I looked the other way. My bad.

So Joe Klein — whom you’ve repeatedly denounced as a leftist — says it’s inexcusable and there should be severe consequences, and your reaction is, well, the leftists will make excuses for her and say there should be no consequences?
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Quite an active fantasy life you have there.

Wow, yeah you’re right. I especially like the part where the rest of the White House Press Core beats her to within an inch of her life, fractures her skull, and then throws her off the roof of the White House.

Those words cum bullets sure seem a lot more fair after all that.

They should start screening the press room for known Communists, too. We can’t have inappropriate political views in our national discourse.

“Just another affirmation that the only thing the intolerant left tolerates is bigotry from one of their own.”
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freeinpa, didn’t you notice the SC primary? It’s all on display, in living “color”. Eveyone’s seen that exceptionally fine example of a totally endemic xenophobic feeding frenzy.
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Yup. Either the emperor is naked, or your slip is showing.
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Now, do you care to back this up a bit and try that again?
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Talk about walking into walls…

It’s nice to see you make weak attempts to extrapolate my views to suit your rhetoric, but sorry, no go.
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Copy and paste below mine any place in any thread* where I said that.
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*I’m way ahead of you. Keep in mind that I know your type so well I know where you will go.
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Go ahead anyway. It’ll be more than a little fun to walk you into a wall or two, too…

Oh, is this about “walking me into a wall”? Funny, I thought the purpose of your reply was to avoid addressing the topic of Helen’s inappropriate and insensitive comments, and the hypocrisy she displayed by suggesting that Jews “go home” when, in the Arab/Muslim places more than twenty or so million of them have lived over the centuries, their descendants have been made unwelcome and driven out. Sorry I misunderstood.

Helen Thomas’ presence in the front row has inspired fear of the media in countless presidents and lesser lights for many decades. I’m afraid neither Joe Klein, nor any other working scribe, would have but a reflection of the demand for honesty Helen Thomas, by simply sitting front and center, summons.

Back off, Joe. She’s there for a good reason. When you find a replacement, then let’s talk.

He sits in the front row in the White House press room? Stay on point!

Does someone want to explain what the “odious view” here is?
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I can understand the horrendous lack of sensitivity characterizing a remark that tells Jews to “go back to Poland,” but that’s an insensitive comment, not necessarily an odious view.
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What’s the odious view, that the UN screwed up when they created this mess in the 1940′s? That not everybody subscribes to Zionism?
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Did she say something else that was actually terrible and wrong?

I was thinking along similar lines. She is 89 and the elevator might not be stopping at the penthouse anymore.

Sadly, I would bet that at the next press conference, the commander-in-chief will joke around with Helen about their mutual difficulties with policies about Israel. And he has such a big mouth to put his foot into.
Who decided to invite this loony to the conference on Jewish Heritage? Did someone decide to simply invite every liberal and leftist journalist they could think of? Probably the ADL did it, although even they seem to see the danger to Israel lately.
Someone should find out where Thomas’ ancestors came from and send her a one way ticket back there. Or maybe Greece would be more appropriate.

Guess it depends on your life experience. If you are a Holocaust survivor, or know someone who is, or have the most minute sense of compassion for someone who lost all or many of their relatives and friends in the Holocaust in Poland or Germany, or if you just feel repulsion for the ideology that created such a crime, then you probably understand the use of the word “odious” to describe Helen Thomas’ comments. If not, then you have a hole in your life experience.

You’ve gone too far.

Hope you enjoy comparisons of you to Ari Fleischer, they will be well deserved.

Major Garrett, up front.
You’re free to get up and walk around the country now.

I’m sorry, I have all of those things, e.g. compassion for the relatives of Holocaust survivors, repulsion for race-supremacist fascism, etc., but what does that have to do with what Helen Thomas said specifically?
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I don’t mean how she said it, that was certainly worthy of an apology, but what about the actual content has anything to do with all of that?
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Whether Zionism is beyond question, or whether the UN made a big mistake situating the state of Israel where it did in the manner it did, or whether anyone is any more deserving of a homeland in that region than anyone else, these are all views that are completely separable from race-supremacist fascism or deep sympathy for the relatives of victims of genocide.
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So you really haven’t answered the question, apart from some bizarre attempt to smear the questioner. I don’t have a hole in my life experience at all, so try to get your mind off of things to say about my character, and tell me specifically what is so “odious” about the notion that the Israelis don’t have any more of an unquestionable, God-given right to that land than the other people who were supposed to have been part of that poorly-designed mandate.
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In case I haven’t made it absolutely clear, spell out for me what the odious thoughts actually are, and what the reasons are for their wrongness, instead of casting me as a sociopath for asking what you to be specific about what you find offensive.
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Unless you’re just here to try to misguidedly enforce some kind of pathetic social consequence (“You must be OK with Nazi-ism!“) on me for not holding your views, in which case just forget it.

The fact that you are in the position as a journalist as Helen Thomas was then what you say on-line is spread by the media as it is spoken. So her comments were taken literal then they were re-written and changed making it worst for her career and as we could see the writing was on the wall.

Her only way forward was that certain agencies would drop her and one of the first was Nine Speakers Inc` and l am sure many others with the same ethical or maybe other reason will follow suit.

The 89 year old Helen Thomas said something terrible. No excuse.
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But she is the one who asked over and over to the Bush administration and now the Obama administration about our purpose in Iraq. Her colleagues often snickered. Maybe she had an agenda but she did ask the questions..
Joe maybe Thomas should go to the back of the room. So perhaps should all the reporters who never questioned the legitimacy of the Iraq war until it was too late.
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Joe maybe you should go to the back of the room for all of your reporting mistakes based on your agenda (FISA, Patriot Act, initial support of the Iraq War). Many in the traditional media need to take responsibility for often not doing their job and realizing the serious consequences of their inattention. ( eg: Cheney-regulations, destruction of privacy, torture, war, Bush Justice Department).
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Every time one of the White House press corp spends time asking gotcha questions, looking for face time rather than facts, they should go to the back of the room.
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So Joe, you are tacitly agreeing again with the Bushies. Ari Fleischer is demanding she be fired. One of the premiere spokespersons for passing on the Bush administration lies. You are merely suggesting she be ignored. Way to support the First Amendment Joe. Don’t like something odious someone said, ignore them. Can we extend that to Liz Cheney, Bill Kristol, and others who have made odious statements yet still appear in and on the traditional media? Can we extend that to the demogogue Beck featured in your magazine?

Are you joking?

There are currently 6 million Jews living in Israel. Sorry, but we are not all going to voluntarily decide to go back to Poland and Germany, especially since the overwhelming majority of us never lived there. So she is basically advocating ethnic cleansing. It’s like saying, “All the Muslims in Chechnya need to go back to Saudi Arabia!”

Also, denying the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is a joke. It’s a joke because of the archeological evidence (ever been to the Western Wall in Jerusalem?), the historical record, the anthropological record, etc.

She’s of Lebanese descent. Shocker.

jaba: If you know anything about Thomas you should know she is of Lebonese heritage.

So she is basically advocating ethnic cleansing.
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That’s a huge leap from:

“Remember these people are occupied and it’s their land,” Thomas says in the video. “It’s not German and it’s not Polish.”
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Asked what Jews in Israel should do, Thomas says “go home.” Asked where that home is, she replies: “Poland. Germany. And America and everywhere else.”

She’s not “basically” advocating ethnic cleansing at all.
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She’s basically saying that she doesn’t recognize the UN’s response to the Palestinian question, nor the Israeli declaration of independence from the original Brit mandate as having been legitimate.
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That’s what I get out of that minuscule statement, anyway.
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we are not all going to voluntarily decide to go back to Poland and Germany
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How did you get Serbian-Kosovar Albanian ethnic cleansing desires out of that? She was asked what Israelis should do, not what should be done to them.
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denying the Jewish connection to the Land of Israel is a joke
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What? I could care less about the Jewish connection to Palestine. I’m not denying it, it just doesn’t particularly concern me, since I’m an American, and not from that country. You can debate that with people who give a rat’s ass to your heart’s content, if you find that productive for you, but if you’re telling me that all right-thinking people must accept some religion’s premises about some land in the Middle East, I’d say that pretty bizarre.

Suppose Helen had said that she thinks all African-Americans born here should get out of America and go back to Africa. Would you consider that an “odious” statement? As I hope you can see from this parallelism, the odious-ness has nothing to do with Zionism or Israel.

“I don’t see any reason why the President, Robert Gibbs or any other representative of the government should feel any obligation to take her questions.”

Is this reason enough?

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/10/16/confess/

Helen Thomas aside, these are our White House correspondents:

Jake Tapper of ABC News
Ann Compton of ABC News Radio
Bill Plante of CBS News
Chip Reid of CBS News
Chuck Todd of NBC News
Savannah Guthrie of NBC News
Ed Henry of CNN
Dan Lothian of CNN
Major Garrett of Fox News
Wendell Goler of Fox News
Mike Emanuel of Fox News
David Broder of The Washington Post
David Brody (correspondent) of Christian Broadcasting Network
Mike Allen (journalist) of Politico (newspaper)
Peter Baker of the New York Times
Helene Cooper of the New York Times
Don Gonyea of NPR
Richard Wolffe of Newsweek
Les Kinsolving of WorldNetDaily
Rob Reynolds of Al Jazeera English
Trude Feldman
Sean Quinn of FiveThirtyEight.com
Helen Thomas of Hearst Corporation
Jennifer Loven of Associated Press
Charles Babington of Associated Press

Thomas might be easy to target–after all, frail 89 year old women should be put out to pasture by now, right? But I’d say the above list leaves me feeling far more depressed about America in the 21st century.

Interestingly, stuartzechman, Helen isn’t the only one to reject the UN’s decision on Palestine. The Arabs and Palestinians (although that latter is a later coined term for the Arabs living on the West Bank and Gaza) did not agree with the UN’s partition giving the Arabs 89% of Palestine and the Jews the remaining 11% of Palestine. The Arabs rejected the Partition in 1948, not satisfied with 89% and wanting it all, then attacked the Jews in Palestine, who had accepted the UN Partition, trying to kill off the new Jewish state and drive the Jews into the sea. For more than 60 years, the Arabs/Muslims have been trying to do away with Israel. Hopefully, one day, the Arabs/Muslims will realize that it is in their best interest to live in peace. All that opposing Israel has gotten the Arab man in the street is death and grief and poverty, not at Israel’s hands, but at the hands of those who use hatred of Israel to remain in power and repress their own people.

Suppose Helen had said that she thinks all African-Americans born here should get out of America and go back to Africa.
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OK, I’m considering that…
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…Well, I guess the repulsiveness would be contingent on why someone would make that statement, and what they meant with respect to African-Americans.
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If Helen Thomas said that African-Americans didn’t have the right to be here, or that they were screwing up our country by that population’s presence, or that they weren’t “real Americans,” that would be disgusting, because –unlike Israel– America isn’t a nation founded for one race or ethnicity or religion to be represented. We’re pluralists, so that would be naturally repugnant to us. Saying that some Americans have more of a right to be Americans than others is what’s odious.
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If she said something like that in order to convey the idea that America might never live up to its equality creed, and that a population might be better off if they ceased those sorts of expectations from the majority, and went to find a new homeland somewhere where their ethnicity would exist in perpetual majority –like somewhere in the area between Lebanon, Jordan and Egypt– I would still think it was wrong, but not necessarily odious.
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So I think this is a poor parallel, actually. I don’t think those statements are analogous.
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I think a better analogy would be if somebody said that Americans should rightfully still be subjects of the British Crown, and that our revolution and its subsequent state and nation were illegitimate. It would be laughably wrong, in my view, but not odious.
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I don’t agree with the idea that the Choctaw nation has more of a right to Florida than I do, either, but I don’t think that it’s revolting of them to bring that idea up in front of me.

