Helen Thomas

[01solara]

Time for this old hagatha to fucking retire. She is a mean spirited old bitch and needs to be muzzled for real.

 

[NotThatCreative]

In answer to the last question on the video, there's a simple answer. She can't. No one can. The myth of the unbiased media is ridiculous, and simply used on both sides as a smear tactic against all media that leans the other way. There is no such thing as unbiased media. Accept, learn what magazine/newspaper/TV anchor/TV show/radio talk show host/blogger/etcetera have what bias, and get multiple perspectives from there. Not that difficult, and you end up better informed as a result.

 

[justapixel]

She is 90 years old and senile.

Like most people in Washington DC, she wont retire and give up her spotlight.

 

[onetwothreefour]

As is always the case with the middle east, it is more complicated than either her comments or the video's editorial. As for the question of whether she knows Jews existed in Israel before the Holocaust—before the Holocaust there was no official State of Israel. What she is referring to is the division of Palestine into two states that occurred after the Holocaust. I don't know much about this--as I went to a high school that offered no world history (I am serious) and I have no other education--but from what I have taught myself this division was made more because of how the British treated Jews that were saved from the Holocaust who were prevented from returning to Israel (I don't know why). It is easy to understand an emotional plea that it makes no sense that after Germany killed so many Jews that Palestine should be the country affected. I don't understand it myself entirely. Although I don't know this, I assume the logic was that Jews had been so badly treated in Europe--not only by the NAZIs--that they deserved a homeland. What doesn't make sense is that I believe Jews and Palestinians were already coexisting in Palestine (peacefully--I am not sure?), but there definitely was not an increase in peace once the territory was divided.

The more relevant angle is that the Jews in Europe were immigrants who were scapegoated--THAT is relevant to us in the US. It wasn't about their religion. It was about their ethnicity.

 

[chatolandia]

you also have to understand Helen Thomas is Lebanese-American, she sees this situation from a different point of view.

I may not agree with her, but I understand her frustration.

 

[NotThatCreative]

Apology on her site:

I deeply regret my comments I made last week regarding the Israelis and the Palestinians. They do not reflect my heart-felt belief that peace will come to the Middle East only when all parties recognize the need for mutual respect and tolerance. May that day come soon.

Make of the apology what you want. I don't care if she's biased, as I've already said. So what she said in the interview doesn't bother me, though I disagree with the idea that the Jews should go "home".

 

[bankside]

That is the first thing she's said that I've disagreed with. That Israel exists is a historical necessity. It was obvious, not from the persecution that Jewish people faced in the Holocaust, but from the half-hearted response to that plight from other countries - the incidental nature of the liberation that was brought to European Jews - that Israel was a necessity from which Jewish people could make a stand.

That Israel has exceeded its mandate and become a wilful source of hardship to the region, as it panders to the baser religious and nationalist elements (chauvanist in the French sense of the word) within its polity, does not in any way provide a basis for telling the Jews to go somewhere else.

Thomas spoke without thinking, and that is a disappointment. I'm glad she issued a retraction.

 

[jackoroe]

I think she's an abrasive person. She said something stupid and has apologized for it. That's fine.

 

[Jack Springer]

Just goes to show you how racist liberals are when their guard is down.

I doubt that her opinion has changed since she apologized.

 

[MercuryJones]

Just goes to show you how racist liberals are when their guard is down.

Which "race" do you think is referenced here?

 

[WillMc88]

Just goes to show you how racist liberals are when their guard is down.

I doubt that her opinion has changed since she apologized.

What a stupid statement.

 

[bankside]

What a stupid statement.

Clearly it is [STRIKE]Lebanese Americans[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]women[/STRIKE] [STRIKE]old people[/STRIKE] women with greek first names who are the racist ones, not liberals. That we can know for sure from this one comment that she has already retracted.

 

[justapixel]

Which "race" do you think is referenced here?

I am guessing he meant anti-semetic.

 

[MercuryJones]

Probably, people who belong to the Jewish religion.

Were you under the impression that Jews are a race?

 

[Kulindahr]

Her face should be banned in Boston.

 

[JB3]

Her face should be banned in Boston.

She looks like Ursula from the little mermaid.

 

[IllgetyouHackman]

Big Deal....

 

[JB3]

The old bat was dropped by the agency representing her:

http://www.politico.com/blogs/onmedia/0610/Thomas_gets_dropped_by_agency.html

 

[MercuryJones]

Big Deal....

If it takes 90 years for you to say something that causes any sort of scandal, you're doing pretty well.

 

[josher]

I've been watching Helen at presidential press conferences for about 50 years. She really knows how to keep them all, Democrat or Republican, on their toes. She asks tough questions, and because she's the dean of presidential correspondents, they have to call on her. She has had an outstanding career, and there will never be anyone like her again.

What she said is unfortunate, but after the incident with the boats last week, I understand her frustration. I'm basically pro-Israel, but what they did was an abomination.