“Suppose Helen had said that she thinks all African-Americans born here should get out of America and go back to Africa. Would you consider that an ‘odious’ statement? As I hope you can see from this parallelism, the odious-ness has nothing to do with Zionism or Israel.”
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Well, African Americans were brought here against their will, treated like chattel for centuries, and second-class citizens for much of the ensuing period of history. Other than that, seems totally analogous.

BTW, kudos to Joe Klein for serving up 3 posts on the Sabbath.

Quite the Murders Row there.

o·di·ous
[oh-dee-uhs]–adjective
1. deserving or causing hatred; hateful; detestable.
2.highly offensive; repugnant; disgusting.

I’m with Stuart on this. I wouldn’t characterize Helen Thomas’ remarks as “odious”. Certainly they are insensitive. For the sake of political correctness, they would have been better left unsaid. As it is, she’s being crucified by the right wing in this country in all manner of ways. Some of the tweets I’ve seen are truly odious.

My understanding is that she has apologized. That appears to be insufficient punishment for having opinions that don’t mesh with the unblinking, unquestioning support for all things Israel that grips our national zeitgeist. Someone quipped that if her words had turned into bullets and killed nine civilians on an Aid ship in International waters, that that would have been somehow forgivable. Sadly, this doesn’t seem too far off the mark.

I say that we give the old gal a pass. She voiced a strong opinion that many found offensive. She didn’t advocate killing Jews or forcibly repatriating them elsewhere. She didn’t deny the holocaust. Let’s move on already. Let her keep her job and her dignity for goodness sakes. Surely, she will be retiring soon, so let it be.

The larger question that must be asked is how long we are going to follow Israel into the Abyss? Whe

Helen isn’t the only one to reject the UN’s decision on Palestine.
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Yeah, I know that, but we’re not talking about the Arab League of the 1940′s, we’re talking about Helen Thomas.
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I don’t particularly care whether she’s a vegetarian like Hitler, either.
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Please don’t try to drag me into that Hatfield-McCoy stuff that goes on with your country (I’m assuming you must be Israeli, since you seem to be singularly dedicated to its support) and Palestine. Again, not our (Americans’) business.

Thank you Helen! Thanks for saying EXACTLY what you and the rest of the liberal anti semites have felt all along but are afraid to say. They cloak themselves in the scorn of neocons (aka jews) and the unrelenting criticism of Israel while their true desire is the extermination of jewish people. THANK YOU HELEN!

I’m with Stuart on this. I wouldn’t characterize Helen Thomas’ remarks as “odious”.
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Now hold on, I’m grateful you obviously understand what I meant, but the question wasn’t rhetorical.
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I don’t know, maybe she did say something significantly vile and wrong, and we just didn’t hear about it from this piece to which Klein linked.
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I’m not categorically saying that she didn’t say something odious, I’m just saying that I don’t know what that is, and asking for somebody to please let me know what it might be, so I can read it for myself, because what’s in that link certainly doesn’t fall into that category.
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The remarks I’ve read so far are just apology-worthy insensitive, and a rejection of Zionism, not despicably wrong in content. Maybe there’s something else, though.

Yuck.

OOO, Helen Thomas made an intemperate remark. Banish her. this is silly. There is nothing odious or even intemperate about what she said.While I don’t agree entirely with her sentiments they are well within the norm, and perfectly valid. when my next door neighbor, who was born on the land he now owns, told my I should go back to New Jersey( his version of where people from away come from) after I had lived here for thirty five years, I didn’t take offense I simply laughed in his face. I have more respect for ms. Thomas than all the other current court jesters combined.

Rest of the liberal anti-Semites? Ya, both of them.

correction: Lebanese
By the way jaba, her heritage is mentioned in Joe’s post.

God bless Helen Thomas for showing some ethical fabric and speaking the truth about a very controversial subject. Of course, the Israelis are unhappy about her comments, but that doesn’t make her comments less true.

Meanwhile, no-one should be surprised that those defending the murderous conduct of Israel have names like Klein and Krauthammer. The Jews are notorious for attempting to manipulate peoples emotions by exploiting the guilt card… ie, the Holocaust, as if the Jews are the only people in history to have suffered.

Example: My brother in law was murdered in cold blood by a stranger who broke into the house and stabbed him to death. Using the logic applied by the Jews, I should be allowed to walk down any street and murder anyone I think could pose a threat, as I can’t allow what happened to my brother in law to ever be repeated… the Jews have held the free world hostage with their self serving crimes long enough. It needs to stop, and it needs to stop now!

when I cancelled my Time subscription, I told them the reason I wanted to never receive their odious magazine again was specifically – Joe Klein.

Once again, he has outdone himself with his rightwing spew.

Now, I shall never “click” on a link again with Time in the address line – because here I am – and the moments that I spent reading his crap can never be recovered.

No, stuartzechman, I’m neither Jewish nor Israeli, but a citizen of the State of Georgia from Atlanta, a combat veteran, probably would be classified by Fox News types as a liberal Democrat (perhaps even a dreaded socialist, since I believe every American should benefit from the benefits of America), an Obama supporter in the last election, suspicious of the Israeli Right in the same way that I am suspicious of the American Right, a caucasian civil rights activist in the 1960s South, an environmentalist, a Bible believer (but not obsessed by trying to tell others what to believe), and a card-carrying member of Sam’s Club. And, all of that has nothing to do with the views I have shared on the Helen Thomas statements against Jews in Israel, which I consider odious because that’s the way my mama raised me.

Too bad it wasn’t you rather than your brother-in-law.

Joe Klein’s opinion is decidedly odious.

You clearly have limited experience with right wing spew.

“Too bad it wasn’t you rather than your brother-in-law.”
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This is some rank trollery. Weren’t you the same enlightened individual who said Joe Klein was longing for the next holocaust?
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Quick Google search … why, yes, it was you:
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http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/04/19/bomb-iran/
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I mean, if we’re going to have moderation lockdowns and/or banishment, this cretin is surely at the top of the list.

Now, THAT is odious.

This is such BS – we all hate Jews because we don’t condone random massacres of innocent people.

Maybe Helen’s idea is a good one. Obviously Israel can not live in peace in that region. How many people have to die? 10 more, 10,000 more 100,000 more?

I think the Jewish people need their own country but it’s just not working out at that location.

And the lone bright spot, 538, is being taken over by NYT.
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So, any journalist who strays off script, peeking his/her head even slightly outside the brackets of the overton window–is to be condemned.
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But when (God bless her) KT says this on today’s 1000 words:
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“this happened yesterday at a beach-themed party that the bidens threw for the media.”
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… no one bats a lash.

“Go to the back of the room” is a pathetic response to what Ms. Thomas said..and Mr. Klein probably knows this, but didn’t want to call for her expulsion because he might taint his liberal credentials.

Following her line of thought, if “the Jews” didn’t want to be expelled from Israel, would Ms. Thomas advocate force to expatriate the entire Jewish population of Israel to Europe?

It sickens me that the comments here don’t “get” the odious nature of her comments. The bar has really dropped socially about what is admissable to say regarding Israel and Jews. Thanks to Obama’s tough talk re Netanyahu/Israel, it is now ok for people in “polite society” to spew all sorts of hateful overly harsh and discriminatory comments.

“some will make a pathetic attempt to condemn but stop short of sending that old hag to the old journalists home”

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As I said, JK falls in this category. This will be the last time he speaks of her until she does it again. If it was Limbaugh or Beck he would have had several posts today calling for their scalps
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Your Knucklehead comrade in 8.2 confirms the exact second point I made. Make excuses and point to someone else who does worse.

Then declare victory. Proving yet again the left not only intolerant but dumb as rocks

SZ:

Once again I think you bring a practical insight in to the conversation.I agree in large part that there may be questions that need to be asked. The conversation as you undoubtedly know will be volcanic. As you pointed at with your hypothetical about African Americans having to go back to Africa, there are several folks here whose heads would explode.

At the heart of these questions, can you condemn folks for past actions forever and at what point can you move forward without dredging up the past to push old policies that were to remedy old tragedies and may be negatively impacting any prospect of a future solution

Thomas’ comments should cast a serious pall over much of her commentary and so-called ‘reporting’ over the years. She is entirely without credibility. Mr. Klein says sending Thomas to the back of the room “would accurately reflect her current status as a journalist while preserving her First Amendment right to be as obnoxious as she wants.” I don’t have a right to go to a White House news conference, regardless of my First Amendment rights. Nor does any journalist.Thomas doesn’t have a “right” to be there. She should suffer the ultimate sanction for such hate-filled comments: exile. To suggest Jews should be forcibly returned to Europe – a place in which they endured centuries of torment and persecution before almost total annihilation – is outrageous (I assume Thomas isn’t a Holocaust denier – but at this point, who can say?). Thomas also shows her utter ignorance of history. The Jews never yielded their claims to Israel, and have never been entirely absent from those lands, even after Jewish-Roman Wars and 2,000 years of Christian history. Jews have as much right as anyone else to be there. Thomas is an Orthodox Christian: she should show a little respect to the people who gave her Jesus, the Apostles, and the Prophets.

“We all hate Jews.” Please don’t presume to speak for me. I am Roman Catholic, but I don’t hate Jews. I’m grateful to them and their many gifts to Western and Christian civilization in general. I don’t, moreover, hate any one amorphous mass of people. I know it’s real easy to say you “hate the Jews.” But please try and remember you’re actually talking about human beings spread across numerous nations, cultures and languages; men, women and children, all of whom are different and unique. Their not a nest of lice.

Not only should Helen Thomas be sent to the back of the room, but her pathetic country (Lebanon), Israel, Syria and Jordan should be bombed with nuclear weapons, leaving radioactive craters for 10,000 years. The people in those countries have dominated world headlines for three millennia. Their filthy, primitive religions led to the downfall of the great empire (Rome), the Dark Ages, the Crusades, World Wars and now this baloney. It’s time to shut up the Jews, Muslims and Christians once and for all. Give the world peace through one final war. The purpose is to purge the world of the heart of anti-progressive religions. Only then can humanity advance in evolution.

As soon as the Israelis and Arabs both get what they want we will have peace in the Middle East. In November 1947 the UN voted in favor of the partition of Palestine, proposing the creation of a Jewish state, an Arab state, and a UN-administered Jerusalem. Partition was accepted by Zionist leaders but rejected by Arab leaders, leading to civil war. Israel declared independence on 14 May 1948 and neighboring Arab states attacked the next day. since then, Israel has fought a series of wars with neighboring Arab states, and in consequence occupies territories, including the West Bank, beyond those delineated in the 1949 Armistice Agreements. Israel has signed peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan, but efforts to resolve conflict with the Palestinians whose land Israel has taken has met with limited success and some of Israel’s international borders remain in dispute. Many, if not most, of the Jewish people in Israel are quite happy to stay in a twilight zone between peace and war that makes it easy for them to continue to take land from the Palestinian people. We could have peace in the Middle East right now if the Palestinians would just be a little more reasonable and give up all of their land to Israel. The chances of that happening are about the same as the chances of peace there anytime soon = ZERO. Here is what David Ben-Gurion, the first Prime Minister of Israel, had to say about peace between Arabs and Jews : ” If I were an Arab leader I would NEVER make peace with Israel. That is natural. We have taken their country. Sure, God promised it to us, but what does that matter to them ? Our God is not theirs. We come from Israel, it is true, but 2,000 years ago, and what is that to them ? There has been antisemitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault ? They only see one thing : We have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that ? They may perhaps forget in one or two generations’ time, but for the moment there is no chance. So it’s simple : We have to stay strong and maintain a powerful army. Our whole policy is there. Otherwise the Arabs will wipe us out. ” This is quoted from : ‘ The Jewish Paradox : A Personal Memoir ‘ (1978) by Nahum Goldmann (translated by Steve Cox) page 99.

SZ wrote, “I don’t agree with the idea that the Choctaw nation has more of a right to Florida than I do, either, but I don’t think that it’s revolting of them to bring that idea up in front of me”
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How would you feel if you lived in Miami and the Seminole nation was lobbing missiles into your neighborhood, sending in suicide bombers, and getting arms and equipment from Cuba and Venezuela to help them with their aggression and their announced goal of pushing you and your family into the Atlantic Ocean? Then, if a Choctaw chief mentioned to you that it was best if you and your kind went back to England, I don’t think you would chuckle and say “Aw shucks!” You would take offense and take the expressed hostility seriously.

Who pushed the Palestinian Arabs off of their land and started this endless battle ?

danielatlanta:
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Spoken like somebody who’s weirdly and supremely invested in the Hatfield side of the feud.
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I’m glad to hear that you’re an American, though, because then I can show you what another great American had to say about what you’re doing taking sides in a foreign conflict like this:

…nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.
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So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification.
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And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.
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–George Washington

I didn’t assume you were a leftist, centrist or rightist, danielatlanta, and I didn’t criticize you for being any of those.
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But can you understand, in light of your strange disregard for President Washington’s wise counsel, why I assumed you were a citizen of Israel, danielatlanta?

…giving the Arabs 89% of Palestine and the Jews the remaining 11% of Palestine.
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Oh my god. Can we drop this revisionist garbage? I’ve called you out on this multiple times, but apparently you failed to listen. I’ll try to make this clear: the UN Partition Plan split the land 50-50. You seem to think the area east of the river Jordan was somehow stolen from the Jews when that land was never intended to be part of the Jewish National Homeland. Transjordan was removed from the discussions 25 years earlier by the British. The UN had nothing to do with it.
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The Arabs rejected the Partition in 1948, not satisfied with 89% and wanting it all, then attacked the Jews in Palestine, who had accepted the UN Partition, trying to kill off the new Jewish state and drive the Jews into the sea.
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Are you reading this nonsense out of an Israeli history textbook or something? Because your version of what happened is so incredibly wrong that it’s sickening. The Jews declared independence before the Partition Plan was to take effect. You seem to think the leaders of the future state of Israel were fully intending to abide by the UN plan. Do you know what was conspicuously left out of Israel’s declaration of independence? The borders. Ben Gurion had no intention of adhering to the Partition Plan. Not when he saw the opportunity to expand. Here’s what Gurion said:

We accepted the UN Resolution, but the Arabs did not. They are preparing to make war on us. If we defeat them and capture western Galilee or territory on both sides of the road to Jerusalem, these areas will become part of the state. Why should we obligate ourselves to accept boundaries that in any case the Arabs don’t accept?

Israel was not your innocent Red Riding Hood attacked by the Big Bad Arabs. Israel had plenty of ambitions of her own. You can’t fault the Arabs for doing exactly the same thing.

Mr. Klein, you have a strange way of arguing against racism. What does Ms. Thomas’s ancestry have to do with any of this? Ms. Thomas has had the courtesy to apologize for her remark. I would hope you would be as open to correction.

I would add, also, that your call for journalists–not columnists–to sit in the front row of the White House press room comes at an odd time. You and other columnists might one day be invited. I would hope you might contribute as much as Ms. Thomas has over these past decades.

Have I any idea of what Ms. Thomas was up to in making this controversial statement? I can’t fathom it. Nor can I fathom your knee-jerk reaction. Calling for a pleasant sort of censorship is not democratic. Shall we instead get to the real issues at hand? America would be better for it.

libertarian1, you’re just sore that you missed all the gladiator fights…

Ugh, not many bright spots at all. No wonder the White House Press Corps is so awful.
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Wolffe is the best of the bunch, but his magazine is going under so he won’t be there for long. Brody of CBN actually has his moments, but more often not. Todd used to be brilliant in his election analysis, but he’s either out of his element in WH coverage or he’s been overtaken by the hive mentality.
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That’s about it.
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The worst on that list are Reid and Garrett. They seem to spend 90% of their time blow-drying their hair, and the remaining 10% looking on Drudge to get marching orders.

If husein here is trying to win sympathy for the Israeli cause, he’s doing a sh!tty job of it.

The “we hate Jews” bit was sarcasm — with an implied other people say before the “we hate Jews”…

It seems that she was expressing her frustration with the US acceptance of the illegal actions of the Israelis. They have violated international law in their actions regarding the Palestinians in attacking a ship in international waters and in continuing a blockade of a country they are occupying. There will never be any kind of peace in the Middle East as long as Israel continues its arrogant and bullying policies.

I am not anti-Semitic and I do not believe any kind of peace settlement will be easy but the actions of Israel do nothing to smooth the path.

It is correct that perhaps she should no longer be front and center at press conferences, but she should have the freedom to speak her mind.

This has spawned a lot of remarks about whether Helen Thomas’ comments were justified, odious, forgivable, etc.

Isn’t the real question whether the WH should “punish” members of the press for holding certain political views?

because he might taint his liberal credentials.
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Now that’s funny.

No, stuart, I don’t understand why you would consider it strange that an American would be a strong supporter of Israel. From a strategic standpoint, it makes good sense to have a strong ally in the Middle East, one that isn’t subject to Arab/Muslim considerations (such as those that resulted in Turkey’s refusal to allow overflights or troop transports across its territory into northern Iraq during the invasion of Iraq, things that cost American lives). Support of Israel also makes sense from a moral standpoint, helping to ensure that Jews have a safe haven somewhere in a world that has proven such a safe haven (under Jewish control) to be all too necessary.
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As for the advice of George Washington, it was good advice for a nascent nation, especially when many new Americans were infatuated with the French Revolution. Washington rightly advised against getting involved in European affairs. However, since WWII (which would never have happened as far as American involvement is concerned if Washington had been heeded in 1941), America has assumed the role of defender of democracy and human rights. In this spirit, Harry Truman recognized Israel and, over the decades, a special relationship has grown between our two nations. It is highly irresponsible for America to follow Washington’s isolationist advice now. America and Americans need to be involved with freedom-loving democracies, such as Israel, all around the world.

Perhaps the bar on acceptable discourse has been lowered but to blame Obama for it requires a complete twisting of spacetime. Israel’s actions have been deliberately provocative. To ignore that requires a blind spot of enormous proportion.

This is not a matter of censorship. Helen Thomas went beyond the pale of First Amendment Rights and marched into hate speech territory. We don’t have to tolerate hate speech in the front row, the back row, or any row on the Press Corp…she should be out.

From a strategic standpoint, it makes good sense to have a strong ally in the Middle East…
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This may have made sense when the Middle East was a proxy ground for the Cold War. But it doesn’t make sense anymore. Israel is no longer an asset. Her policies towards the Palestinians and other Arab states have become a liability. The Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict is a source of instability and anti-Western outrage across the entire Middle East. An alliance implies a mutually beneficial relationship. What does Israel currently offer the US other than trouble?

The blockade is not illegal, nor was the Israeli effort to stop the ship in international waters as it approached. You may not approve, but you can’t call it illegal. It isn’t.

Oh, NOW, As Lenny Davis has stated she “has showed herself to be an anti-Semitic bigot”?

What a bunch of BS!

The only one with the balls to state the obvious is the late Tony Snow who stated that Thomas represented the ‘Hezzbollah view”. This woman has been spouting anti-semite sentiment for decades and guys like Davis KNEW IT.

You know what lefties like Klein & Davis really are against? HONESTY. Thomas let it be know the left’s TRUE position on Israel. She broke the rule of being overt, not covert.

You don’t think Maher, Matthews, Sullivan and others who have gotten real close to saying what Thomas said aren’t, in their heart of hearts, rabid anti-semites? What about the New York Times and the self hating elite liberal, Progressive Jews on both coasts?

All of their hearts are anti-Israel as much as Ahmadinejad.

OK, who’s linking to this post, cuz it’s sure generating a whole lot of mouth-foamage.

Nathan, the 1922 Mandate of the League of Nations set up the entity called Palestine, with Britain as the mandatory. 78% of that territory was later given to the Arabs as Trans-Jordan, leaving 22% of the original Palestine territory fror Arabs and Jews. After WWII, the UN took over from the League and began trying to decide what to do about the remaining 22% of Palestine that had not already been given to the Arabs. The Partition Plan of 1947 was the result, but the Arabs rejected it. They wanted all of Palestine. The Jews in Palestine accepted it, and, when the Mandate expired in 1948 (leaving no one as owner of Palestine), the Jews declared the State of Israel on their part of the 22%. The Arabs immediately attacked the new state, and, in the resulting war, were driven back. Israel gained new territory, but not Old Jerusalem. Jordan occupied the West Bank and Old Jerusalem for 19 years, and barred any Jews from entering the territory. Churches and synagogues were destroyed. In 1967, Nasser of Egypt, along with Hussein of Jordan, and the Syrians were amassing troops to wipe Israel off the map (Nasser’s boast). Nasser committed an act of war by closing shipping lanes to Israel, and kicked out the UN peacekeepers in the Sinai. Israel, seeing the massed troops, launched an air attack and wiped out the Arab air forces on the first day of the Six-Day War. Israel then went on to take the Sinai, and also the territory on the West Bank that had been occupied by Jordan since 1948. Tomorrow is the aniversary of the liberation of the Temple Mount and opening of Jerusalem to all faiths. Israel has been occupying the West Bank and Gaza since then. Gaza was vacated and turned over to the Palestinians to govern several years ago, and then Hamas seized power and has made Gaza a base for agression against Israel. That’s an accurate recap of what legitimate history records.

Yes, michaelfury, that web site and news clip *are* reason enough to take her questions. More than reason enough.

And Joe Klein and all the MSN media that whooped and hollered in favor of the Iraq war, and ignored the issues of torture and the administration’s blatant lies, are not fit to wipe Helen’s shoes!

*She* made a dumb statement about Jews that no one has the slightest intention of implementing and that brought not the tiniest danger to anyone.

*They* whipped up the American public into a frothing frenzy of war fever, and *their* abysmal failure to ask any questions of the administration is responsible, in a good part, for the deaths of thousand of American kids, the loss of any moral standing this country had in regard to torture, and the brutal deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi men, women, and children who never harmed anyone.

She’s still mad a house fell on her sister.

Nathan, Israel offers us a certain land base in the Middle East should Islamic jihadism eventually take over Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, and the other nations that have formerly (but with some reservations) offered us land bases for military operations in the ME theater of operations. Israel is our only certain ally there.

Okay, that’s funny

What’s the odious view, that the UN screwed up when they created this mess in the 1940′s? That not everybody subscribes to Zionism?
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Did she say something else that was actually terrible and wrong?
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stuart, I may not completely agree with the content of her statement – in fact I don’t, and I of course share your criticisms of her insensitivity – but there is nothing odious in how she characterizes the roots of the problem. However, there is something odious in how she characterizes the solution: a mass migration based on ethnicity and religion. It was intolerable in 1948 and it’s intolerable now.
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How would you feel if you lived in Miami and the Seminole nation was lobbing missiles into your neighborhood, sending in suicide bombers, and getting arms and equipment from Cuba and Venezuela to help them with their aggression and their announced goal of pushing you and your family into the Atlantic Ocean?
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danielatlanta, well if it were less than 70 years since my country had driven the Seminole nation out, my anger and fear would be mixed with much guilt and an awareness of the injustice my presence on their historical lands was perpetuating.
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I would also recognize that not all members of the Seminole nation were trying to kill me, and I would figure out that bombing my neighbors and then denying them the building supplies they need to rebuild would probably not be the best way to promote my family’s safety.

scribe15, did Ms. Thomas yell “Fire!” in a crowded room?

I would appreciate your addressing my observation that Mr. Klein apparently thinks one’s heritage is important to this situation. (I’ve doubts Mr. Klein will have the courtesy to respond.)

And while we are policing “hate speech,” perhaps we could take a broom to many of the comments we are finding here.

Again, I call for us to get to substantive matters–matters of security, life and death, and a right to livelihood, among other things–instead of attacking an elderly women for her admittedly distasteful remark.

Huffington Post for one.

Nathan7777 writes:
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“From a strategic standpoint, it makes good sense to have a strong ally in the Middle East…
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This may have made sense when the Middle East was a proxy ground for the Cold War. But it doesn’t make sense anymore. Israel is no longer an asset. Her policies towards the Palestinians and other Arab states have become a liability. The Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict is a source of instability and anti-Western outrage across the entire Middle East. An alliance implies a mutually beneficial relationship. What does Israel currently offer the US other than trouble?”
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I have to say I agree 100%. I would really like to understand what strategic advantage our unwavering support for Israel affords us. Seriously.
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Al Qaeda has stated that our staunch support for Israel, even when they are wrong, is one of the fundamental reasons for their jihad against us. Many moderate Islamic nations are likewise weary of the U.S. for the same reasons.
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Perhaps Joe can enlighten us. What strategic value do we get from our unwavering support of Israel that warrants the blow-back that we are experiencing as a result of it?

…the 1922 Mandate of the League of Nations set up the entity called Palestine, with Britain as the mandatory. 78% of that territory was later given to the Arabs as Trans-Jordan, leaving 22% of the original Palestine territory fror Arabs and Jews.
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Britain had full discretion to determine whether the area east of the Jordan would be part of the JNH, and they informed the League of Nations the following year that Transjordan would not be part of it. Churchill wrote in his letters that Transjordan was never intended to be part of the JNH, so you can’t claim the Jews got only 11% of the land when 78% of it was never up for consideration to begin with.
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That’s my problem with your history. You make it seem like the Jews were somehow treated unfairly during this whole ordeal, when 100% of the land was owned by someone else for well over 2000 years. Egyptians, then Assyrians, then Babylonians, then Greeks, then Romans, then Ottomans…. Nowhere else do we look back 2000 years to see who has the birth right to a specific region. If anyone got special treatment, it was the Jews.
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Then on top of that, you make it seem like the Jews were content with what they were given, when history clearly shows otherwise. Ben Gurion saw the Partition Plan as a means to an end, just as Israel has seen every single conflict since: a means to a unified Palestine under majority Jewish rule. This is no different than what the Arabs want: a unified Palestine under majority Arab rule.
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Israel is not the saint you make her out to be.

Hearst Newspapers spokesman Paul Luthringer emailed the Washington Post: “We deeply regret Helen Thomas’ remarks, which in no way reflect the views of Hearst Newspapers or its employees. Helen has expressed her own profound regret over the incident.”

Contact him and tell him how you feel:

Paul J. Luthringer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (212) 649-2540. E-mail: pluthringer@hearst.com

Just imagine in another line of questioning she had suggested all African-Americans should return to Africa. The answer should be clear.

She said nothing outrageous at all. She simply said that Jews in occupied Palestine should leave and go back home. The only people taking offense to her comments are those who support Israel’s illegal 40 year occupation of Palestinian territory. Israel needs to abide by international law and the will of the whole of the international community – excluding the U.S – and withdraw to the 1967 border in accordance with U.N Resolution 242. What Helen Thomas is therefore advocating is that Israel conform to international law. So why is that so controversial?

Should have read more, my previous scenario was already published. On another note, there is freedom of speech, but with that freedom comes responsibility. Society is free to hold you accountable for your views you express through your free speech. If someone spouts off like a lunatic, it is reasonable to assume they are a lunatic and treat them as such. It has nothing to do with freedom of speech. I think I’m more embarassed for her than she actually is of herself.

I don’t understand why you would consider it strange that an American would be a strong supporter of Israel.
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Umm…because you’re not an Israeli citizen, you’re an American?
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The same reason why you (presumably) aren’t a strong supporter of Tajikistan? Or Belgium? Or the Ivory Coast?
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You know, because they are other countries?
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From a strategic standpoint, it makes good sense to have a strong ally in the Middle East…
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The value of having Israel as a “strong” ally must be counter-weighed against the disadvantages of entertaining that alliance. There probably are better candidates for a strategic relationship than Israel, given their problems. We are probably worse off in terms of our policy goals for having the Israelis hung around our necks, but at least that’s a debate that makes sense for Americans to have.
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one that isn’t subject to Arab/Muslim considerations (such as those that resulted in Turkey’s refusal to allow overflights or troop transports across its territory into northern Iraq during the invasion of Iraq, things that cost American lives).
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LOL, well, that’s a bit circular, isn’t it?
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“Arab/Muslim considerations?”
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Almost all of those “considerations” have to do with our stupidly one-sided devotion to the West Bank occupiers!
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To characterize Turkey’s problems with the US as an “Arab/Muslim consideration” is to be shockingly ignorant of the facts of their issues:

The friendliness of Turkey towards the United States has declined markedly over the past five years. A June 2007 Pew Research Center survey found that only 9% of Turkish citizens have a favorable opinion of the United States, the lowest percentage out of all 47 countries surveyed, below the Palestinian territories (13% have a favorable view of the U.S.) and Pakistan (15%).[3]
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The decline of U.S.-Turkish relations is primarily a result of the United States’ instigation of and action in the Iraq War. Turkey views the Iraq war as a significant threat because northern Iraq acts as a safe-haven for a Kurdish terrorist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Furthermore, Turkey views the destabilization of Iraq as a possible impetus for Kurds to claim their independence from Turkey, Iraq, and/or other Middle Eastern countries with significant Kurdish populations.

I’m not disregarding pan-Arab or pan-Islamic popular sentiment as a factor in Turkish opposition to the Iraq invasion, but to put their particular problems squarely at the doorstep of their Islamic identity, without consideration for the Kurdish problem is to discount facts that mitigate your view of your most favored nation’s value.
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Because of the Iraq invasion and occupation, US popularity in Europe has precipitously declined, too, but it’s not because of the pan-Arab or pan-Islamic fervor of the French or Germans.
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Support of Israel also makes sense from a moral standpoint, helping to ensure that Jews have a safe haven somewhere in a world that has proven such a safe haven (under Jewish control) to be all too necessary.
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There are lots of things that make sense from a moral perspective, but we cannot be responsible as a nation for the morality of the rest of the world. The occupation of Tibet is profoundly immoral, and yet we are not going to create a foreign policy around the morality of China. Bahais are a persecuted minority in some nations, but we can’t be expected to ensure that every religious minority are guaranteed “safe haven.” What’s next, guarantees for the Roma population of Europe? They were subject to Nazi genocide too, but it’s obvious folly to conduct ourselves according to the “moral standpoint” of the interests of gypsies.
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No, the “moral perspective” only applies to the actions of the US, not to bizarre guarantees of invulnerability for a religious minority worldwide. It’s not our moral responsibility to ensure the safety and survival of international Jewry! Whatever gave you that idea?
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It’s our moral responsibility not to, say, indiscriminately kill non-combatants in foreign lands during their wedding parties. We should probably concentrate on that “moral perspective” for a while, and let the Israelis take care of themselves
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As for the advice of George Washington, it was good advice for a nascent nation, especially when many new Americans were infatuated with the French Revolution. Washington rightly advised against getting involved in European affairs.
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Actually, much like the Bill of Rights has stood up quite remarkably over the centuries, advice against infatuations with other nations –like Israel or Palestine– makes a great deal of sense today.
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His advice really wasn’t meant to be specific to Europe, either. These really were excellent principles that were meant to be applicable to various circumstances, hence the general nature of his terms, e.g. “nation,” as in “Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists…” It’s very difficult to imagine a reasonable person not under the influence of said sympathy concluding that President Washington was speaking solely to the specifics of Britain’s war with Napoleonic France, and no more. I think he really did mean to describe your position, more or less.
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since WWII (which would never have happened as far as American involvement is concerned if Washington had been heeded in 1941)
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Actually, Washington wasn’t saying that we should not have responded when attacked, so I think we would still have declared war on Imperial Japan…but that’s really a silly digression:
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, America has assumed the role of defender of democracy and human rights
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Right.
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That’s a pretty black and white statement that doesn’t really manage to capture the complexity of US foreign and military policy over the past century, don’t you agree?
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The bottom line is that there is a wide-spread consensus in America that we can’t and shouldn’t assume that role in every situation with respect to every human rights issue means we must pick and choose between when we do and do not assert that role, and that we must consider our interests first. This is absolutely reasonable, as I’m sure you must concur.
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In this spirit, Harry Truman recognized Israel and, over the decades, a special relationship has grown between our two nations.
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Actually, it was in the spirit of assembling an armada of client states with which to combat the tide of Soviet-dominated client states that Truman went along with that problematic arrangement. In a post-Cold War world, the “special relationship” you mention seems to be the product of habit, inertia and that irrational attachment to foreigners Washington warned us about indulging. It’s “special” because our government seems weirdly entangled in the interests of a foreign nation at the expense of ours, and also because national media outlets tend to treat our “special” client state’s perpetual warfare as an extension of ours, deserving of an almost pro-American war coverage perspective. It’s a dysfunctional cycle.
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It is highly irresponsible for America to follow Washington’s isolationist advice now.
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Whatever isolationist advice Washington gave, it’s actually highly realistic for us to follow his advice regarding imprudent, irrational, counter-productive attachments and antipathies to foreign nations. It’s not isolationist to be clear-eyed about the fact that they are they, and we are we, which was the substance of those remarks of his.
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Regardless of whether it is impossible or desirable to be or not to be involved in the affairs of the globe, a policy of passions is just as unwise. That’s the point of Washington’s counsel.
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America and Americans need to be involved with freedom-loving democracies, such as Israel, all around the world.
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No, we don’t. Freedom is not “on the march,” and our interests are hardly served by devotion to unrealistic policies in the service of some galactic idealism. India is a democracy, they speak English, they’re decidedly not subject to pan-Arab or pan-Islamic sympathies, and yet it would be just as insane for us to be involved in their conflict with Pakistan in such an absurdly one-sided way as we are with Israel. Even when it is in our obvious interests to be so, we cannot be productively involved in intractable international conflicts when we are the passionate supporters of one side or another.
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Instead of being dragged into the the bloody marathons of foreign populations, let’s work on our own democracy, first, before we take it upon ourselves to be involved in carrying the torch of freedom to light every corner of the globe. That means staying the hell out of foreign feuds between the Middle-East’s Hatfields and McCoys, and getting to work on resolving our own seemingly intractable conflicts at home.
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Thanks for reading and considering this, danielatlanta.

The Brits, actually, at first through the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when they had the mandate for Palestine at the dissolution of the the Ottoman Empire. They had the rights, and were looking for a solution to the growing antisemitism of Europe. Then, in 1947, they turned the mandate over to the UN. The UN ratified Israel as the Jewish homeland in Resolution 181.

Since you asked…

Why are 99% of Americans so blinkered when it comes to this issue? Maybe it has something to do with the Israel lobby controlling the U.S government and the U.S media?

there is something odious in how she characterizes the solution
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I think you might have hit on something, there.
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It bears some similarity to the blithe “solutions” of those who favor the mass deportation undocumented immigrants and their children, I suppose.
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I think that Helen Thomas should have considered the collective punishment her resolution would impose on the children of the Zionists, the ones whose only guilt would be that of having been born to their parents in the declared state of Israel.
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To me, that’s what touches on odious about her remarks –the advocacy of one vilely arbitrary collective injustice imposed to replace another.

…or the WHCA? Should they punish political views, too?

First, we could all benefit from reading Washington’s farewell address in full:
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http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp
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That said, reducing this debate to “animosity” or “affection” is wrongheaded IMO. There is this conventional debate about friendships and enemies, but this discourse ignores far greater interests. IOW, Israel, like Japan, South Korea et al, aren’t really friends in any dictionary sense of the term. They’re geopolitical forts in the conduct of empire–were these nations situated elsewhere (i.e. more distant from US enemies), they’d be no friend at all.
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As I said yesterday in response to Joe Klein’s more narrow opinion of US interests in the region (i.e. stability vs. stability & oil):
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While I agree that our interest in resources is destabilizing there and at home, that hardly means it’s not the key factor behind the expenditure of treasure and blood in the region. But are we prepared to consider how industry interests dictate U.S. foreign policy over much of the globe (as they dictate almost all domestic policies).
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Secondly, there is just stability and unjust stability. That which is unjust might keep the oil & trade flowing, but if it’s predicated on looming apartheid and obscene human rights’ abuses…
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South Africa was stable for many years. Cuba was stable. Whether those lulls before the storm were just is another matter. Naturally, the U.S. supported both of the former regimes in the interests of stability.

Well, that explains it!

How ALL Americans cannot be outraged – no matter what your opinion on Israel – is beyond me.

Did you hear what she said? Not only did she say Jews should leave Palestine, she added that they should go back to Germany and Poland…their “home”!

Please don’t tell me you agree.

…she also said they should go back to “America”, and “anywhere else”. Seeing as the majority of Jews came from, and continue to come to Israel, from these places I don’t see what the problem is. The settlements in occupied Palestine are illegal. They are living on stolen land. They need to pack up and get the hell out.
Period.

By the way, can someone post a FULL TRANSCRIPT of what she said, so that we can see EXACTLY what she said? All I’ve found on pracically U.S News Website are highly edited versions of the story.

Transcript:
Rabbi Nessenoff: Any comments on Israel? We’re asking everybody today, any comments on Israel?
Helen Thomas: Tell em to get the hell out of Palestine.
Nessenoff: Oh. Any better comments on Israel?
Thomas: Remember, these people are occupied, and it’s their land. It’s not German, and it’s not Poland.
Nessenoff: So where should they go and what should they do?
Thomas: They should go home!
Nessenoff: Where’s their home?
Thomas: Poland. Germany.
Nessenoff: So you’re saying the Jews should go back to Poland and Germany?
Thomas: And America and everywhere else.

Given her age one would think Thomas would have learned the cardinal rule by now, never ever, criticize Israel.

You wouldn’t be talking about this part:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.
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This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.
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The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism.
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The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

, were you, JC?

Poor Ms. Thomas obviously has not gotten past those ridiculous 9/11 urban myths.

http://michaelfury.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/movers-and-shakers/

Helen Thomas just said that Jews living in occupied Palestine should get out. International law calls for an immediate and full withdrawal to the June 1967 borders. The only country that has blocked this peaceful settlement for the past 40 years is the U.S. The whole world supports a peaceful settlement in line with U.N 242 and only Israel and the U.S oppose it. Every year at the U.N Security Council the whole world votes on ending the conflict – Google: ‘Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine’ – and every year the vote count is the same: 165 – 5. I.e, The whole world on one side and Israel, the U.S, and a few South Pacific atolls on the other side.
There was nothing anti-semitic in Helen Thomas’s comments. She simply called for illegal Israeli settlers to leave the land that they’re occupying illegaly.

Typical. Take one person’s statement and ascribe it to a whole swath of people who had nothing to do with it, and of course, whip out the ‘anti-semitic’ tag even in instances it doesn’t apply.

Any slight criticism of the Israeli government and its policies will prompt an instant rebuttal of bigotry and comparisons to Nazis. Because the Israeli government is never ever wrong. Somehow Bibi, Lieberman & co. have become infallible. Shooting and killing 9 unarmed civilians at point blank range is completely a-ok. How dare anyone question that.

How many times do we have to say it?
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Obama is not a liberal.

No, Lieberman does not sit in the front row of the WH press room. Instead, he’s the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, one of the highest representatives of his nation. Isn’t that worse?

@husein: Classy.

To be honest, Helen Thomas isn’t the problem. Pretty much the whole political establishment (including the main stream media) kowtows to Israel no matter what they do. Any iota of criticism and you get hit with the anti-Semitism label. I’m more appalled at our blanket support each time the current hardliner Right government of Israel repeatedly metes out brutal actions to those surrounding it. They are the big kid on their block power-wise, and they’re pummeling anyone who disagrees (as are the staunch supporters of Israel here in the US.)

The blanket taboo of speaking Truth to Power regarding Israel has to stop. Israel’s growing paranoia and our continued unyielding support no matter what is helping to create a very dangerous situation in the Middle East. Israel is becoming more and more of a loose canon. Our news reporting on the subject is muzzled and, frankly, skewed. Maybe reporters friendly with the establishment should quit attending parties like the one at Joe Biden’s home and start practicing real journalism.

Correction: While it wasn’t Biden’s home, he was hosting the party:

http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/4441-bidens-to-host-reporters-at-biden-beach-boardwalk-party

The remainder of my original comment stands.

She didn’t say anything about Israel, she said the Jews should leave Palestine. They’re not the same thing. Palestine is the land that Israel conquered in 1967 and has illegally occupied and settled ever since.

You really think that anything Tony the Snowjob said could be believed? He was a paid Bush shill after all.

Apparently a lot of people don’t grasp that Helen Thomas said “Palestine” and not “Israel”. Or else they’re so completely ignorant of the situation in the Mideast that they don’t know Palestine and Israel are different places.

Get a clue, Joke Line. She said that Jews should leave Palestine. She didn’t say Israel, she said Palestine. Palestine is the land that Israel conquered in 1967 and now illegally colonizes with its “settlements”. There is nothing odious or antisemitic about demanding that the Jewish settlers leave that stolen land and go back where they came from. That the settlements should be removed and the occupation ended is what the vast majority of the world believes.

Jewish-Americans,
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If there are any Jewish –Americans posting comments here, I have a request of you.
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I am a Moderate Republican who believes very strongly in helping people in need. I would prefer to see that help come from the private and charitable sectors but I’m not opposed to it coming from the government when it makes the most logical sense.
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I am also a 71 year old Navy Veteran and I am personally very active in several organizations working to help people in need both in the USA and Internationally.
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It appears obvious to me from the above posts that most Liberals who post comments here are not very supportive of Israel but are quite supportive of the Palestinians.
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Based on the lack of support for Isreal by so many in the Liberal community, do you know why Jewish Americans almost always support the Democratic Party? Based on what I see as a strong bias against Israel, I truly have a difficult time understanding the near total support by the Jewish community of the Democrats. If you can provide any information to help me understand this support it would be most appreciated.

Yes husein11. Those liberal anti-semites who challenged the Republican country clubs and restrictive housing covenents.
You do know that the majority of Jewish voters support Democratic candidates.

The Grand Muffti during World War two signed a pact with Hitler in stating he would aid in rounding up what impoverished Jews were left in Palestine to be sent to Europe for extermination. I guess he like Helen Thomas also wanted the Jews to be sent back. The fact is the only sympathy the Palestinian’s ever received from any Arab/Muslim country has more to do with using them against Israel than the perceived love they have for the Palestinian people. The irony is only under the state of Israel, the only Democracy in the Middle East could the Palestinians ever come close to obtaining a land they can call their own.

Let’s shut down hate speech:
Beck
Limbaugh
Levine
Horowitz
Buchanan
Hannity
Savage
Coulter
Malkin
Drudge
Breitbart
Hewitt
Miller
O’Reilly
Prather
and so many more. I wouldn’t censor them. I wont listen to them but they have a right to spew their venom.
Helen Thomas has not built her career on hate speech.

Israel belongs to the Jews. It always has and it always will.

There are millions of acres of Arab land in so many other countries. The Jews (by right) have these 22 miles and THEY need to get out? Let the Palestinians join their Arab brothers and leave the Jews alone.

…then, thinking Israel would be destroyed by the overwhelming force of the attacking Arab nations surrounding Israel, most “Palestinian” (I only say this because they didn’t call themselves Palestinians back then – and don’t think me worse for pointing this out, since after 60 years of displacement they have certainly earned that designation) fled of their own volition.

You just want the Jews to drop their weapons like suckers like they did by the holocaust.

TOO BAD. NEVER AGAIN.

There is nothing unethical with showing strength to any threat, no matter how small that threat may be. This who “disproportionate” notion is a bunch of BS. It’s been explained so many times already…

America supports Israel because they’re normal. Israel is a democratic country, a country of laws and success, unlike any Arab country I know of.

If leftist journalists were like Limbaugh or Beck, they would be self serving propagandists working towards personal profit.
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Thinking about it, I’m kinda glad JK isn’t like them… or is he!?
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“Mission Accomplished”

3x, I am not Jewish. However, I wish you would study the history of the Republican party. Why do you suppose they never had the support of the African American community, why have they lost the support of the most Latino community? There is a thread that runs through Republican history. Anti-immigrant, denial of civil rights, denial of affirmative action, anti-gay, opposition to fair housing, support of housing covenants, denial of fair access to public accomodations, anti women’s rights. Jews at one time or other have suffered from these Republican values.
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There love of Israel came with the infusion of AIPAC money and the manipulation of Evangelicals looking toward the End Times. When people have been knowingly discriminated against “they never forget.”

The Thomas statement and apology is linked to Mediabistro. A site that features articles on news programming and rating. A neutral site. However, it is home for some of the most right wing commentators around.

Well said.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=177668

When I read my typos after having proof read my comments and released them, I know age is having its way with me. I think Ms Thomas, in an earlier time, would have been more cautious in her comments. Something else. At a certain age you get very liberated and don’t give a sh*t.

Helen Thomas is a senile, bigoted old witch. While I applaud your condemnation of her outrageous remarks, I cannot help but criticize you for supporting an administration that has failed to stand by Israel, one of our staunchest allies.

“Following her line of thought, if “the Jews” didn’t want to be expelled from Israel, would Ms. Thomas advocate force to expatriate the entire Jewish population of Israel to Europe?
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It sickens me that the comments here don’t “get” the odious nature of her comments.”
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Lighten up, Francis (or is it “Franci” Mr. Klein?). Ever hear of the term “hyperbole”? Or do you think Thomas’s point is really that there is some way that all the Jews are going to leave occupied Palestine, i.e. the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem (because she tells them to, no less), and migrate to other parts of the world? To the relatively sane, it’s a dramatized statement of frustration at Israel’s apparent commitment to the theft of land that rightfully belongs Palestinians and, therefore, endless conflagration in her ancestral, regional homeland. Go figure.
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Excellent counter-arguments across the board stuartzechman and jcapan.

Joe Klein: I am about half way through Alan Brinkley’s book on Harry (Henry Luce). You did know that Time, Life, Fortune, etc was founded by a couple of bigots, Luce less openly than his partner Brit Haddon.
How can you work for a company that encouraged bias? The business is very old and times were different. However, I have never heard an apology from anyone at Time for the decades of bigotry they promoted. Maybe until they take responsibility for their founders, their reporters should be sent to the back bench.

SATSQ = no
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But as long as we’re talking about old George, I’m forced to quote a known authority.
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“Behind every good man there is a woman, and that woman was Martha Washington, man, and everyday George would come home, she would have a big fat bowl waiting for him, man, when he come in the door, man, she was a hip, hip, hip lady, man”
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-Slater, Dazed & Confused
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Sorry, all I have time for today.

Howie, thank you for the link. I will email Mr. Luthringer and remind him of the years of excellent service Ms Thomas has given. I will not shut her out or shun her for one remark.
I will also email Ms Thomas. I have had several email discussions with her in the past. She has always been gracious and professional in her responses to my questions. Unlike most in her profession she takes the time to treat her readers with respect. My email will not be critical but will thank her for the significance of her journalistic history.
Unlike Joe Klein, I have no desire to punish an 89 year old woman for one remark. If the comment had come from the now deceased Robert Novak, Joe and others would have said that was just the “Prince of Darkness”. No big deal.
Joe, you are acting like a fraternity boy.

The reason why Joe Klein as well as many other Jews and neocons is calling for an 89 year old woman’s head because she made one cranky comment about Israel is that the Netanyahu regime is pushing a “Go back to Auschvitz” meme very hard. If you read the WSJ or the WaPo official Israeli version of the flotilla raid,, you will see both claim that the activists were repeatedly chanting, “Go back to Auschvitz”.
Ignore for the moment that Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc. do not believe in the Holocaust, never have, and never will. Also ignore that it is very unlikely that the average Turkish citizen knows the name Auschvitz, as Hitler died 65 years ago, and Turkey was neutral in WWII. What you can not ignore is this official Israeli Defense Force release.

It is reportedly an actual radio conversation between the Israeli navy and the Mavi Marmara. Obviously it is a crude hoax. Nonetheless it was published as fact in the Jerusalem Post, Haaretz, the National Review, the Wall Street Journal, etc.,
Helen Thomas will be fine. In the next 48 hours this story will break and everybody will be horribly embarrassed to think they ever threw around Holocaust sympathizer slurs.
For some reporting on this, see Robert Mackey’s blog at the NYT.
http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/israelis-explain-and-mock-flotilla-clash/?ref=world

Helen Thomas, is a champion, The Face, spokesperson and icon of the Democratic party.

Helen is a longtime darling of the Democrats and reflects the soul and TRUE feelings of the Democrat party.

What is the big deal with Helen suggesting the Jews get back to the concentration camps? After all, nobody is fooled. This is exactly what is meant when someone says the remarks she made and everyone knows it. We have all been around a long time and understand the code of bigoted, intensely hate filled Democrats.

I thought that vile, twisted, hate filled bigotry is normal fare when dealing with Democrats and their twisted hatred of all who don’t agree with every single thing these hate filled monsters spew. Helen’s face shows the twisted evil that today’s Democrat carries inside. Hatred, rage, malice, bigotry – you name it.

Basically – if you don’t agree with everything the Democrats say – they want you to report to the ovens. As far as Democrat Jew self hatred. I don’t think anyone has ever figured that one out, not even them.

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I find it funny how a woman who is relegated to crazy old lady status by the right is suddenly being showered with so much attention. I have a feeling that even this president takes her questions in order to humor her. But wait – NOW the mainstream media pays attention to Helen Thomas? Now she makes headlines? What happened you morons, were you just waiting for her to slip up so you can stop pretending to take her seriously and just discredit her altogether?

Where were you people when she was doing your work for you? Why was SHE the only person asking the tough, RELEVANT questions, and seemingly the only person doing her job trying to keep these politicians accountable – particularly during the Bush administration?

I bet ol’ Joey boy would just LOVE to see Helen Thomas sent to the back of the room. So would the Wall Street Journal. So would BP, and AIG, and Halliburton. Hell, so would Obama. It would make things so much easier for you.

Well I hope she continues making things that much harder for you people. And for the record, poor choice of words aside, she was right.

jcapan: Here is the link to mediabistro (TV Newsie). It has a video of Ms Thomas, comments from Joe’s pals in the always ethical and truthful traditional media and though I didn’t read them, comments from some of the most reactionary of the right. I don’t have to read them to know what the majority of the comments are. There also is reference to Joe’s post on Swampland.
http://www.mediabistro.com/TVNewser/

In response to howiedutie’s comment (48.2):

I would recommend reading about what happened to the Roman Empire (see “Fall of Roman Empire”).

Might, arrogance and militancy do not make right. Israel is currently going down this path. So is the US. (Research how much money the US spends on their military versus every other country AND every other domestic expenditure within its own budget.)

Let’s just say a lot of knee jerk supporters of everything these two countries do tend to support waterboarding. And waterboarding (clearly torture) is the recourse of someone who doesn’t know what he is doing. Plus it is wrong.

“It appears obvious to me from the above posts that most Liberals who post comments here are not very supportive of Israel but are quite supportive of the Palestinians.
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Based on the lack of support for Isreal by so many in the Liberal community, do you know why Jewish Americans almost always support the Democratic Party?”

First of all there are many Israel firsters in the Democratic party, who can be every bit as obnoxious as the right-wing ones, people who refuse to allow any criticism of the Israeli gov’t. Take Koch, for example, who will turn on you for even the mildest of rebukes. Second, supporting the rule of law or the concept of equal rights does not mean one hates Israel. Liberals consider Palestinians to be human with the same rights to life and liberty as the people of Israel. Liberals do not allow political affiliations to interfere with their sense of morality and objectivity. “My country, right or wrong” is not a logical argument.

Why are there so many left-wing Jews, besides the fact they are usually well educated and smart? There are a number of reasons for this, not the least of which is the fact that they have been subjected to genocide by right-wing governments around the world, in the 20th century alone. Who were the first to take on the right-wing fascists? That would would be socialists and communists, several years before the liberals joined the fight. I think Jewish people understand who really supports them, after centuries of bigotry and violence directed at them from the extreme right.

I have a tough time understanding how Helen Thomas can so forcefully take the side of the very people who destroyed her country. A generation ago Lebanon was the “Paris of the MidEast” with the financial benefits of peace between the the Christians and Muslims with the benefits of both great religions.

Then some despotic Muslim religious and political leaders brought in guns and slaughtered those not in agreement (Christians) and decimated a beautiful place. And turned it into a place that launches missles into its neighbor and entices its young to kill themselves. That is the definition of an evil, debased country.

And because Israel wanted to prevent military weapons from Gaza landing a mile away in their land, Ms. Thomas wants to summarily drive them from the desert they made bloom. Helen really ought to study what the very people who are now running Gaza did to her country Lebanon. Then maybe she would wonder why the Palestinians have been kept in filthy tent cities for 40 years in the countries that are supposedly their friends. And place the blame where it belongs.

Helen Thomas should have retired long ago. She’s apparently forgotten to place a filter between her hateful shriveled little brain and her mouth. The only reasons she was kept on for so long were her history as a pioneering female journalist and the fact that she was a reliable leftist who would always be counted on to be rude to a Republican President.

Now, for those of you who don’t understand why her comments are beyond the pale, imagine this: You were born in Israel. Your parents were born in Israel. Maybe you had ancestors persecuted in Europe or in majority muslim countries, maybe some perished in the death camps, or maybe all your ancestors have lived in Jerusalem for thousands of years. You’ve never held citizenship in any other country.

Now some old woman from a foreign country, a child of immigrants herself, tells you Israelis should go back to Poland and Germany and leave the country for the arabs. You don’t think advocating erasing your country from the face of the planet is offensive? Maybe you reflexively side with the arabs against Israel, buying all the islamist propaganda about Israelis killing unarmed peace activists. But even then, don’t you think Israel is a country?

There are many hasidic jews who don’t believe in the state of Israel either, although for different reasons.

I know many people who think Israel is usually in the wrong, in the numerous conflicts that arise, who are not anti-semites.

I don’t necessarily think her comments make her an anti-semite as I talk about on my liberal conservative blog.

I think Helen Thomas just has the same problem they do, they don’t know the history of the area.

One friend of mine didn’t know that the original area of Palestine originally included what is now Jordan. When I told him that he had to re-think his position.

Society likes to honor age and seniority, even when it becomes obvious the person has the certain position for no reason other than age and seniority.

So when Helen Thomas says Jews should leave, she’s called “odious.” But when you and other Jews say the Palestineans should leave, that’s perfectly acceptable?
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This double standard is what’s “odious.”

Don’t you mean an administration that hasn’t kowtowed to Bibi and Lieberman?

Being an ally and supporter of a nation doesn’t mean buying into every bad decision they choose to make. Including foolishly raiding a boatload of civilians and mowing down a bunch of them at close range. And it certainly doesn’t mean cheering when they shoot one of our own citizens one in the chest, 4 to the head.

Apparently, you do.

“Helen Thomas, is a champion, The Face, spokesperson and icon of the Democratic party.”
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Since when?

tom, Ms. Thomas is an American. Whatever are you going on about?

I hope you show the same outrage at Jews and others who suggest Palestineans should leave. Or can’t you imagine if you were a Palestinean born in Palestine, never holding citizenship in any other country? Then your land is taken away and encroached upon by “settlers.”
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Or are you capable of only seeing things from the Israeli pov?

I just enjoy how the same entity can be a fierce aggressor with no moral compunction whatsoever and a whimpering powerless victim cowering before it’s enemies simultaneously. (Notice that I don’t even need to specify which entity I could be referring to)
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Just another demonstration of the irrelevance of reality when it comes to tribal/political debates.

I was doing the math:
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2010- 89 years = 1921.
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Israel created: 1949.
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1949 – 1921 = 28 years old.
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Alzheimer’s. She thinks she is 28 years old again and wants to ask president Truman more about Israel.

I remember some thirty years ago, while I was at university, two groups would appear nearly every weekday on the steps of the library to debate for and against issues pertaining to the Mideast. I would stand in awe of their masterful use of ad hominem attacks and their dramatic hand gestures. Both groups felt that one’s argument was made stronger by repeating earlier claims verbatim …. but at a louder volume.

Casual observers, of course, would consider the two groups to be unreasonable and so solidly entrenched in their own arguments that there was little hope of any advance in knowledge or compassion. Woe to the fool who tried to offer an outsider’s opinion; he or she became the new target of both groups. Many, many people walked away thinking that these were problems that would never be solved–at least not by the parties at hand.

I mention all of this only to make a kind of commentary on the level of argument here. Until people’s invective and name-calling is reduced to something approaching civility, no one’s argument will be heard. Mr. Klein is a case in point. He has a wonderful soap box from which he can explain instead of preach. He may think that one woman’s opinion is important enough to condemn, but I’d prefer we talk about international law, previous embargos, and the like. The question, of course, is whether or not Mr. Klein wants to contribute something useful.

stuartzechman, are you really under the impression that Israel is the reason that al Qaeda and Islamic jihadism does not like America?
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Are you really advocating the lessening of our ties with our one sure ally in the Middle East at the same time the other ME nations, such as Turkey, are moving toward placating Islamic jihadism?
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If so, you missed your calling. You could have been a foreign policy advisor in the Bush administration!

Or you can send her to Arizona and get the same effect.

It’s amusing watching all the hateful, scornful comments directed at Helen Thomas for suggesting that the Jews “go back home”.

The reason it’s amusing is that many of these same folks generally support stripping citizenship from Americans naturally born in this country to illegal immigrants. Or who generally support mass deportation of illegal immigrants in this country back to Mexico.

I’m not suggesting that Jews are roughly equivalent to illegal immigrants, only that the mindset is similar. How can you detest Helen Thomas’ views then support some of the odious right wing “solutions” to the illegal immigration problem in this country?

freeinpa:
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Is knucklehead a proper noun?
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“Make excuses and point to someone else who does worse.”
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So these guys are doing “worse” right? And this followed Glenn Beck’s little “skit”?
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There is a common denominator here I think everyone else can see.
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The emperor is naked…

“If leftist journalists were like Limbaugh or Beck, they would be self serving propagandists working towards personal profit.”

==

They are exactly like that except one huge difference NOBODY CARES WHAT LIBERALS SAY. Consequently they are all going bankrupt. See Air America, Time, Newsweek NYT and pick your favorite newspaper. All down the crapper.

Apr,
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Your distorted view of Republicans only shows how biased you are. You are full of hate for anyone you disagrees with your distorted view of the world.
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That’s too bad. Life is too short to be consumed by hate for your fellow human beings.
What you fail to understand is that your views are not reality. They are your perception of reality. Your perception may be totally wrong. Perceptions are what an individual thinks is reality based on their own life experiences filtered by their own bias.
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At your age you should not be a hater. You should try to see both sides of the issues and make decisions based on facts not what you want facts to be.
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Does all this hate make you a happier person? I personally do not believe in hate. It is totally wrong to hate another person. You can totally disagree with a person’s political views and not hate the person. Try this. It may help you to be a better person. That should be everyone’s goal in life.

Helen Thomas is, was and forever will be a brainless, vile, America-hating, leftist cretin, who shares the same fundamentalist leftist ideology with a good 98.9% of the other political activists/lobbyists who comprise the White House press corps. Those useful idiots (i.e., 98.9% of the White House press corps) adore the dingbat, and they actually call Thomas “legendary”! Helen Thomas is despised by every member of the pro-America community. Helen Thomas is so revolting that she makes pigs puke.

Are all Jews “poor me” ?

Im just tired of having my tax dollars used for state sponsored terrorism. If someone speaks out against it, they’re labeled anti semitic. Stay in the front of the room for speaking up.

Joe, I understand that you feel angry because you feel personally insulted.
however, I am really surprised by the fair weather friends of the press corp towards Helen Thomas.
She makes a boneheaded comment and all of you who have claimed to be her friend abandon her and vilify her. she’s 89 years old!
I think alot of this country’s view of Israel is disfunctional.
We have many allies. We disagree and we reprimand and we fight. We say no to them. No big deal. We are not going to be enemies because we disagree over something.
But, with israel it’s like a parent with a spoiled child. They can do no wrong and we never can say no or disagree. How dare anyone suggest that maybe we are not doing them any favors by being overly supportive.
I am half french. I remember when we, as a country, turned against the French and vilified them. This country said many terrible things about the french because they disagreed with Bush and his war.
I feared for my mom’s safety and I was hurt and angry over what was said.
But, was anyone abandoned or rejected because they said awful things about the French and France?
And yet, say anything about Israel and you are instantly abandoned by people who claimed to be that person’s friend.
Look at that imbalance and our disfunctional thinking and views.

Wow! I guess the moral of the story is “Don’t mess with the Jews.” Such reactions, my goodness.

I love this false Christian-American identification with Israel and Daniel rewriting history to say that Christians were having a hard time with Muslims.
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“Christians began to emigrate from Palestine in the mid-19th to early-20th centuries to escape both poverty and the religious persecution of Christians by the Ottoman Empire.[31][32][33] Since the establishment of the state of Israel, the majority of Palestinian Christians have emigrated, mainly to Australia, the United States, and Canada. The Palestinian Authority is unable to keep exact tallies.[18] As well, Muslim Palestinians have higher birth rates than the Christians, which strongly affects the demographics.[2][8]

The causes of this Christian exodus are hotly debated, with various possibilities put forth.[17] The vast majority of Palestinian Christians blame the Christian Exodus from the Holy Land on Israel”
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_Christians
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The Christian minority are not siding with Israel. They are siding with the Muslim Palestinians.
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Also, a pet peeve of mine is false information even if irrelevant.
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First, not all Arabians are Muslim.
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Second, only about one third of Muslims are Arabian. They include blue eyed, blond haired Albanians, dark Africans and Asians.
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Al Qada wanted to adopt Palestine as a recruiting tool. However, they are not very strong in Palestine itself while Palestinian and other Arabian Christians are, also, very pro-Palestinian (not necessarily anti-Israel).

Most of those responsible for the Holocaust and evils done to the Jewish people for almost two thousand years were Christians. Yet when Jews try to defend themselves, it is viewed by Christians as egregious. A moral outrage. How dare they have the nerve to do so! Both you and Helen Thomas wished we didn’t exist.

BTW: Most of us children of Holocaust survivors are not asking for special dispensation…quite the contrary. We only demand that we can have a piece of the earth just as you do. I find your comments out of proportion and outrageous.

“Life is too short to be consumed by hate for your fellow human beings… At your age you should not be a hater…Does all this hate make you a happier person?”
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The absolute irony of this statement being from you and in support of commandos repelling down from a helicopter and killing ten people to support a siege resulting in starvation is absolutely amazing.
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3X, your projection is unreal!
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Note that Apr did not say that these remarks of Thomas were good. They were, obviously, very foolish for a journalist. It is known by all that relocating Israel is a logistical impossibility and not even desirable if possible.
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Being against a special forces team killing ten people makes us “haters”?
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Being against a siege resulting in starvation makes us “haters”?
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You are warped 3X.
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Being against Bull Connors opening fire hoses on Civil Rights demonstrators must have, also, made Martin Luther King Jr and his followers of all races, also, “haters” in your book.

Things Palestinians fear:
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1,000 pound Israeli bombs murdering thousands of innocent civilians for the crime of being down the street from somebody they do know or, if they do know, are unlikely to know is making rockets.
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Starvation and malnourishment.
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Chronic unemployment.
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Military intrusions from Israel causing a complete stop to day to day life.
————————————————————————-
Things Israel fears:
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Fifteen year old children throwing rocks at soldiers exactly the same way my great grandfather in New York City as a Police Sergeant had to face. (I have the insignia from his helmet – not a hat, a helmet to block rocks from being thrown from rooftops – here in my apartment).
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A boat load of peace protesters.
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An 89 year old woman making a totally inappropriate and logistically impossible suggestion.
——————————————————————–

With no rocket attacks against Israel in months, who’s fears do I identify with?
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Watch out! It’s an 89 year old woman! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!

Remember all those civilian men women and babies the Israeli Army murdered in Gaza in it’s ” Cast Lead ‘ ( what a name ) massacre ? They were bad !

… Wait. The Wordnetdaily has a White House press pass? Why don’t they just give them out to random people on the street? You’d get more accurate coverage out of them.

The problem with the American establishment when it comes to Israeli behavior is that facts are always turned into complete denial engineered by your masters; AIPAC. You people cannot handle the truth. What Helen Thomas said were facts; Jews from Europe came from Europe and took Palestinian land by force. Not just once, but zillions of times since after WW1 up to last week when a family in the west bank was yet again evicted from their ancestral home so Israeli ‘European’ settlers can move in!

The question is: Did Helen Thomas lie? World History says NOT.

But then again, according to your zionist AIPAC masters, maybe you all don’t deserve the truth anyway! Carry on Mr. Klien, maybe you too should move to Israel if that would get you to stop lying to the American people.

Ralph you have to realize that anti semite losers like sf (and many others on this board) are incredibly jealous. With such a small minority of the population jewish people have been incredibly successful in every area and those losers think that their hatred of jewish people will make their lives which are utter failures somewhat worthwile. Too bad to those losers, your lives are still worthless even with your hatred.

danielatlanta:
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are you really under the impression that Israel is the reason that al Qaeda and Islamic jihadism does not like America?
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One of the many items that Israel’s Super Fans in the US seem to fail to understand is that serially misstating the positions of those who don’t share their infatuation works less and less these days.
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Americans are starting to be fed up with the choice they’ve been given by your kind of devotee: either fully submit to this ideology’s warped version of events, or have whatever villainy or stupidity is handy ascribed to them. We don’t tend to like being deliberately put that sort of position, and eventually become aware and resentful of fanaticism.
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Israel’s policies are one of a number of factors motivating various jihadis, but that doesn’t really matter very much. Rather than try to examine the inner feelings and desires of al Qaeda, and try to assign some percentage of their hatred to US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia after Gulf War I vs our funding of Israel’s various military adventures, the question should revolve around the extent to which jihadi organizations are more successful in threatening the US or thwarting our foreign policy objectives because of our perceived relationship. That’s the honest discussion that Americans –those of us who place our country’s interests above some bizarre devotion to a foreign nation– would like to have, but that fanatics would prefer to avoid, it seems.
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Are you really advocating the lessening of our ties with our one sure ally in the Middle East at the same time the other ME nations, such as Turkey, are moving toward placating Islamic jihadism?
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I don’t see Israel as our “one sure ally,” and even if I did, it would be more important to foster and cultivate alliances with the people as well as the governments of the majority of nations in that region than to clutch at the chains that drag us along behind Israel’s pursuit of its interests.
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“Moving toward placating Islamic jihadism?” And you accuse me of imitating the neo-conservatives?
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You really are a confirmed Likudnik, danielatlanta, dedicated to this reality-denying ideology. One of the more rank stupidities of the Richard Perles and Dick Cheneys of the world is the conflation of opposition to Israel’s policies or the rejection of the legitimacy of her colonial power-granted statehood with jihad. It doesn’t occur to you that creeping menace about which you fantasize has more to do with the policies of the US and Israel –especially occupation policies– and the thwarted democratic impulses of many peoples in the region than with the Justice League vs Super Villains mythology you’ve tied yourself up in.
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One obvious thing the US could do to reduce popular support for radical opposition to our country –the “jihadism” you’re so concerned with governments “placating”– would be to distance ourselves from Israel. Of course, that would mean recognizing that radical opposition to America is completely different than radical opposition to Israel, instead of conveniently mixing it all together in some mysterious, fantastic “jihasism.” One would think that the most cursory reflection on the relationship between the US and the founders of al Qaeda during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan would produce such an awareness, but obviously it doesn’t in people whose first commitment is always the defense of Israel.
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You could have been a foreign policy advisor in the Bush administration!
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Tell me, danielatlanta, are the casual insults and smears thrown around by Israel’s Super Fans an intentional aping of that country’s reflexive, counter-productive overreactions, or are you just that supremely un-self aware?

All this obscures the fact that Ms Thomas was right. Is there really anyone who really thinks that the world would not be a better, safer place had the Brits and the UN not caved to Zionist demands, predating the Balfour Declaration.

Western powers have messed with the Middle East since the early 1900s, seeking to secure oil. Arabs were regarded as less than human and so, when the time came, post-WWII, for a near-bankrupt Britain to appease the US and its Zionist lobby, the decision to give away someone else’s land was an easy one. The newly formed UN, collectively embarrassed by German atrocities against the Jews quickly gave in. It should be remembered that the Zionists were engaging in the same “terrorist” tactics of which they now accuse the Palestinians.

While it is far too late for all this to be undone, Ms Thomas’ point remains valid, if out of sync. If all parties involved in the creation of Israel, save the Zionists, knew in 1948 what we know in 2010, Israel would never have come into existence. And the world would be a better place.

And the world would be a better place if your mother had an abortion. It’s not late for this to be undone.

Maybe because Jewish Americans are AMERICANS, not Israelis. They don’t consider Israel their top priority, nor do they demand unquestioning support of everything Israel does.

Palestine is not part of Israel.

The West Bank settlements are exactly like illegal immigration.

Joke Line has a special variety of right wing spew, which involves him pretending to be a liberal while advancing the conservative agenda. It makes him that much more repugnant.

husein, instead of telling everyone on this board to go kill themselves and wishing their mothers had abortions, why don’t *you* just exit from the world and save yourself from having to deal with all these people you don’t seem want to share space with?

You wrote: “Her specific views about Jews became a bit better known last week, when she told them to leave Israel and go back to Europe. This is odious, obviously.”

Well Joe, your views are also well known. But evidently only pro-Israel views are allowed, freedom of speech has been repealed, only toadies can possibly be admitted into Presidential briefings or print.

It’s sickening to hear the pompous ADL spinners continually defend Zionist bullies. Sadly their power extends to censoring errant views in the USA where only an echo chamber remains.

If anyone should retire because they are “odious”, etc., it should not be Helen Thomas, but rather the long list of personnel currently at 1600 Pennsylvania Street, Washington, DC, starting at the top………………..

If anyone should retire because they are “odious”, etc., it should not be Helen Thomas, but rather the long list of personnel currently at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC, starting at the top………………..

3x: You asked a question. You didn’t like the answer. Where in my answer was hate expressed? I merely asked you to consider history. To often 3x you characterize any disagreement to your philosophy as hate. Hate is a waste of energy and I don’t embrace it. So give me a valid arguement and I will listen. I didn’t see you refute anything I posted other than in generalities. And, I sure don’t need condescending lectures on being a better person. Stick to facts.

Helen Thomas was forced to retire after making anti-Zionist comments in an interview not anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic. Helen never even uttered the word “Jews” or “Jewish” in that interview.

Only people who are ignorant equate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Even Nathan Birnbaum, the man credited with coining the word Zionism turned against it in his later years. Together with my grandfather Henri B. van Leeuwen, an Orthodox Jew, they published a newspaper in the Netherlands the late 1930′s called ‘Der Ruf’ which argued like Helen Thomas that European Jews had no right to move to Palestine and displace the Palestinian people who had been there for many generations.

This week I demonstrated with hundreds of other Jews in Los Angeles to protest Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla murdering 9 people. Does that make us all anti-Jewish or anti-Semitic?

I love and support Helen Thomas. She is my hero and she’s absolutely right! Too bad that now there is no one in the White House Press Corps left to ask the hard questions. It’s a real loss for the American people.

Joe Klein, as a columnist you are not even equipt to carry Helen’s water.

Don’t those of you who accuse the Jews of having taken over someone else’s land see how hypocritical you are? You’re sitting there in Chicago or Detroit, a city with a Native American name, when the first Caucasians from Europe came here and essentially murdered the earlier inhabitants. So, when Helen Thomas says the Jews should go back home, I guess she also means we Americans should go back to England, France, Italy, Germany and wherever else we came from and give America back to the Native Americans. “Don’t be ridiculous,” you say. “It’s not the same thing.” But, it is. So, if you feel you are justified in living in your house somewhere in America, then Israelis are justified living where they are, too. Then, ask yourself, what you would do if the Native Americans living in a reservation near you started firing Kassam rockets at your neighborhood. Walk in the other guy’s shoes before you shoot off your mouth and expose your ignorance.

Mr. Klein,

How about you keep your ego in check and use your forgiveness power to immediately eliminate your resentment for Ms. Thomas who has been reporting/writing columns from the WH for almost 6 decades. I think her remarks were offensive (I’m Lebanese as well); however, we all make mistakes and calling for unseating her is a bit much and sign that you personalized her comments.

Thanks.

Is there some reason why all the reports including Joe Klein’s commentary, have said nothing about the person who recorded it? I would like to have seen the non-edited version of the video, which included the actual series of questions the alleged reporter asked Ms. Thomas. Seems to me that the male dominated press is finding it easier to beat up Helen Thomas, then find the reason why 50+ members of the Knesset have initiated a bill that would ethnically cleanse Israel by making the Palestinians; Jordanians without actually asking Jordan. I think that the whole incident proves the sexism and agism of the modern American “do as I say; not as I do” media and political leaders left and right.

NewsBusters| TIME’s Joe Klein: Push Helen to the Back of the Briefing Room
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/ken-shepherd/2010/06/07/times-joe-klein-push-helen-back-briefing-room

silly, phonetically It’s not “core”, it’s “corpse”…

There is no country called Palestine!! If there was, what was their currency? Who was their prime minister? People seem to “somehow” forget this. Yes, most Jews living in Europe had to escape to Israel after WWII, but there have be Safardic Jews from North Africa, Yemen, Persia (Iran) even Ethiopian Jews living their for centuries before their was even the idea of a Muslim!

Someone forgot to teach this old bigot her history. And this woman is a reporter?? What a sick joke!

look at everyone getting so wound up over someone’s oppinion

to bad all of you can’t get that inscensed when it comes to the goings on in your own country. who cares about isreal futher more the holocaust was 70+ years ago. really, do you see the american indians going around killing the family members of the original settlers? and that was a holocaust/systematic extermination on a level that jews can’t even imagine and has yet to be recorded properly in text books or in american history.

I am neither republicrat or demublican but we have alot more to worry about than isreal in this country. How about the 3+ billion they recieve each year of our tax dollars to fund their military machine which lies in wait for what. how about our own military escapades, further more how is your kids education? how is the dollar?

just a quick thought why have the “chosen people” adopted a montra like: “never forget never forgive”

that doesn’t seem like the act of people who are chosen as gods people to never forgive.

get over religion and get over yourselves start living your lives.

C

The real source of Helen Thomas’ stumble is that she has finally succumbed to diminished mental capacity – that hobgoblin of old age. She has recognized that she is no longer in full control of her faculties and has by mutual consent severed her connection with the Hearst organization.

Helen Thomas is extolling what the majority of Americans feel. All of our current Middlle East problems are a result of our coerced support of Israel. Due to the collective control of the greater part of the media, it is political suicide to publicly oppose the Jewish state in America. She was smart in just speaking her mind at the end of her career. Look at the rest of the World’s opinion. The only country stopping a sanction of Israel’s policys is the U.S.. Look at these names, Julius Rosenberg, Morton Sobell, Michael Milkin, Ivan Boesky, Bernie Madoff, Lawrence Franklin, Lloyd Blankfein. Are they Americans that toiled for the benefit of America? Israel learned its lesson well and is currently practicing its own form of GENOCIDE on the Palestinians, and we blindly support it! The assault on the boats bringing aid is the most recent example preceded by assasinations using fake foreign ID’s. America has got to wake up with the rest of the world and put an end to the arrogance and National Socialism inthe existence of Israel.

oh would the idiots speaking of “killing nine innocent people” give it up already? the “peace activists” on this particular boat were mercenary thugs equipped with knives, a pistol, and metal pipes, not to mention linked to hamas and hired to kill idf soldiers. perhaps you should view the tape and pictures taken before you buy into such ludicrous propaganda. it’s utterly moronic. if the idf wanted the people on that boat dead they would have never boarded it! you’re so stupid!

I don’t see what was so wrong with what she said.

She did not mean Israelis should be driven out of the middle east, She meant that people who were born in Russia, Poland, and what used to be Czechoslovakia should not have more rights in the land that was Palestine than those who have lived there for over 2000 years.

If you ever wondered why so many Israelis sound like they are from Brooklyn or New Jersey, it is because thats where they were born and they still carry American passports.

Apparently these people have more rights to live in the land in the middle east than the Arabs who have been there all along, because the ‘Book’ says G-d promised it to them

Helen Thomas is only guilty of letting her guard down being candid. She expressed an opinion shared by much of the Western Left: Israel should not exist and world Jewry should return to the diaspora where they will eventually disappear as a people. Then, according to them, the world will be a better place.

And, as our birthrates continue to decline, the burgeoning populations of Muslims in the West are no threat so long as we accommodate them and sublimate our culture to theirs. The only impediment to peace, prosperity and justice in the world is Israel, conservatives, private property and Fox News.

Thusly our elites fiddle as Western civilization self-destructs.

This attack piece reminds me why I don’t read Time or any other MSM that is alligned with Isreal. Helen spoke what is known by all in media. The Jewish dominated press will accept NO criticism of Israel’s criminal acts. Israel’s days are numbered. It will be at their own hands. We are at the “emporer has no clothes moment”. How about an article on how Israel tried to sink the USS Liberty (43yrs ago yesterday) to trigger WWIII in 1967? I thought not.

Gary, you drank too much of the koolaide. You’re either a shill or a product of the dumbed down public school system…or both. It appears you will go to your grave clueless.

Hey danielatlanta–I see you’re a veteran. I’m a vietnam veteran. Your on the wrong side of history. Google USS Liberty and see who tried to sink it in 1967 to start WWIII. There’s nothing worse than being willfully ignorant. Here’s your chance to get in touch with the truth.

Can not believe this site has so many obtuse americans on the issue of Rabid Israel. Don’t you folks understand that America and Israel are the most hated nations in the world? for a purpose–contrl M.E resources, Israel was planted in the M.E. by USA’UK–as a Private run USA funded military base, operated solely by X-Russian Ashkenazi Jews.
I got bad news for you all stupid donkeys–Israel Firsters pulled off the Sept 11 2001 attacks.These same folks have made a mess of USA and the far east. Wake-up fools, the Jews running Israel/USA/Germany/france/Canada/Austrilia are not Semites. Helen should have been more direct.
Give credit to where it belongs– Softy Helen Thomas is a great American heroe.Only mistake she made was–she should have been up-front–send them all back to Russia.
About time CNN has introduced public comments now, it was shamefull of them during the 911 era and the invassions of Iraq/Afghastan, no comments.CNN did not want to know that public caught on the lies from Kosher CNN.Now that CNN has realized.it’s blatant spued lies,got America to become a mess–wants to be fair and balanced now–shame on CNN for the past lies. For the dimwits posting on this web page–wake-up fools,you been had by expert liars :^/

How about starting WWI WWII for the creation of a homeland for the Jews or how about the Sept 11 2001 attacks to which CNN liad to us that it was all Arabs and allowed Jr.Bush 2 terms and made a mess of Iraq and Afghastan.That was all B.S and CNN knew it.
Most Americans still believe that some 7 ft guy living in aa far away cave planned and did the 911 attacks.CNN should explain–how is it that WTC 1 2 6 and 7 each came down in less than 9 seconds and turned in concrete dust.CNN should have it’s FCC license revoked–for ever.